They're All Dead

The Trail of Tears by Robert Lindneux

My alma mater opened the 2014 NCAA football season with a six point loss to the #1 ranked team and defending National Champions.  Rebuilding with young players and picked to lose handily, the boys in orange and black played solid defense and consistent offense only to miss the upset by less than a possession. 

Involving a David & Goliath-esk, near-triumphant underdog feel, it’s a story worth reading about…particularly if you’re a middle of the nation, sick of the overrated coastal teams, football fan.  And what did the nation reading about this near upset of the decade?   A sign created by a handful of short-sighted college kids’ on ESPN’s GameDay backdrop.

The sign, in the spirit of high school, college and NFL fans, taunted the opposing team with a mascot inspired reference.  Nothing new about that, I remember paying a quarter (50 cents during Homecoming) in grade school for spirit ribbons with phrases like ‘Whip the Whippets’, ‘Pound the Panthers’ and (this one might make the news today) ‘Scalp the Redskins’.  But the sign used a rather shameful episode in our Nation’s past to make the point, the Trail of Tears.

I have no problem recognizing the inappropriateness of the sign, but I do take issue with the idea that any particular ethnic group should be especially offended.

We inherit a lot of things from ancestors, looks, health, intelligence, physicality, but we don’t bear their encumbrances, nor suffer their abuses.  Be proud from where you come but don’t allow victimization to be generational. 

Jumping to the side of those whose ancestors suffered a great injustice and encouraging them to pick up that burden creates an emotional weight that hinders a joyful and successful life.  Energy spent on brooding is lost.  It’s energy that won’t be used in a positive way, won’t forward a person’s situation and won’t make this Nation a better place.

Perhaps the greater problem is the promotion of prejudice.  Owning and defending ancestral persecution and victimization encourages groups to remain segregated, disregard commonalities among all men and preserve a bias and suspicion toward others.  It arouses separation and bigotry.

Our country was founded on the ideal that all men are created equal.  There’ve certainly been hiccups…and projectile vomiting…on the philosophy, but concentrating on those events and encouraging victims’ descendants to wallow serves no constructive purpose.  Like a marriage devastated by infidelity, reliving the event instead of moving on serves only to insure the institution’s demise.

Short sighted college kids made a sign referring back to a dark episode in our Nation’s past, an episode that affects no one living today without their own consent, an episode that we, as a country, have suffered through, grown from and become better for having overcome.  The sign isn’t a slight on any person or group (except the college team it was intended to antagonize) and should offend no group that doesn’t choose, of their own free will, to be offended.

At the end of the day people are people no matter their skin color, genetic makeup or geographic origin.  Misplaced shame and offense won’t change the actions and oppressions of their ancestors, nor will it encourage respect, understanding or harmony among others.   Like many people in my part of the world, I share genetics with individuals on both sides of the Trail of Tears, but I harbor no resentment or shame because those guilty, they’re all dead.