The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Golly, you know about the last thing you need in these pandemic fueled partisan times, if you’re white at least, is to be made to feel uncomfortable with our racist past. Oh sure, slavery seems like it might have been a bit, well, old school and even a tad barbaric. Jim Crow and the KKK, kind of wish we didn’t have to remember those times now and do we really have to talk about segregation and the Civil Rights movement half a century later? C’mon, it makes us queasy. Some of us at least. Some, not so much.

Take Florida, for instance. They’re trying to pass a law that makes it illegal to bring up uncomfortable stuff from the misty past, stuff that would make a grown white man wince hearing about lynchings and native genocide and, well, a lot of history that just ought to stay buried, not brought out like dirty laundry to rub in our noses. Why should we feel guilty about the actions of our forefathers? Different times, different customs. Leave those skeletons in the closet, shut the door and shut up already. Nobody wants to be reminded, okay?

That old chestnut about those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it is hogwash down in the Sunshine State. Fact is, they’re probably repeating it now and really don’t mind. They just don’t want to be made to feel uncomfortable about it. Is that so hard to understand? We’ve all got events in our past that we don’t want to talk about, let’s just let sleeping dogs lie. The thing is, we white folks want to take pride in our white all-American culture and if it takes a little selective amnesia, well, that’s what it takes. Pride is what we want and pride is what we’ll demand, even it takes a law to shut up the folks who want to muddy our flag. Is this a great country or what? Don’t answer that if you don’t agree.

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