Lauren Ritchie: Senator kills monument to state’s slaves.
State Sen. Dennis Baxley, descendant of a Confederate soldier and defender of the Confederate flag, used his power as chairman of a committee during the recent legislative session to kill a monument recognizing the contribution of slaves to settling Florida.
The Ocala Republican came up with some circular babble about not wanting to memorialize slavery, which he claimed the monument would do because the bill’s title was “Florida Slavery Memorial,” according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Sentinel’s sister paper. Obviously, the statue wasn’t meant to honor a horrific institution abolished generations ago.
The bill clearly stated that the purpose was to recognize the part slaves played in settling this steamy, wild land and to acknowledge the inhumanity of their treatment while doing so.
Initially, Baxley, who represents Sumter County and chunks of Lake and Marion, said he didn't want to “celebrate defeat.” Asked about the remark by the newspaper, he explained that he chose the wrong word. He meant to say he didn’t want to celebrate “adversity.” He was honest the first time.
Over the years, he has been a champion of the Confederacy. He fought a bill that sought to ban flying the Confederate flag on government property, opposed a memorial to fallen Union soldiers at a state park that has three monuments to Confederates, disputed the removal of a Confederate general’s statute from the U.S. Capitol and tried to keep colleagues from eliminating the offensive word “darkeys” from the chorus of the state song, “The Swanee River.”
The state House unanimously passed a bill calling for the slave memorial. But Baxley, as chairman of the Senate’s Government Oversight & Accountability Committee, refused to schedule it to be heard, so the proposal died in his committee.
A monument honoring slaves and condemning slavery, by extension, condemns the Confederacy, and Baxley can’t have that. Unfortunately, the senator’s dead ancestors were in the moral septic tank on this one. Time to admit it.
Perhaps Baxley, who served previously in the House, was piqued because he submitted an unsuccessful bill that would have protected all war monuments, including Confederate ones. Ask yourself: What monuments are in “danger” of removal except Confederate ones? Right. None. Your state senator is working to honor those who nearly split this country in two and who battled to hold onto their lifestyle and wealth by doing something to other people that now is considered a crime worthy of 30 years in prison.
At least Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer understands it’s offensive to honor the Confederacy. He said this week that he will move a marble statue of a Confederate
Statues to Confederate warriors have no place in the public domain. Of course, this is still America, and families may choose to pay tribute to Confederate soldiers.
soldier nicknamed “Johnny Reb” out of the city’s premier park at Lake Eola to a city cemetery.
Baxley, however, remains clueless. He argued to the Sun-Sentinel: “You’re supposed to be for trying to build a monument to these people, but you’re fine with desecrating other peoples’ monuments?”
Other peoples’ monuments? This isn’t a simple difference of opinion about some random political issue. It’s an attempt to memorialize those who chose to fight for a shameful institution now shunned by most of the world. (Don’t even bring up the bogus issue of ‘state’s rights’ as the reason for the Civil War.)
Part of the job of government is to define the principles for which its people stand. Memorials are just one way of punctuating what is valued in society. Monuments honoring Vietnam veterans, Purple Heart recipients, Martin Luther King Jr., police officers killed in the line of duty and a soon-to-come statute honoring Holocaust survivors are on the grounds of the Capitol in Tallahassee — and they should be.
Statues to Confederate warriors have no place in the public domain. Of course, this is still America, and families may choose to pay tribute to Confederate soldiers. Families of Nazis must have done the same for their soldiers, too. But we don’t honor them publicly for the obvious reason: Their cause was vile and inhuman.
The senator needs to drop his 150-year-old philosophy behind and get on board with the 21st century.
Genocide and slavery aren’t likely to come back in vogue anytime soon.