Robert E. Lee**Martin Luther King, Jr.**Jefferson Davis
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so I am off work and glad for it. Because I work for the State of Texas, I will be off work on Wednesday, too. Wednesday is Confederate Heroes Day. I have worked for the state for more than 10 years now (off and on) and remember thinking the first year I encountered Confederate Heroes Day that it was odd Texas had a "skeleton day" (partially staffed holiday) celebrating Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee . Don't get me wrong, I am a Southerner, but It's been over a hundred years since the South lost the war; so it seems weird that we are still "celebrating" when there is no one alive that lived during the war, and moreover when we all know what the Confederates were trying to preserve by starting the Civil War. The fact that Confederate Heroes Day comes within days of MLK Day, commemorating the leader of the civil rights movement, is bizarre. It also speaks to one of the paradoxes of American life, that what we say and what we do are sometimes entirely different things. Like when we say that the U.S. stands for freedom, but we pass something as vile as the Patriot Act.
The sense of irony I feel each year when this holiday comes around can only be surpassed by my sense of relief at not having to go to work. I have discussed this holiday anomaly over the years with co-workers (black, white and "other"- as the state says), and all agree that they don't usually celebrate anything or anyone during these days off; they usually just relax with their family. Feeling like most Americans that they are overworked and underpaid, they (like me) are grateful to have any excuse for a day off with pay. I think that the sense of outrage that this holiday should incite (we all know lawsuits have been started over much less in this country), is undercut by our exhaustion. We are too tired from our jobs and our daily life to make a fuss, so we do the best we can with it. I can only assume that the same is true for the general lack of reaction from the American public to the Patriot Act.
The sense of irony I feel each year when this holiday comes around can only be surpassed by my sense of relief at not having to go to work. I have discussed this holiday anomaly over the years with co-workers (black, white and "other"- as the state says), and all agree that they don't usually celebrate anything or anyone during these days off; they usually just relax with their family. Feeling like most Americans that they are overworked and underpaid, they (like me) are grateful to have any excuse for a day off with pay. I think that the sense of outrage that this holiday should incite (we all know lawsuits have been started over much less in this country), is undercut by our exhaustion. We are too tired from our jobs and our daily life to make a fuss, so we do the best we can with it. I can only assume that the same is true for the general lack of reaction from the American public to the Patriot Act.
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