Newspaper Page Text
OPINION
THURSDAY, APRIL 19 - 25, 2018, 2018 • Page 6
Everyone gels a turn, most don'
Perhaps its just me, but it
seems that older White men are
regularly on the receiving end of
prejudicial and overly generalized
statements regarding our influences,
or lack thereof, on public policy,
the economy, global affairs,
climate change, racial concerns,
sexual harassment, homophobia,
intolerance and a wide range of
other topics.
It seems that hardly a day goes
by that at some point we don't hear
or read some sort of accusation
that is blaming White men as a
whole for something. As a group,
and throughout history, men of all
ethnicities have been accused of
all sorts of unbecoming behavior.
Women too have been accused of
wrong doings, but not nearly as
frequently as have men.
Those of Irish descent for
centuries were ridiculed and
oppressed throughout the world
for no reason other than their
geographic origin. In the US, Black
men for decades were often falsely
accused of aggressions against White
women. During WWII, Americans of
Japanese heritage were accused of
treason and spying and ultimately
were interned in isolation camps by
our government simply due to their
ethnicity.
Global and national histories
are full of examples of groups
of individuals being persecuted
based on generalized assumptions.
These assumptions have led to war,
mistreatment and death of hundreds
of thousands of individuals who
happen to share a common trait that
the public has determined to be a
detriment to society.
It is safe to assume that many of
these campaigns against humanity
may have originated in thoughts
and accusations that were brought
forth by White men who encouraged
others to support their assertions
and to act accordingly.Traditionally,
White men have basically controlled
the world, but we're not all guilty of
some of the unpleasantries that are
blamed on us.
Karma has a way of making its
way back around to bite the hand (or
other body parts) of those who may
have done not so pleasant things
in the past and perhaps karma has
come back for a vengeance against
us.
The problem with specifically
targeting any group of people based
on one or a few shared traits is as
unfair and unjust as what society
may be attempting to blame a group
for.
Sure, there are probably White
men engaging in sex trafficking,
drug trafficking, sexual perversions,
molestations, robbery, money
laundering and a host of other
John Hewitt
johnh@dekalbchamp.com
t want it
activities at the moment one is
reading this opinion piece. It is
also likely that non-White men
and women throughout the world
are also involved in some of the
activities. However, that does not
make every individual guilty of those
same horrific actions.
Before applying broad
sweeping labels to any group, it is
important to know that good and
bad people come in all ethnicities,
religions, genders and races. It is
also important to know that false
accusations accomplish nothing and
make life difficult for those being
wrongly accused.
We must think before we
accuse and must never make
unsubstantiated claims against
anyone. Karma will come back
around, and it isn't likely that it will
be pleasant if we assume guilt over
innocence and form generalized
opinions based on inaccurate
information.
Get a piece of the rock
Part one of two
"...This chasm that has been as
naught to me, to that fair-haired youth
may a pitfall be; He too, must cross in
twilight dim; good friend, I am building
this bridge for him!" from the poem,
The Bridge Builder by Will Allen
Dromgoole, first published in 1900.
One of the largest granite
outcroppings in the world is also
Georgia's most visited tourist
destination, hosting nearly 4 million
guests among its nearing 4,000 acres
of green space, golf courses, museum
exhibits, hotel/conference center and
family amusements—Stone Mountain
Park.
That rock well predates man's
presence on this planet, the result
of long-cooled volcanic activity. It's
smaller and lesser known sibling,
Arabia Mountain, sits nearby.The veins
of the granite mounds extend all the
way into downtown Atlanta, along
the Peachtree Ridge and as far east as
Conyers.
To Cherokee, Creek and other area
Native Americans who first occupied
the region, the mountain was a place
of worship and holy grounds, called
Rock Mountain.
Later, as U.S. settlers began to
encroach on Creek territory around
the mountain in 1813, President
James Monroe dispatched U.S. troops,
led by Andrew Jackson to relocate
the stubborn pioneers then squatting
‘One Man's
Opinion 9
Bill Crane
bill.csicrane@gmail.com
on Indian land. Settlers ignoring the
warning would typically have their
farms or homesteads burned to
convince them to relocate.
Ironically, when Jackson became
president in the 1830s, he would again
dispatch troops to the area to displace
the Cherokee and Creek Indians in
part of what became the massiveTrail
of Tears relocation.
White settlers found the area
granite made great building material,
it was soon being quarried and
then used in homes, churches and
businesses all over the area...and later
to much larger markets much farther
away. In 1866, just after the Civil War,
brothers William and Sam Venable
would form the Southern Granite
company, purchasing Stone Mountain
and all land around it as far away as
Lithonia for mining.
Stone Mountain granite forms
the stairs of the East Wing of the U.S.
Capitol, the vaults of the U.S.Treasury
and the gold reserves at Fort Knox
and the locks of the original Panama
Canal to name but a few prominent
edifices. By 1893, brochures of the
company would claim the mountain
to be the world's largest deposit of
merchantable granite.
The Venables were community
leaders and businessmen during the
challenging time of Reconstruction,
employing many in an economy once
built almost entirely around agriculture.
Spurred in part by the release of the film
The Birth of a Nation, in Atlanta late fall
of 1915, the younger Venable helped
organize a rally to reform the Klu Klux
Klan atop Stone Mountain on Nov. 25,
1915.
Though there were visible and
invisible connections to the Democratic
Party of that day, the Klan of that
era had plenty of hate and disdain
to go around, not just for African-
Americans or freed slaves, but also
the Catholic Church, Jewish and Irish
immigrants and were major proponents
of Prohibition.The Klan also played
a critical role later in some of the
financing of the carving on Stone
Mountain, and the initial director of the
project, John Gustov Borglum, became
a Klan member at the insistence of the
Venables, before fleeing the project and
the state to move to the Black Hills of
South Dakota to helm creation of the
carving on Mount Rushmore.
Here we are almost a century later,
and like it or loathe it, the world's largest
rock group, General Robert E. Lee, his
right hand General Stonewall Jackson
and Confederate President Jefferson
Davis look perpetually east to the rising
sun.The carving and other aspects of
the Confederate memorial within the
park comprise roughly 40 of almost
4,000 acres, the largest green-space in
the metropolitan Atlanta region, other
than Lake Sidney Lanier. As our nation
wrestles with what are acceptable
remembrances of that dark era in our
nation's checkered past, the carving
and all Confederate symbology have
become inexorably linked to the Klan
and the issue of slavery.
As a son of the South, born of Yankee
carpet-baggers and a Birmingham girl,
and living here as a first generation
Georgian, I grew up during the
Civil Rights Movement, and have
witnessed southern accents, customs,
traditions and much of our culture
becoming viewed as backward and/
or anachronistic, as I also lived through
school desegregation and a significant
transformation of my hometown of
Atlanta and my home county of DeKalb.
To be continued -
Bill Crane also serves as a political
analyst and commentator for Channel2's
Action News, WSB-AM News/Talk 750 and
now 95.5 FM, as well as a columnist for
The Champion, DeKalb Free Press and
Georgia Trend. Crane is a DeKalb native
and business owner, living in Scottdale.
You can reach him or comment on a
column at bill.csicrane@gmail.com.