Why Did Obama Skip Arlington?

An interesting letter sent to Obama last year by a group of black academics and historians encourages him to not participate in the Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington:

May 18, 2009

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day.

We ask you to not send a wreath or some other commemorative token to the Arlington Confederate Monument during your administration or after.

There are several reasons as to why this monument, a product of the Nadir in American race relations, should not be honored, and we list and explain them in this letter.

The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy and glorify the Confederacy. It isn’t just a remembrance of the dead. The speeches at its ground-breaking and dedication defended and held up as glorious the Confederacy and the ideas behind it and stated that the monument was to these ideals as well as the dead. It was also intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers. In its design it also tells wrong history, boasting fourteen shields with the coat of arms of fourteen states. Thus it claims that Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were part of the Confederacy. They weren’t. ....

Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument


More on this at DailyKos:

Daily Kos: State of the Nation



The optics here are not good.

 

This smells big time.....


But, in the meantime, can you tell us when Obama's trip to Illinois was initially scheduled?

 

I have no idea, but suspect it was not scheduled prior to May 18, 2009, which is the date of the letter from the black historians encouraging him to skip Arlington and claiming it is a symbol of racism.

 

Dear black academics and historians:

Spend more time encouraging the vast vast majority of the black population on the importance of education, responsibility, accountability, a strong work ethic, speaking proper English, and a whole host of other problems of far more importance to them than this idiocy.

 

The more stories about this man, Mr. Obama, and Chicago politics, the more it smells like a spoiled fish taco.

 

I'm really surprised that this didn't turn up in any news analysis earlier. I found it by accident when searching on Memorial Day tradition.

 

Interesting, where was he LAST Memorial Day? And, what was LAST Memorial Day's date, in relation to this letter?

 

It was very short notice for 2009, as noted in DailyKos:

Without offering Obama a reasonable alternative to sending a wreath, and by giving him less than a week to ponder an alternative of his own, they essentially were asking him to place himself in the role of scab-yanker on a holiday many Americans across the political spectrum view as a time of healing.

For 2010, he certainly had plenty of time to consider his plans.

 

How weird.

I wasn't aware of the significance of Arlington as being anything like a Confederate War Memorial.

I HAVE been there, and was struck with the irony of the land for the cemetary being confiscated from Robert E. Lee, and then being used as a graveyard during the Civil War.

 

He was at Arlington. He did also honor blacks that served in the Civil War.