A day celebrating Black
liberation utilized for white supremacy
By Ben Becker
The way the Civil War became officially
remembered — through Memorial Day celebrations— was based on the erasure of the
Black veteran and the liberated slave.
What we now know as Memorial Day began
as "Decoration Day" in the immediate aftermath of U.S. Civil War. It
was a tradition initiated by former slaves to celebrate emancipation and
commemorate those who died for that cause. These days, Memorial Day is arranged
as a day "without politics" — of a general patriotic celebration of
all soldiers and veterans, regardless of the nature of the wars they
participated in. This is the opposite of how the day emerged, with explicitly
partisan motivations, to celebrate those who fought for justice and liberation.
The concept that the population must
simply "remember the sacrifice" of U.S. service members, without a
critical reflection on the wars themselves, did not emerge by accident. It came
about in the Jim Crow period as the Northern and Southern ruling classes sought
to reunite the country around apolitical mourning and blind patriotism.
Reuniting on this basis required erasing the politically "divisive"
issues of slavery and Black citizenship that had been at the heart of the
struggles of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
To truly honor Memorial Day means
putting the politics back in. It means reviving the visions of emancipation and
liberation that animated the first Decoration Days. It means celebrating those
who have fought on the side of justice, while exposing the cruel manipulation
of hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members who have been sent to fight
and die in wars for conquest and empire.
Source: Party for Socialism and
Liberation
Editor’s note: Remember folks, we give
everyone a voice, even if they’re loud, shrill, and full of nonsense. Unlike the “dictatorship of the proletariat,”
we honor everyone’s right to free speech.
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