This letter to the editor was originally published in The Cass City Chronicle (7/22/2020) in response to a letter calling for the renaming of Cass City, published on 7/15/2020.
Dear Editor, I read with interest and a measure of empathy the letter written by Mr. Kranz in last week’s edition of the paper. Mr. Kranz argued that it might be a step in the right direction to change the name of Cass City, since Lewis Cass advocated for and participated in “Indian removal.” At the very least, he argued, the name change might spur on “more serious conversations.” In some ways, I agree with Mr. Kranz. We ought to remember the atrocities perpetrated in the past. We ought to be careful about who we hold up as role models and heroes. We ought to be cautious of our acceptance of the victor’s version of history alone. We ought not brush over those parts of the past which inconveniently disrupt our ideals. But I would like to make a couple of points that I think deserve some thought. As a local historian, I will point out one, minor technicality--Cass City was not named to celebrate Lewis Cass or to commemorate his actions; rather, the town was named thus in reference to its proximity to the Cass River. While this does not negate the fact that the village’s name derives from the man himself, it is necessary to understand the origins of the town name and the intent of the founders, who were actually remarkably uncreative in their choice of a town name. More importantly, and more to my point, is the fact that Mr. Kranz’s arguments beget other questions, chief among them--Where do we stop? Should we scrub the United States of any reference to Abraham Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus? Do we ban the Communist Manifesto from library shelves and bar Marxist groups from organizing (it was, afterall, Karl Marx whose ideas led to the murder of one hundred million and whose antisemitism is well-documented)? Do we shut down Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by noted eugenicist Margaret Sanger? (Incidentally, this is one organization whose closure I would applaud loudly, not because of its founder’s actions, but because of its scandalous devaluation of human life, its targeting of minority women, and its savage murder of unborn children; but I digress). Do we change the name of every street and building in the Union named in honor of John F. Kennedy, a known womanizer, and Martin Luther King, Jr., whose womanization and acquiescence of rape have been well-documented? My point, of course, is that our current cultural moment, this obsession with erasing references to those individuals and ideas we find abhorrent, is unsustainable and unprofitable. Unsustainable because there is no end to it. Unprofitable because it does not get to the heart of the matter, summed up in one word that is most certainly not in vogue today: sin. Those Christian missionaries Mr. Kranz referenced in his well-written letter, who “opposed most strongly” the Indian Removal Act did so because they had a right understanding of human nature. They understood what we moderns would do well to relearn ourselves, namely that the heart of every person is unfathomably evil in its intents and actions. C.S. Lewis, lauded Oxford don and popular writer of The Chronicles of Narnia, voiced succinctly what we are seeing in our own day. He wrote of “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited,” a concept he dubbed, in a way only an Englishman can, chronological snobbery. Lewis’ point is that every generation sees itself as the arbiter of truth, the gold standard for morality and righteousness. We celebrate our own debauchery as contemporary “liberation,” yet condemn the sins of our fathers’ pasts with a roll of the eyes and a tisk of the tongue. We fail to see that there will come a day when our grandchildren will ask in bewilderment how we could hold up as heroes many of the social justice advocates we laud today. And the answer is that we have the same sin nature that those who came before us had. None of us is righteous, no not one. No campaign to tear down monuments, no movement to expunge names from the pages of history, and, indeed, no call to change the name of a little village in Michigan’s Thumb, no matter how well-intentioned, will ultimately change anything at all, because such actions are futile attempts to deal with symptoms of sin, not sin itself. If we were honest in our historical research, and our own anecdotal experience with human beings, we would admit that no public figure is truly worthy of unqualified celebration; indeed, if we were even more painfully honest, we would admit that our own secret thoughts and actions are often not only cringeworthy, but damnable. Yes, let’s have conversations about the heroic and the heinous of our past. Let’s grapple with the messiness of human action. But if we are content with cultural revolution instead of personal repentance, we are wasting our time. Respectfully, Tyler Perry Las Vegas, NV (formerly of Cass City)
Rick Hoag
7/25/2020 10:10:46 am
I say leave it Cass City..
Jill
7/25/2020 11:36:15 am
Leave it be , if they don't like it they can move
Judy
7/25/2020 02:48:21 pm
I agree with Ty Perry has said. What is any of this going to change now, or in the future.? People, in general, are not doing research on topics that are center stage.
Paul Kerbyson
7/26/2020 11:03:14 am
Learn from history & move on. If name is changed, it will ALWAYS be CASS CITY!
Mark Hobart
7/27/2020 12:12:32 pm
Cass City, is my hometown. My parents raised me there. Graduated in 1986. Not once did we discuss Indian removals, or racism as we were taught, to study, work, get some education, make a full balanced life for yourself. I would be unable to digest a name change after all these years. Comments are closed.
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