My Easter Feeling

It is Holy Saturday as I type this.  And the Ku Klux Klan is scheduled to march in Memphis.  Seems the historians and scholars that make up the particular diocese of the North Carolina Klansmen that bought the parade permit are hot under the hood over the City of Memphis' plan to rename all of the parks there that are named for the Confederacy or for its heroes.  Thus, Nathan Bedford Forrest Park will get renamed after Larry Finch or something more politically correct.

I view this sort of historical revisionism as particularly silly.  I remember when Confederate Boulevard here got named something else lest visiting dignitaries to the Clinton Library get their sensibilities ruffled.  Never mind that Confederate troops actually camped over by where the Little Rock National Cemetery is situated where the former Confederate Boulevard once ran.  And it's not like Memphis doesn't have bigger problems.  But this is the kind of bullshit political issue that is easy to do.  Like the Arkansas legislature passing blatantly unconstitutional bill after bill instead of dealing with the expansion of Medicaid.  And another thing.  Rewriting history can get out of control really quick.  Ask George Orwell.

Problems, being problems, are sometimes hard to resolve.  Obsessing over the names of parks and handguns is easy.  But look at the problem they got in the Bluff City now. Bet they didn't see that one coming.  As of this writing, the Boys in the Hood claim they are bringing "thousands."  The law enforcement presence at the rally is predicted to be "massive."  And the usual peaceful counter-protesters will be there in uneasy symbiosis with the certain unbidden presence of gang bangers which exist in abundance in Shelby County.

All of this ugliness on the day before Easter.

I know that this is romantic nonsense but there is a time and a place for everything.  Even for rabble-rousing by morons.  This couldn't keep until NEXT Saturday?  As I have written before, I don't believe in much of anything anymore.  But I believe in Easter.  I believe in the message that redemption is possible and available.  And that victory remains in love.  It is hard to square that message of peace and love with the High Drama that is scheduled for Downtown Memphis, an area of square footage that has known its fair share of racial strife.

But, as I said, to wish otherwise is romantic nonsense.  The world doesn't stop for Easter.  There are wars and rumors of wars.  There is violence upon women and children.  There are way too many people who don't know where their next meal is coming from or who don't have access to adequate medical care.  And conversely Easter can't stop all of that.

And it won't stop what may go down in Memphis.

Now, if the weather over there is as nasty as it is here, maybe their cross won't ignite.  After all, we are not exactly dealing with folks that are all that widely read in thermodynamics.  Maybe the Imperial Wizard, Grand Wazoo or whatever equally fatuously entitled person who has dominion over these idiots will call the rally on account of rain.  Maybe they will all catch colds after marching around in their wet Klan drag.  They got it comin'.

But it is my hope that the Klan marches around, spews their sub-literate venom and crawls back under their respective rocks over at the pool halls and parts stores back home from whence they came.  It is my hope that nobody is injured, least of all the cops that will be there to protect the Klan as they exercise their Constitutional rights to be bigots and fools.  God Bless their underpaid little hearts.

Then maybe we can get back to Easter.  Where victory remains in love.