ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602280023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
A COUPLE of peculiar occurrences last week in Richmond underscored the haziness engulfing the racial divide nowadays, as well as a shared tendency to turn history into hagiography - to rub at old grievances by clinging to a selective veneration of the past at the expense of relevance to the present and future.
State NAACP leaders last week laid into Gov. George Allen for turning back the clock on civil rights. But in trying to shoehorn new issues into old civil-rights categories, it is the NAACP that seems to be doing the clock-turning.
Meanwhile, a number of white Virginians were working with equal diligence to look anachronistically foolish. Sadly - but perhaps predictably, in a Richmond where racism remains alive and arrogant - the main effect of black criticism of a fund-raising "Confederate ball" for the White House of the Confederacy and companion Museum of the Confederacy was brisker ticket sales among white patrons.
Among the NAACP's bill of particulars against the governor was his "punitive stance," with allegedly racial overtones, toward juvenile justice. But the upswing in the seriousness of juvenile crime isn't a bogus issue cooked up by bigots. It's a real problem that transcends race; to the extent that the face of youthful thuggery is sometimes disproportionately black, so are the faces of its victims.
The wisdom of Allen's approach, and of the compromise plan worked out with General Assembly Democrats, is open to debate. Certainly it relies too little on prevention. To treat this as a civil-rights issue, though, is to frame it in old, ill-fitting terms.
No less misplaced was the ferocity of the NAACP's attack on Allen - he was compared to Howdy Doody and called a clown - for resubmitting to the legislature a proposed change in Richmond's city charter. At issue is whether the mayor should continue to be named by City Council from among its members, or elected directly by all voters, as is done in Roanoke and some other Virginia cities.
The city's old-guard black leadership opposes the change. But Richmond's black-majority electorate approved it by a 2-1 margin. Younger black leaders, including the city's mayor, back it. Even Jesse Jackson has come to town to plump for it. Unfortunately, the biggest loser in the attempt to elevate a nonracial political flap to the status of moral crusade could be NAACP credibility when a genuine civil-rights issues comes along.
On the other side of the racial divide, the magnolia-and-mint-julep crowd last week was ordering hoop skirts and Confederate gray for the Saturday night fund-raiser. Some may have been oblivious or insensitive to the impact; probably more celebrated it. Ironically, the museum itself has been trying to grow out of its 19th-century founder's worshipful attitude toward the Confederacy and white supremacy.
But offering a more complete and accurate picture of the South as it was, rather than as enshrined in moonlit myth, has had its limits. The museum last year decided not to change its name to something less loaded, such as the Museum of Southern Culture. "Our members would not appreciate that," the museum's marketing director said tellingly. "How do you appease the people that have been supporting you over the past 100 years, and yet also open it up to other groups?"
Cherished memories, like old habits, die hard - however fanciful, however harmful they may be.
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