Is Cancelling Cops enough?

A lot of statues most of them tied to the Confederacy, have been relocated to museums, cemeteries or watery graves in the past few weeks; some removed by the city, and others set on fire, defaced, lynched, destroyed or thrown into a river by angry mobs.  I say good riddance- though the sculptor in me feels this is a waste of good bronze.

This is a short incomplete list of statues no longer standing :

• Confederate monument- Birmingham Alabama
• Robert E. Lee- Montgomery Alabama
• Edward Carnack- Nashville Tennessee
• Confederate Solder Appomattox- Alexandria Virginia
• Christopher Columbus- Richmond Virginia
• Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes- Mobile Alabama
• Frank Rizzo, racist Mayor and police commissioner-Philadelphia, PA
• Edward Colston (17th Centruy Slave Trader)- Bristol England
• John Breckenridge Castleman (Confederate)- Louisville Kentucky
• Plaque commemorating confederate Solders- Jacksonville Florida
•  King Leopold II, whose forces seized Congo in the late 19th C-Antwerp Belgium
• Robert Milligan, an 18 century slave owner- London, England

The 33 season TV reality show "Cops" was also cancelled yesterday, due to its brutal glorification of the police. It was supposed to be unbiased, but in reality the show had "built a profit model around distorted and dehumanizing portrayals of black Americans and the criminal justice system.”  But I wonder is just cancelling the show enough?  Why not keep the show on air, but have it produced by Black Lives Matter, to show the actual reality of what goes on on the streets, where all police are being required to wear body cams and depict that side of "cops". It's all in how you tell the story.

We started watching Gone With the Wind a few weeks ago in hour long sections (total 4 hours!) and just finished it last night, my attempt to explain America's skewed history to my kid; and  how people in the South supported slavery by fooling themselves.  In the film, I point out how Scarlett calls Mammie, Pork and Prissy servants, when in fact they were slaves.  Big Sam is listed as a field foreman in the credits, when we all know he was no such thing, but a slave.  In the 1088 page book by Margaret Mitchell, the word slave only appears 52 times, all of which is used in the context of property.   When HBO rereleases the film, they said it "will return with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions." Edit and commentate all you want, it still won't change an asshat like Trump's understanding of history, unless they are forced to watch 12 Years a Slave or Roots along with it.  What's another few more hours tacked onto your viewing time?

I also would like to make note of the fact that slavery was an abomination that was going on long before the Civil War, way before any Confederate solder hoisted the Southern cross of old Dixie up the flag pole.  In her young adult books: Seeds of America trilogy, Laurie Halse Anderson, describes the disgusting historical irony of the young American colonists' fight for freedom while at the same time they traded, owned, and abused African slaves. 

How about tilting the scales in the other direction by melting down all the bronze of the Confederacy memorials and figurines to recycle the metal and recast monuments in honor of prominent slaves. If you must take down every statue and plaque that has a whiff of injustice against a Black person, there's a lot of work to be done.    Oh, but guess what, people need jobs right now, so there you go.

I can't think of a Game for today, but I'm sure there is an editing/rewriting of history exercise in here somewhere.