Glaring, but oft unseen, Symbols of American Social Evil

In the October 3, 2016, Time magazine, there is a picture of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture with the Washington Monument looming large in the background.  The Monument is a creamy white; the Museum is a dark black color.  Time notes the "lively contrast" between the two impressive buildings.

But Time fails to note the historical evil contrast.  Time does refer to the "triumph and struggle of black America."  And Time does talk a lot about slavery in America.  But Time, like all other commentary about the Museum that I have heard and read, fails to take advantage of a golden teaching moment, fails to discuss how the Washington Monument relates to the treatment of blacks in this country.  The very president that the Monument honors owned hundreds of slaves.  On the same Mall, stands the Jefferson Memorial; Jefferson owned a total of 600 slaves during his lifetime.  The nearby Capitol building was built using slave labor; the same with the White House.

As far as the Time article is concerned, these surrounding symbols of both goodness and evil, this WASP evil, remained invisible.

CBS Morning News recently did their whole two hour program from the Museum; a very good program, but they did not mention the historical irony, the massive, but largely invisible, evil surrounding the Museum on the Mall.

Something similar happened with articles about the probable removal of the Confederate flag from the stained glass windows in the National Cathedral.  To the left and to the right of the Confederate flag panel were two panels with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes.

In one American flag panel, the flag was tied to West Point soldiers.  In the other American flag panel, it was tied to the Mexican America War.  American soldiers have far too often been instruments of evil; the killing of Native Americans and the destruction of their cultures, the imperialism of the Mexican American War, the death of a million Filipinos, the Viet Nam War, the War in Iraq.  War and American imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression often have gone hand in hand.

None of the commentary on the Confederate flag in the stained glass window mentioned the above; WASP evil remained hidden, invisible.  Confederate evil was highlighted.  Somewhat hypocritical.

The same with the St. Louis Arch.  To most of white America, it is a good and glorious symbol of Westward expansion, the spread of Anglo, Christian civilization into the West.  They largely ignore that the Arch also symbolizes imperialism, ethnocentrism and oppression---the elimination of most Native Americans.  Even Christian organizations have used the Arch as a symbol in their advertising, apparently not aware of the enormous evil it represents.