LAST WEEK the Virginia state Senate narrowly rejected a proposal to designate April as Confederate History Month. This came as other parts of the country were honoring Black History Month. Come May, still others will celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Then when we reach June, homosexuals will have Gay Pride Month. September is Hispanic Heritage Month.
This sampling is by no means exhaustive, and not a month, week or day goes by when some group or another is not flaunting its pride in its collective identity. Still, to this day, no one has sanctioned an Individual Pride Month to celebrate our country's unique heritage of respecting individual rights, even if we have not always been perfectly steadfast in this regard.
We must never forget the defining events and institutions in our history, for better or for worse, that have left us where we are today. But there is no reason why we cannot commemorate as individuals and Americans. This is especially so when "Black History Month" calls attention to slavery, segregation, and discrimination -- the very deprivation of blacks of their individuality and their rights as Americans. Collective identity commemorations have a dual effect of not only dredging up important history that needs to remain at the forefront of our country's conscience, but also threatening to fossilize fissures in our society by continuing to focus on what divides us rather than what unites us.
At best, group identity commemorations are facetious. Consider what it means to claim pride over the accomplishments of others with whom we are deemed to share a group identity. Minorities might claim pride at the great accomplishments in civil rights in our history. But what claim do these individuals have over those accomplishments? Similarly, what claim do Confederate descendants really have on the institutions and practices of their ancestors? Unless one somehow believes in the intergenerational, biological continuity of identity, it is illogical in a metaphysical sense to claim pride in what others have done in the past. We can only be proud of what we ourselves do today
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 3 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 3 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
