Obama Honors Confederate Soldiers: But, If America Has Changed, Then Some Traditions Should Too

Should the President of the United States honor Confederate soldiers who, among other things, fought to keep slavery a way of life in the South?

President Barack Obama sought to avoid racial controversy on his first Memorial Day in office by sending wreaths to a monument for Confederate soldiers and a memorial honoring more than 200,000 blacks who fought for the Union during the Civil War. However, a group of African-American academicians petitioned the President not to do so asking President Obama not to honor the Confederate soldiers.

The professor’s felt, "The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African-Americans by slave owners, Confederates and neo-Confederates, through the monument's denial of slavery as the cause of secession and its holding up of Confederates as heroes," the petitioners said. "This implies that the humanity of Africans and African-Americans is of no significance."

So, given this argument; why would President Obama honor Confederate soldiers? Conventional wisdom would say that traditionally, Presidents visit Arlington personally to leave a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Presidential aides then deliver wreaths to other memorials or monuments, generally including the Confederate memorial.

But are there other reasons?

For instance, did you know that the South is overrepresented among military recruits? That’s right. Southern states provided 42.2 percent of 1999 recruits and 41.0 percent of 2003 recruits but contained just 35.6 percent of the population of 18-year-olds. Could it be that President Obama didn’t want alienate Southerners and possibly hurt recruiting numbers?

According to Wikipedia political centrism refers to the political idea of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle between different political extremes. I think this definition fits President Obama to a “T”. He’s not going to go too far out on a limb on any position. This was noted by many African-Americans when he took the helm of “The Harvard Review,” by Tavis Smiley during his campaign, and now in his presidency. Hey, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. For sure, with Rush Limbaugh on the Right and Reverend Right on the Left, the last thing this country needs is more political demagoguery. However, when you’re a leader you sometimes have to make decisions that some folk just aren’t going to agree with—you can’t always go down the middle.

So, you decide. Did President Obama do the right thing in sending a wreath to the monument for Confederate soldiers? Should there even be such a monument? Or, in light of the pain, suffering and loss of life that slavery, segregation, and racism have caused (even to this day) he should have cut with (White American) tradition and just said no.

Let me know what you think…and say somethin’ that makes sense!