Somewhere Down South An Asylum is Missing a Lunatic

                Somewhere an insane asylum is missing a lunatic, and his name is "Roger". (Names have been changed to protect the truly douchey).

                I first encountered "Roger" a couple of days ago on the site of my local paper, of all places.  My friends always said I’d end up getting into an argument with the wrong person, because there are a lot of crazies out there.  It finally happened.  Within thirty-six hours of encountering "Roger" for the first time, he crossed the line into harassment.  I’m not at the point where it’s time to bring the police in, not yet, although I am at the point where I’m like, “Oh my God, dude, stop!”

                The topic was the removal of a plaque commemorating Robert. E. Lee in Lasdon Park in Somers.  If I’d done more than skim the article, I could probably tell you why the hell there is a plaque dedicated to a disgraced Confederate general in frigging New York, but I’ve been remiss.  And also, the damn plaque was removed last January by George Latimer, but we’re only hearing about it now.

                It all started when I responded to a comment by a woman who shared George Latimer used to sit next to her in school (apparently she feels Latimer should have consulted her personally before removing the plaque, otherwise this information was irrelevant) and felt the removal of it was so sad and then stated the downfall of our country will be its erasure of the past.

                Okay, let me address that for the moment.  Trust me, no person of African descent will ever forget they were once considered subhuman and kept as slaves. There's just no forgetting that.  I don’t know why this woman feels we need to have a plaque in a park in Somers to act as a constant reminder.  And I’m not aware of any other nation erecting statues and plaques and what have you glorifying a rebellion. 

                 I’ve heard the argument that Lee himself didn’t believe in slaves.  Unfortunately, he led a rebellion whose main object was to preserve the institution of slavery.  I don’t care how good to his slaves he was, or how much he thought slavery was an abomination; he put his life on the line to preserve slavery.  Evidence he believed in it.  He will forever be regarded as a figure of racism. There's no changing that.  

                New York was very much part of the Union, therefore a plaque in a small town park in Anywhere, New York commemorating a general on the losing side of a rebellion the state fought against is inexplicable.  Why on earth was it there?

                See, if I was a black person and I went to Lasdon Park and saw that, my reaction would be that it was there to remind me of my place, a not-so- subtle indication that I was not welcome.

                Any ethic group encountering a tangible symbol of past oppression would feel the same way.  If you were Jewish, and encountered a swastika or a plague commemorating Hitler, how would you feel?

                Unwelcome.

                Black people do not feel welcome in the park because of the plaque. Bottom line.  That’s why it was removed.  Because the park is supposed to be enjoyed by everyone, not just white folk.  And don’t worry about erasing history, we’ve got five hundred thousand boring documentaries on the History channel to remind us.  Too many people get a kick out of reenacting scenes from the Civil War for us to forget.  Don’t be ridiculous. 

                This country has actively tried to erase history before.  We tried to erase the genocide of Native Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the enforced sterilization of those we consider inferior, (just to name a few) and guess what?  The people to whom this happened?  Never forgot.  Never.  Thirty years ago, we were taught “Indians” were savages and the bad guys, and even though that was taught to every American kid, we now know the truth.

                This country actively tries to erase history, but no one forgets.  Even when the actual act was several generations in the past, it was not forgotten.  But we’re supposed to be buying some hooey that we need to keep plaques and statues and other shit that make whole groups of people feel like crap because, gee, otherwise everyone might forget. 

                Which begs the question, wouldn’t you want someone to forget that their ancestors came here in chains, so they could fully assimilate and take pride in this country?  Why would anyone think it’s so important to remind them that they were once thought subhuman?

                I basically expressed those thoughts. 

                Enter "Roger."

                I don’t know him, but I have friends that do.  Small town, and all that.  He appears to be around my older sister’s age, fifties.  Well, "Roger" had a bug up his ass because he married a woman who has the blood of a Confederate soldier running through her veins, and he feels that removing a plaque commemorating Lee from the park is disrespectful to her and his daughter. (Although they live in North Carolina, they might have one day gone on a pilgrimage to Lasdon Park to see the plaque erected in the memory of Robert E. Lee).  Oh, and let me add that he very nastily told me next time to keep my opinions to myself.  Because you know, otherwise some wannabe redneck asshole named "Roger" will take me to task, oh no!

                I fired back, of course, stating that 1.Being descended from a Confederate soldier is nothing to brag about or be proud of 2. I’m more worried about disrespecting the living than I am about being disrespectful to the long dead. 

                Oh, and I also told him not to hold his breath waiting for me to keep my opinions to myself.  #Truth #Facts

                This sent him into what can only be described as a meltdown. 

                His first act was to delete his comment.  I was aware and shrugged it off.  "Roger" didn’t have a comeback, so he took the coward’s way out.  Whatever, Dude.  I was ready to move on with life without giving it another thought.  That is, after all, what normal people do.  The end.

                But that was not the end of it for "Roger".  I guess he couldn’t sleep with the knowledge that a woman bested him in an exchange on frigging Facebook, so he returned to the post and pretended he didn’t know why I was tagging him and arguing with him. (Because he’d deleted his comment, if you follow.  Seriously, what a genius thing for a grown ass man in his fifties to do).   And, trying to be clever, he stalked my page (not too far, just enough to read the autobiography) that I wrote tongue-in-cheek ten years ago and never bothered updating.  He returned to Facebook wondering aloud why this crazy cat lady who lives with her mother was picking on him. (He didn't stalk my page far enough to learn my mother is dead). Then he went on about how he’s a hardworking man who has paid taxes and taken care of his family (which means that it's okay to be racist) and then told me I have no life experience. He somehow knew this from reading my five line ten year old autobiography on Facebook. The implication there was I lacked the life experience to know racism is okay.

                I responded by posting a screenshot of his earlier comment.  Sorry, "Roger", that whole deleting the comment and then pretending you never wrote it was a bold and risky move, bound to fail.

                There was no coming back or saving face after that, and this was devastaitng to "Roger", because he was under the impression the entire town was watching this argument, meanwhile, probably the only people reading it were friends from my Facebook page who were there because I told them about it.

                I mentioned that I work hard too, in fact I’ve written six books, and that really stuck in his craw.  He started private messaging me last night as I was sitting in a line of about thirteen cars during a snowstorm waiting for a tow truck to clear the road of a bunch of cars that spun out.  Yes, really.  I glanced at my phone and said (aloud, because I talk to myself, especially in the car) “Fuck off, I’m not reading that.”

                I arrived home, resisted temptation to read his private message, watched television, went to bed, figured that was the end of "Roger".

                Well, no.  Once again, "Roger" couldn’t sleep.  After all, his scathing messages to me had gone unread; he couldn’t allow me, a woman, to believe I won?  No way.

                He’d already crossed into crazy territory, but hey, this is the same guy completely outraged that I insulted his Confederate blooded wife who allegedly left his sorry ass twenty years ago because he was a shitty husband and father.  (Small town, you know).  Freud would have a field day with this man frothing at the mouth because of the disrespect of their Confederate ancestor when he treated the actual flesh and blood beings like garbage.

                I awoke to five posts.  Yup. Five.  Each one crazier than the next. "Roger" somehow thinks I’m representing Somers by being a published author; like I was elected to write books or something.  He called upon "the people of Somers" to stop me from representing them.  Not quite sure how he thought the people of Somers would accomplish this.  Run me out of town?  Cut my hands off so I couldn’t write? 

                Funny, never thought of myself as representing Somers, especially since the minute I have the money, I’m buying a beach house on Cape Cod and getting out of Dodge. But I digress.

                Roger continued that I committed the heinous act of implying that his long gone Confederate blooded wife and daughter should be ashamed of their heritage.  He seems to feel that all the good people of Somers would be outraged and vote me out of being an author.

                  I gave this some thought.  No, I don’t think people should be ashamed of their ancestors.  Having shame denotes control.  You cannot control whom you ancestors are, or what they did; their choices were theirs.  Feeling that having a Confederate ancestor is nothing to celebrate or brag about is different than saying one should be ashamed of it.  After all, Confederate soldiers fought to keep slaves.  If you’re proud of that, it’s kind of saying that you think slavery was good and worth laying down your life to preserve.  So no, you shouldn’t be taking pride in it or bragging about it.  Get real.

                We share a country with the descendants of those slaves.  If the Confederacy succeeded, they would be slaves.  No wonder they find people taking pride in this disconcerting.  Wouldn’t you?

                Look at it a different way.  Say your grandmother was brutally murdered by the father of a family in your hometown; would you be okay with his family being proud of it?

                I skimmed Roger's other four rants; they were pretty much in the same vein.  He had a real bee in his bonnet about the author thing, I tell you.  He might as well have skywritten I am so jealous of this woman across the sky, it was so painfully obvious.  Also, he seemed to think I was a lot more famous than I am, but hey, this is the same guy that didn’t know it was possible to have a screenshot of a deleted comment. He accused me of spreading lies and slander about him, which was a bit rich coming from the same person who deleted his comment and tried to pretend he never wrote it and I was just talking to him because I'm crazy.

                He just didn’t seem to grasp there was no coming back from that.  It was all over.  Oh, would have been great if he could have pulled it off.  Too bad.

                Also, he kept making these proclamations TO THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWN OF SOMERS like he thought anyone gave a shit.  And tagging me, like, um, I already shared it to Facebook.  I’m not embarrassed about speaking out against racism.  Kind of mind boggling that anyone thinks I should be.  And Dude, no one’s reading the comments on a story that ran three days ago.  Seriously, they’re not.  I wouldn’t be reading them if he didn’t keep tagging me.

                Maybe I shouldn’t be writing this, because it just keeps it going.  But I always express myself through writing, and I refuse to be silenced by an asshole.  Just, doesn’t it seem like an awfully small thing for a guy that hasn’t even lived in New York for twenty years to get his knickers in a twist about?  Seriously, OMG, I implied that your long lost wife and daughter should be ashamed of their ancestors, holy God, that is so awful.  Will they ever recover from the blow?  This small thing sent this man into a frenzy.

                Which means there was a lot more behind it.

                Like, he saw I was a single woman and thought he could get away with bullying me because there was no man around to defend me.

                Sickening, huh?  He saw me as vulnerable, and he attacked.  Not surprising, given what others have told me about his history, and taking into account that he’s unapologetically racist, but still. 

                Part of my journey has been taking back my power from bullies like him.  I was shaking my head over how similar it was to incidents of bullying that took place in childhood.  I couldn’t believe a middle aged man was behaving so childishly.  When it first started, I was worried about his Confederate blooded daughter, growing up with such a misogynistic father.  Then I was informed that the wife left with the daughter many years ago, and she’s an adult.  That was a relief.  I’d hate to think of a child suffering in his care.

                I find it very disheartening that very few bullies seem to change.  We were sold a fiction on that as a society, that people grow up, that they stop engaging in the shitty behavior that they did in childhood.  This sort of thing never fails to put me in a pessimistic frame of mind.  It seems that people don’t mature out of their behavior, they just get better at hiding it.  Or pick people they think can’t fight back.

                Thoughts????