Everyone hereabouts has their panties in a twist about an upcoming art exhibit at my alma mater: Gettysburg College. One of these oh-so-clever artists – the kind who are unable to produce actual works of their own but rely instead on so-called satire and societal commentary – has been invited to bring his show “The Recoloration Proclamation: The Gettysburg Redress” to the College for an exhibition. Part of the opening was to be a lynching of the Confederate battle flag on a gallows outdoors. Oddly, the humourless neo-traitorous scum known as the Sons of Confederate Veterans must have caught a glimpse of these plans between NASCAR races and managed to put down their Budweisers long enough to threaten a boycott of the town of Gettysburg for one full year if this exhibit went forward. The town talked to the college, the college partially caved and now we’re to have an exhibit without a lynching and without the artist.
In general, ninety-nine percent of actions wailed against as censorship are not. This affair, I believe, nearly crosses that line. Boycott the exhibit if you like but to propose economic pressure on a town due to an activity which is beyond their scope of control is pretty damn close to that sacred phrase ‘stifling of dissent.’
I reckon I’ll go see the exhibit. It seems innocuous enough if not exactly art. This is just one more reason for me to despise the SCV. Am I glad I never shook their hand, nor dipped my colors in their presence during any ceremony.
It’s one thing to commemorate your heritage. It’s quite another to raise a ruckus defending a banner of treason. ‘Heritage not hate’? I hate your damned heritage.