On why the holiday’s contemporary meaning also has profound AmericanStudies significance.
Throughout this past
week’s series, I’ve made the case for how and why we should better remember the
Decoration Day origins of our modern Memorial Day, as well as the overtly white
supremacist reasons for the shift from one holiday and frame to the other in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As is the case
with so many aspects of 21st century America, we can’t understand
where we are without a better sense of where we’ve been—and that remains true,
if it’s not indeed especially true, when it comes to seemingly innocuous
societal elements like a shared and celebratory national holiday. As I said
back in Monday’s post, however, none of that means that I don’t recognize and
agree with that contemporary meaning for the holiday, the emphasis on
commemorating and celebrating those who have fallen in American wars and
conflicts over the centuries.
Moreover, that
modern Memorial Day meaning can in and of itself offer a profound challenge and
alternative to white supremacist histories and visions of America. In this Saturday Evening Post Considering
History column, I made the case for the WWII soldiers of color—Japanese
American, African American, and Native American soldiers and units (in the
still-segregated armed forces) in particular—whose stories and sacrifices truly
exemplify the American contribution to that crucial conflict. The same is true
for every war and conflict in which the United States has been involved: Americans
and communities of color have participated, have served and sacrificed, in
numbers that far outstrip their demographics within the national population at
the time. The nearly 180,000 African Americans who served in the Civil War’s United States
Colored Troops units, and most especially the 20% of those soldiers
who were killed in action (a number 35% higher than the equivalent rate for
white Union troops), offer only a particularly striking illustration of this
longstanding trend.
After one of my book
talks for We the People a couple
years back, an audience member asked why so many of my examples of an inclusive
America were related to wars and military service. I took the point to heart,
and in Of Thee I Sing I tried not to focus
too much on military service for my examples of active and critical patriotism.
War, even in the
most idealized versions, certainly features and often foregrounds horrors
that can’t be elided or minimized. But there’s no doubt that military service
also represents one of the most overt and consistent forms of civic
participation, an expression of an individual’s presence in and commitment to
the national community. It’s thus pretty damn telling that Americans of color
have so consistently, so centrally, and so inspiringly served and sacrificed
for a nation that too often has been dominated by white supremacist narratives
and ideologies that would seek to exclude those Americans from the national
community. That’s a history worth commemorating and celebrating every day—and
doubly so on Memorial Day.
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Memorial Day tributes or thoughts you’d add?
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