Heroes Just For One Day
Fellow DE blogger Paul Smith Jr. has an excellent post reflecting on the stature of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Benjamin Franklin as American icons:
This, I think, is an important lesson. People need heroes. They need someone they can measure themselves against to try to aspire to. When people constantly criticize our national heroes, pointing out or claiming that Washington was a slaveowner, or Lincoln didn't really care about ending slavery until it became useful to the War effort, or that MLK knowingly consorted with Communists, I don't think they're doing a service to our nation.
Were any of these men perfect? Of course not. (Although it seems Washington comes darn close.) But we need them to be icons to us, to help us keep in mind the heritage we as Americans share. It's that shared history that unites us, especially as we're not a nation based on race or ethnicity. More than any other nation we need to understand our history and how we got here if we're to maintain our unity. Tearing down our shared icons can only lead to disunity in the future.
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