Unity is Unattainable Without Accountability
In these times, it is critical that local elected officials choose leadership in the way of courage, facts, and candor. The insurrection earlier this month is reminiscent of uprisings and movements in our nation’s past where compromise and complicity were chosen in moving forward as a means of unity without first establishing accountability. Repeating that past is bad for the future of our country.
As a child in Columbia, South Carolina, I repeatedly witnessed residents, elected officials, and even books be passive or glorify the Confederacy as patriots for freedom who fought against unfair taxation and the principles of States’ Rights. I later came to learn that counter to the message delivered by so many, that Confederates were enemies of the United States of America who fought the Civil War to maintain the right to enslave Black people.
Despite historical facts, false teachings about the Confederacy carried across the South and all over the United States for more than one hundred years and continue today. Presently, the fabrications continue with falsehoods and misdirection of State’s Rights, claims that the Confederacy wasn’t about slavery, and some even claim that Black people preferred to be slaves. These continued fallacies contribute to the flag of our country’s enemy continues to fly broadly across the South and frequently in other states and locations. And even in the parking lots of Placer County high schools.
The South along with the rest of the United States, effectively distorted history for many people by avoiding uncomfortable truths and promoting incomplete and irrelevant information. The concessions that the United States made in hopes of moving past that stain in our country’s history led to the Confederate battle flag being carried through the rotunda of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. When in reality, the only pride descendants of Confederates need are knowing their family member’s legacy of hate and bigotry has been defeated.
Our country chose unity with the South in the absence of accountability. Because of that, the trash of the Confederacy continues to fester. The South is now Trumpism and for California, the Confederate Capital of Montgomery, Alabama is now Placer County. And people aligned with the Union are concerned about safety, their livelihood, and the promulgation of lies that come with false unity.
The distortion of history by avoiding uncomfortable truths and promoting incomplete and irrelevant information wasn’t okay with the Confederacy and it’s not okay today. The leaders of Roseville along with many across the nation are taking a page from the practices of how the United States failed to address the stain of the Confederacy in the South. This path is not a praiseworthy one for officials who wish to be hallowed in history with words of truth.
The uncomfortable truths are-
1. The President of the United States convened people from across the country to condemn those in Congress who were affirming the results of legal and valid elections that had been upheld by all fifty states and scores of judges across the nation.
2. The President of the United States along with his family and collaborators enflamed a crowd of thousands by instigating hate and anger toward Congress with continued dishonest claims about the result of fair and free elections.
3. After being provoked with false claims from the President of the United States, the crowd of thousands proceeded to trespass on US Capitol grounds, attack, threaten, and injure law enforcement, forcibly enter the US Capitol building, interrupt the Congress carrying out its Constitutional duty, destroy US property, threaten lawmakers, ransack offices, and caused the death of multiple people including US Capitol police.
Placer County Supervisor Bonnie Gore wrote of being “horrified to see the violence at, and the invasion of, the US Capitol.” She went on to declare that we “be people who foster dialogue and demonstrate respect for one another” and further noted that “we need to be united in love for each another, not torn apart by division. Bonnie’s new peer on the Board of Supervisors, Suzanne Jones, managed to give a non-response to a question from me by stating that she “hopes that those criminally charged will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I do not condone the actions of any protests that result in loss of life or destruction of property.”
Roseville City Councilman, Bruce Houdesheldt ruminated on growing up in Maryland suburbs near DC and he averted any of the relevant facts. However, he was sure to share plenty of information completely disconnected from the realities of what happened on January 6th at the US Capitol. But he did manage to state, “constructively objecting is okay.” As if to suggest that in the same election where he was voted into Roseville City Council that the spewing of lies, denial of the outcome of a free and fair election and bringing people together to protest Congress certifying election results “is okay” and “marauding through the halls of democracy shows great ignorance.” But no mention of it being illegal of the rioters or dereliction for the President to send them there.
Bruce’s peer, Scott Alvord actually wrote a decent statement that was generic in not naming anyone but direct about the lack of leadership. I am unaware of statements from Mayor Krista Bernasconi, Councilmember Pauline Roccucci, or Tracy Mendonsa. In general, silence is far more problematic than a bad statement.
Presumably representing the whole Roseville City Council, the City of Roseville released a vague statement that evaded condemning the failure in leadership at the highest levels in our nation that fortified the mindset that led to what they referred to as “the attack on our democracy at our nation’s Capitol.” These statements are the very opposite of what our community, city, and nation need right now.
It is statements like these over the past century that led to the compromises and false unity that created the racist, Confederate loving South that I grew up in. Where generation after generation, the lies and obfuscation of facts are told by families, residents, and elected officials until they’re accepted as truth despite the undeniable reality.
Hopefully the elected leaders of Roseville and Placer County decide to be better. Just like Nazi symbols aren’t seen flying in Germany, Confederate symbols shouldn’t be seen flying in the US, and our nation and city would do well to make clear that people and symbols associated with the uncomfortable truths of January 6, 2020 at the US Capitol are symbols that go against helping us “stand united and resolute in our service to the city and community.”
Trumpism rallied a group of people to attack our country. If leaders at any level are too tied to their politics to speak that truth, condemn the actions of January 6, 2021, and seek accountability for the actions of Donald Trump and others involved, then they should withhold false claims about wanting unity. In reality they’re promoting the same actions that has the Confederacy prominent to this day.
