8/28/2020
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| The figure on top is an open- faced farm boy who has no idea what he's in for. |
The South's Defender monument was a holdover from the olden days, when (white) men were men and Blacks were seen by racists as nothing more than cheap labor.
The statue, on top of a marble obelisk that looks to be 50 feet tall, is of a young man with a flag, a floppy hat, and work clothes. His expression says he has no clue what he's in for.
The statue was erected in 1915, the 50th anniversary of the South's surrender. They could've just named the guy Jim Crow.
Two months ago, on June 29, Michael Jones, who writes a southern heritage blog, defended the Defender statue thus: "There are some things that should be off-limits to politics, like historic monuments honoring local war dead....[the memorial] is being caught up in a nationwide rampage of destruction by radical left-wing mobs...This is the third time spiteful people and groups have tried to get it removed and destroyed."
Well, bless his heart. The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, which is the name of the local authorities, concurred with Jones and voted 10 to 4 in August 2020 to leave the monument where it stood, like a beacon of white, by the local courthouse.
But guess what happened next? After 105 years of heat, rain, storms, hurricanes, and pigeons, Hurricane Laura finally felled the Defender on Thursday. He's at the base of the obelisk in several pieces.
It was the same day that we blue types were wishing that Mr. Donald J. Trump would blow himself off his own pedestal with his own hot air.
For now, we'll take one small blessing over no blessings at all.
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