Celebrating Our Achievements

By Ed Hoffman

On April 8, 1864, the United States Senate passed the 13th amendment to the Constitution. That means this month marks 151 years since our Senate voted to abolish the abhorrent practices of slavery and involuntary servitude. But the milestones don’t end there; April 9 marks 150 years since General Robert E. Lee surrendered, thereby disbanding the confederacy and ending the Civil War. Finally, this week on April 15 marks the death of Abraham Lincoln (okay, that one we may not want to celebrate – just recognize). But are we celebrating or recognizing any of them? We are not.

Instead, we’re obsessing over how many yards away a police officer was from someone as he ran from them, why the person was running from the police in the first place and the granular details of bullets, Taser darts and camera phones. We do this because it’s what the media wants us to do in order to fulfill a narrative they have been shoving down our throats ever since the first African-American President was elected.

The narrative? We’re still a racist, racist country.

They don’t want us to recognize the anniversary of slavery abolishment; they don’t want us to recognize how far we’ve come since the Civil War and Lincoln’s death. They want us to be permanently aggrieved – and because they have the megaphone, they can make it happen.

But the media isn’t the only problem here, because Congress opted not to create a national commission this year to mark the Civil War milestone. Now, I know we have a Republican-controlled Congress; if I had to guess, I would imagine that they passed on commemorating the anniversary because they felt it would spark more race relation discussion in a time when we already have too much of it. I can respect that, if it was a conscientious decision with the good of the nation in mind. Fine.

But guess what the President said no to celebrating in November? The 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Was that speech, in which Lincoln declared that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” anything that the majority of clear-thinking Americans in 2015 would find controversial? I doubt it, but I believe our President elected not to recognize it because that would be at odds with the messaging his administration consistently puts forth: America is racist, and more specifically, Republicans are racist. Abe Lincoln was the first Republican President, and he helped to establish the Republican Party with a speech denouncing a slavery expansion law written by a Democrat Senator.

You’re not supposed to know that, because that would destroy the illusion the Democrats have worked so hard to create (although technically, they don’t have to work too hard at it because the media does 90 percent of the work for them). Unique examples of abuses will always be there, because we live in an imperfect world. But propelling each one of these cases into the national media spotlight causes more harm than good; all it does it create more animus, more anger and more misconceptions on both sides. What sounds like the better option: Continuing on that path, or celebrating the milestones of our nation’s human rights achievements? I vote for the latter.

Ed Hoffman is the host of the Main Event on AM590, which airs Saturday 9:30AM- 10:30AM and Sunday 4:00PM- 5:00PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.