The city of New Orleans
started taking down public monuments to the Confederacy this week. In the
night. With the workmen wearing flak jackets and helmets on account of death
threats.
Yes—the people who have
been strutting about since November, calling the majority of Americans
snowflakes, do not see the irony in gloating, “We won, get over it,” while at
the same time screaming about the sacrilege of moving on from The Woah. Perhaps
they think the statute of limitations for losing bigly—including unconditional
surrender—expired after 150 years?
Not for nothing is it called
The Lost Cause.
One of the biggest
cod-Confederates I’ve seen lately is a politician right here in the Old
Dominion, who’s been tweeting up a storm in emulation of his obvious hero, the
Kleptocrat, stamping his feet and moaning about how this is desecration of our
glorious heritage, etc., etc., etc.
Here’s what you need to
know about Corey Stewart: he’s running for governor of Virginia, and he’s from
that bastion of the Old South, Duluth. Minnesota. They used to call his kind
carpetbaggers.
So my entry for today is
not strictly a poem, but it is intertwined with the legacy that Stewart and his
ilk are so fixated on honoring and preserving: slavery. (And its modern-day manifestation: racism.) Using the term Jacob’s ladder to refer to the
connection between heaven and earth goes back to…Jacob, in the Bible. Jacob
dreamt of a ladder that went all the way to heaven, with angels and everything.
In Christianity, Jacob’s ladder is a metaphor for Christ, who bridges humanity
and the godhead.
The spiritual “Jacob’s
Ladder” dates to at least 1825, and was sung by slaves, who for generations
could only dream of an escape from bondage. It’s in the form of call and
response, which is useful for participation by unlettered congregations, as
well as for ad libbing new sentiments. Truly—as the spirit moves you, you bring
your brothers and sisters along.
American race-based human chattel
slavery began right here in the Old Dominion in 1619. When the Lost Causers these days wave
the Confederate flag around and bellow “states’ rights”, keep in mind that the “right”
they were concerned about 160 years ago was the one to extend slavery into the
new territories and thus maintain political power in Congress. Consider all
those rebel armies the 1860s version of lobbyists, if you like. Southerners
were afraid that if new states were admitted to the Union as free states, they’d
be outvoted in Congress, as indeed they would be. So it was all about power—keeping
it, and wielding it over other humans based on skin color.
For nearly 250 years,
until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865, slaves sang “Jacob’s
Ladder” as an expression of faith and hope, and to draw the kind of strength it
takes to persevere for that length of time. It’s served that purpose ever
since, through Reconstruction, through the KKK, through the Depression, through
the Civil Rights movement… And it still has value now, in the Gauleiter era.
One of my favorite
versions is the one by Sweet Honey in the Rock that was used in Ken Burns’
seminal documentary The Civil War
more than 25 years ago.
So no “poet” today; perhaps not even a poem. But, as
resistance goes, this is it, baby.
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