Mixed-up Sunday dinner and thoughts on the Queen

 

A beautiful piece of salmon,
but huge for two people.

Usually Sunday dinner is family dinner around here. Other nights, different people have different activities, and Jordan and I try to plan menus around who will be here which night. For instance, I’m having a dinner guest tomorrow, so they are on their own. Tuesday, Jordan has business meetings until seven, and I have happy hour guests until six, but I’ll whip up a quiche and have it ready for a late supper (I hope). But Sundays all four of us are here, and we cook something special. Often Christian grills or cooks us an Asian dish

Roast salmon dinner

Tonight, though, we got it all mixed up. Christian and Jacob had to go to Coppell to help Poppy move a refrigerator, and I thought it a waste to cook that huge piece of salmon for Jordan and me. I tried to tell Jordan that last night and she simply said, “Cook the salmon.” Today, about noon, she said, “Christian won’t be here for dinner after all.” Duh. Somehow, we miscommunicated. Upshot, Jordan and I had a lovely dinner—slow-roasted salmon with pickled onions and marinated cucumbers with sour cream and dill for a salad.

Dinner over and done with and dishes done, I’m still chewing on the people who find themselves unable to mourn the Queen because of British colonialism. I read an article that helped me organize my thoughts, and the similarities in history occurred to me. Slavery is a huge blot on American history, despite book banning and revisionists who would have us believe slaves were happy and masters were benevolent. Now many states are forbidding teachers, librarians, etc. to talk about it lest it make poor white kids feel guilty.

Somewhat the same is true of British colonialism: it is a blot on the country’s history, and like slavery, colonialism (which involved a lot of slavery) was the product of greed and capitalism. British colonialism began at least 400 years ago; Elizabeth II took the throne in 1953. She could do nothing to change the history, but she did preside over the dissolution of much of the empire. Two facts stand out: a commentator said she is guilty for the centuries of atrocities by her family, which fails to take into account her family did not inherit the throne until 1901 when colonialism was well established and perhaps already fading. And she never declared war on any country—the last monarch to do so was her father who declared war on Nazi Germany. Furthermore, Elizabeth was a figurehead—granted a powerful one, whose opinions mattered, but she was incapable of ordering the conflicts and atrocities that survived into the twentieth century. Her mission seemed to be to ensure peace in her empire

I can understand the bitterness of descendants of people who suffered immeasurably under colonialism, but attributing it to Elizabeth, instead of to history, is misplaced anger. Some countries that kept their ties to England because of the Queen are now talking about republic status—that’s a good thing and perhaps right in line with the slimmed-down monarchy that Charles talks about.

Interesting though that some countries stayed close to Britain because of the Queen. I read an article that suggested had she, as heir to the throne, been a male, her reign would have been totally different. As Queen, Elizabeth never tried to be equal with the old white men who surrounded her. She was a thoroughly feminine woman with a lot of charm and grace, and she used those qualities daily. She was iron-willed enough, with great knowledge of public and international affairs and a quick wit, but it in no way diminishes her to say that she was quite feminine. There’s perhaps a lesson there for the belligerently angry feminists we sometimes see today. As it was, she inspired loyalty.

So I’m back where I started: Criticize America’s history of slavery and Britain’s colonialism, but don’t lay it all at the feet of the late Queen. Celebrate her for what she was—a wonderful woman and diplomat, the inspiration for hundreds of thousands. A unifying figure, not only in Britain but throughout much of the world.

Charles has big shoes to fill, but it appears he will take the monarchy in a different direction in whatever time is given to him. God Save the King!

Sanitizing history

 

There’s an old saying that most of us have heard a thousand times, with a hundred variations: Who doesn’t know the past is doomed to repeat its mistakes. If we don’t study history, we’ll bring ourselves down by repeating the follies of earlier generations. It seems, though, in our rush toward patriotism, that bit of advice is being left behind. But that’s not new.

I read today that schoolchildren are not being taught about the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of about 60,000 Native Americans from Florida and the Deep South to Oklahoma in the mid-nineteenth century. Instead of being taught how the people of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were marched under guard, with many dying, school children are told that the Indians agreed to move to make room for new settlement. A blatant and horrible distortion of the truth. They were moved to make way for white greed.

Similarly, at least one textbook informs children that Africans came here as “workers”—no mention of slave ships, slavery, cruel overseers, families torn apart. I suppose children are also not being taught about the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII. Another big blot on our history. I’m reading a novel called Clark and Division right now—the title being the name of an intersection on Chicago’s North Side, in a community where many Nisei (first generation) and Issei (born in Japan) were settled when transferred from internment camps.

Truth in history is giving way today to the current furor over critical race theory. If it weren’t sad, I’d be amused by the people who are so emphatic that CRT (as it is called) should never be taught in K-12. If only these loud voices knew that they make themselves look stupid. CRT is a graduate school discipline which studies the effects of racism on our society. It is mostly confined to law schools and would never be taught to school children. I love the response of an elementary school teacher who said, “If I can get them to read and write and do basic math, I’m a success. Who would have time to teach anything more?”

Here in Texas our governor has decided to enter the history fray. He was probably happy in 2016 when Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller were banished from the classroom, as was slavery as the cause of the Civil War, and Moses was credited with the principles espoused by America’s Founding Fathers. (Better go back up on that mountain again, Moses). I think those extreme standards have been relaxed, but now Governor Abbott has proclaimed that teachers must always use the word heroic in describing the defenders of the Alamo. That, he said, is not debatable.

That of course ties right into the controversy about the current myth-breaking book, Forget the Alamo, which essentially says that the Texas Revolution was all about slavery and the heroes were really a less-than-heroic bunch, many of them adventurers and mercenaries. Reviews ranged from recommending its pages if extra toilet paper is needed on a camping trip to “Well-written, compelling and meticulously foot-noted, [this is] an excellent analysis of the Alamo as both a significant historical event and an enduring Texas legend.”

All this reflects a burning desire on the part of some Americans and many Texans to portray our history in flawless patriotic terms. It’s not a new argument for education. From the seventies into this century, Mel and Norma Gabler from East Texas held sway over the choice of textbooks with their mom-and-pop business called Educational Research Analysts. They were fierce enemies of what they described as humanism—anything anti-American, anti-family, and anti-God. Textbook publishers, needing a profit, couldn’t do one set of books for Texas and another for the rest of the country, yet Texas was a big market. The upshot was that the Gablers basically dictated what was taught across the country—and the truth suffered.

And therein, lies the origins of today’s sanitized history. When I asked one of my grown children what they knew what the Trail of Tears was, the answer was negative. I’m afraid to ask the grandchildren. Enough, Sunday evening rant over.