Georgia Legislator Wants to Make April 26 Confederate Memorial Day and April Confederate History Month

  3/28/17  Mike Victor

The Georgia legislature meets for only a few frantic weeks a year, after which these part-time lawmakers return to their day jobs.  What's astonishing is their ability to pack so much national embarrassment into such a brief legislative session.  

State Representative Tommy Benton (Republican), whose Georgia legislature web page describes him as a retired history teacher as well as a "life member of the National Rifle Association and the Sons of Confederate Veterans" while remaining "active in the Military Order of the Stars and Bars."  One organization he never found time for, despite graduating high school in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, was the United States military.  

Military Order of the Stars and Bars

Honoring our Confederate ancestors since 1938

In case you're wondering, the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, according to their web page, "was founded in 1938 to honor the Confederate Officer Corps and the government officials of the Confederacy. Our members are all lineal or collateral descendants from these two groups… We are loyal Americans whose mission is to honor our ancestors and our Southern heritage."

Visit their web page and you will see a picture of the founder of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, staring out at you as if intent on burning a cross on your lawn with Jefferson Davis, the Confederate States of America, arrested a few hours south of Atlanta.  

But I digress.  

Tommy Benton (yes, that is his legal name, just as Georgia politicians Johnny Isaacson and Newt Gingrich bear the name of their birth certificates) won his election to the Georgia State House with 100% of the vote.  It would have been embarrassing if he didn't since he ran unopposed.  

Several days ago, he introduced House Resolution 644 to recognize April as Confederate History Month and rename April 26 Confederate Memorial Day.  It's apparently not the confederacy you might have read about in history books, though, because nowhere in the resolution is slavery or the Civil War mentioned.  
No, this confederacy was engaged in a noble but lost cause, a "four-year struggle for state's rights, individual freedom, and local government control."

That last point, sadly enough, is true.  It was only last year that our governor removed Confederate Memorial Day from the official state holiday calendar.   We still have a holiday but politely call it "state holiday."

Before you write off Benton's resolution as an attention-getting stunt by a bored white guy from a comfortably safe Georgia rural county, please take note that at least 3 of his colleagues agree with the need to honor the West's only explicitly white supremacist nation and are willing to co-sponsor it (Reps. Alan Powell, Steve Tarvin, and Jesse Petrea).  

The idea of honoring the struggle for the right to own black men, women, and children has for some reason drawn condemnation from the Georgia NAACP as well as members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.

Benton apparently likes stirring the pot.  Last year he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Ku Klux Klan "made a lot of people straighten up."   Perhaps he was misunderstood - perhaps he wasn't referring to people but the hairs on the back of their necks because I know mine stand on end when I think about cross-burnings and lynching. The backlash he created stunned the good legislator.  Ah, shucks, he was just trying to honor his Southern heritage.  Do you know who the real perpetrator is here?  That's right, the Lame Street Media.  "The media has seemed to go out of its way to try and make this something that it's not," Benton said. "We are not creating anything that's not already in code. Confederate Memorial Day has been celebrated since 1874."The doctrine of states' rights has an ugly history down here. States' rights in the American south almost always means one thing:  the right of white Americans to deprive black Americans of their rights.  Before 1865, states' rights meant the right to own slaves; since then, it's meant the right to enforce Jim Crow and segregation.  Ask a white southerner to name the most egregious example of federal overreach in all of its dastardly forms - including rightwing talking points about judicial activists legislating from the bench - and you'll inevitably get to Brown v the Board of Education, the landmark 1954 ruling striking down separate but equal and beginning the long, painfully slow march toward racial integration.   The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 met fierce, often violent resistance among southern whites who - once again - raised the hallowed-sounding notion of states' rights in their brutal campaign against the civil rights movement.   They took federal courts backed sometimes by federal troops to enforce.   It was no coincidence that the white people forming ugly crowds to prevent black children from attending "their" schools flew the Confederate flag whose ideals Benton now wants us in Georgia to honor.   

I'm always curious as to why Republicans clamor so much about states' rights when it comes to slavery or the right to keep blacks out of white schools but belong to a party that believes the federal government should override state and local governments on all matters from public safety (they want to force all states to honor concealed gun licenses issued by the weakest) to environmental protection (they want to ban California from setting stricter emissions standards than the EPA) to immigration (punishing states and cities that believe that enforcement of immigration laws is a federal rather than a state and local responsibility).  If there is a theme of respect for state and local governments in Republican behavior and policy, I fail to see it.

Put me in the camp of those who say that any right that involves depriving other Americans of rights is no right at all.  

This weekend while walking through historic downtown Decatur, I was once again struck by the enormous obelisk with CSA 1861-1865 engraved at its base.  Why is it still there, in the same grassy square where open air concerts will soon be held to Americans of all ethnic groups and regional origin?   Perhaps I am the only person to actually read the grandiose, self-serving nonsense about the brave men fighting for what they thought was right on four sides of the memorial, but such an anti-American monstrosity has no place in my town.  

But instead of tearing it down, or rededicating it to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade or the American holocaust of slavery or the century of civil rights workers, many of whom gave their lives just to be treated like human beings, some Georgians insist the Confederacy, the defunct white supremacist failed state that caused so much misery and suffering, needs more honoring, not less.  

The Confederate States of America is a failed experiment in explicit white supremacism.  Had it survived, had it not mellowed out and abolished the peculiar institution that prompted its formation, slavery would be as mindlessly and fiercely defended by southern whites as they now defend their related second amendment rights, broadened from their original intent to form a militia to suppress slave uprisings and hunt down fugitive slaves to stockpile weapons of war in your truck.   

How sad that 152 years after Georgia rejoined the United States of America following the failure of that grand slave-owning insurgency, there are some among us who would like to glorify and honor what was once the greatest existentialist threat to our country.

A Confederate Memorial Day with no mention of slavery would be like having a Third Reich Memorial day without mentioning the camps or the Holocaust.  Separating the cause of the Civil War - slavery - from the war itself is like trying to separate white from rice. It simply can't be done.

If you are a white supremacist take pride in the Lost Cause mythology and think that there was something noble in the human catastrophe of the civil war, you have the right to do so in the privacy of your own home.  Hell, you can even fly your traitor flag from the back of your truck.  No one is going to stop you apparently.

But don't ask the rest of us to set aside a day to sanctify your misunderstanding of history and your obliviousness to the suffering of the 20% of Americans who at the time of our country's founding were in bondage.  

If we do have a holiday, let's dedicate it to the spirit of unity that allowed Southerners finally to lay down their arms and admit they had been beaten, stopping the carnage they began 4 years earlier.  At a time when all Americans use the authority of the Constitution as the final authority to support their argument, even if they interpret it differently, let's not forget that there was a time when men throughout the south so hated that document and the government it authorized that they rose up in violent and bloody revolt, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process.

We should never let that happen again.  Perhaps we could use a day each year to re-commit ourselves to never becoming so divided that words and sectional differences explode into actual bloodshed.

Maybe that would be the most fitting tribute to the Civil War.  

Pedestrian safety: how not to kill or be killed while walking to school

March 27, 2017

In 2013, while crossing the street to catch her school bus, my daughter was hit by a car.  She fully recovered, but her minute of unresponsiveness and the subsequent hospitalization was a terrifying experience that I hope no parent must go through.   

So I've accumulated here a few tips for pedestrians and drivers that might reduce the risk of a tragedy from low to astronomically low.  I presented the following to my daughter's school administrators in the hope that it might be helpful to the parent community, and am posting it here as well.  

Background

According to the CDC, 4,735 pedestrians were killed and 150,000 injured in traffic crashes in the United States in a recent year, about one pedestrian death every 2 hours.   Atlanta ranked as the 8^th most dangerous city in the United States for pedestrians according to Dangerous by Design's 2014 survey, which also noted:

-          16 times as many pedestrians are killed on American roadways as die in natural disasters. 

-           Pedestrian deaths now account for almost 15% of all traffic deaths.  

-          Georgia is the 5^th most dangerous state to be a pedestrian with a pedestrian danger index (a combination of pedestrian deaths and pedestrian density) double the national average.   

-          Pedestrian accidents are a leading cause of death of children 15 and younger.  Between 31-61% of all injury-related pediatric hospital admissions are from pediatric accidents.  

-          Children are especially vulnerable because they are less visible to motorists, less able to judge the speed of oncoming traffic, and often do not see cars coming.   Since they do not drive themselves, they may not appreciate how difficult they are to see, especially if they dart out into traffic from between parked cars. 

-          112 Georgians were among the 4,394 children aged 1 to 15 killed as pedestrians in a recent 8-year stretch.

Some tips for pedestrians

Don’t jaywalk and train your children never to jaywalk.   Many parents stop their cars in the middle of a block only a few feet from a stop sign but instead of walking their children safely along the edge of the road to the stop sign to cross there, they allow them to cross in the middle of the street. This is extremely dangerous and blocks the flow of traffic. Since all drivers must stop at a stop sign, this is the safest and most convenient place for all to cross.  Even if an accident does occur, the vehicle will be going very slowly.

As parents, we must practice what we preach.  It is both good citizenship and good for our hearts to always use designated pedestrian crossings. Jaywalking seems a trivial crime but the cumulative probability over a lifetime of crossing where drivers do not expect to see pedestrians is high.  

Cross the street directly, not diagonally.   Cross streets directly in a straight-line perpendicular to the flow of traffic.   Crossing diagonally increases exposure to traffic and the probability of being hit.   We should train our children to make eye contact with any drivers, not cross until the car has come to a complete stop, and to continue to swivel their heads as they cross.  We should train our children to always assume that drivers have not seen them, never to dart out into the street, and to do whatever it takes to make themselves visible or audible.

Pull the earplugs.   Many students seem oblivious to drivers at least in part because they are listening to music, so are distracted and unable to hear cars they may not have seen.   At least while crossing streets, it would be best to mute the music or pull the earplugs out.  Since there are many more hybrid and electric cars on the road that make very little noise - so won't necessarily be heard - it is critical to remember that the car that hits you is the car you don't see or hear.

Face traffic.  Students walking to school along streets with no sidewalk should never have their backs to traffic.   In most cases, this means walking as close to the curb as possible on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic. I cannot count the number of times I have seen students walking to school on the right side of the street, sometimes drifting into traffic without realizing it. 

Wherever possible use sidewalks.  I've seen parents as well as children walk in a street already narrowed by parked cars on either side when a perfectly good sidewalk is available.   If an obstacle is blocking the sidewalk, such as a trashcan or debris, feel free to move it - sidewalks are considered public property that you have a right to access freely. 

Tips for drivers:

Slow down!   The single biggest thing we could all do to decrease the probability of serious injury or death to a student is to decrease our speed.  If you are going 30 mph and hit a child, you are nine times as likely to kill her as is a driver going 10 mph.   Our kinetic energy (and hence our risk of killing someone) rises as a square of our velocity, so halving your speed increases a child's chance of living by at least 75% (more, since you are less likely to hit a pedestrian in the first place if your drive slower).  Also, come to a complete stop - not a "rolling stop" - at stop signs and always use your turn signal.

Get off the phone.  Although calling while driving is legal in Atlanta, that doesn't mean it's wise.  A driver who is using a cell phone - even with a hands-free device - is as impaired as someone driving intoxicated.   At the very least, why not get off the phone when you are near the school?    That call can wait.  If you cannot resist the impulse to answer that incoming call, then silence your phone and put it in the trunk or somewhere out of reach when you drive.

Distracted driving is particularly lethal for younger drivers; 21% of teens involved in fatal accidents were distracted by their cell phones.   Teen drivers are those with the highest proportion of distracted-driver accidents.   

And it should go without saying, but NEVER text and drive.  A driver going 55 mph who looks down to check a text message covers an entire football field before looking up.

This also applies to pedestrians.  A distracted cell phone user is oblivious to traffic and greatly increases her risk of being hit by a car. 

Consider carpooling in a smaller car.  Larger cars are not necessarily safer than smaller ones (SUV's and trucks are particularly prone to rollovers that caused almost half of all motor fatalities) and block everyone else's visibility.    Larger cars also give their drivers the illusion they are driving slower than they really are.  They clear potential bottlenecks far less easily than smaller cars and are ecologically harmful.    Your car's mass might be the critical factor determining whether a struck pedestrian lives or dies. 

Remove grill bars (aka bull bars) from your car.   I have lived in Atlanta for over 20 years and have yet to encounter any cattle crossing the road.   Grill bars are extremely dangerous if you hit a pedestrian, concentrating all the force of your vehicle in a much smaller area, pushing the child forward then under the vehicle instead of against the curving front of the vehicle.   German researchers determined that although 95% of children would survive being hit by a car at 20 miles per hour, a car equipped with bull bars could inflict the same damage at only 12 mph and would kill a child at a speed as low as 10 miles per hour.   This is another reason not to carpool in a truck, SUV, or Land Rover type vehicle since these are the vehicles most likely to be equipped with pedestrian-killing grills. 

Please don't idle.   I have noticed that despite clearly-posted "no idling" signs, many drivers waiting to pick up children ignore them.   Please turn off your car's engine if you are going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds.   Some idlers do so because they believe (incorrectly) that restarting an engine uses more gas than idling.   Restarting the engine of a modern car uses the same gas as about 10 seconds of idling, so for anything longer than this, please stop emitting the harmful pollutants that hurt the lungs of our children as well as contribute to smog in the short term and global warming in the longer run (an idling car emits about 1 pound of CO2 every 10 minutes).   Auxiliary power can be used to recharge a phone or play audio without burning fossil fuels near our children. 

I know that's a lot to digest, but I've thought about these issues quite a bit over the years.  I would much rather ruffle someone's feathers if doing so might help make the morning carpool experience even a little bit safer. 

   - Mike Victor