Letter: We can still talk about Vance without the monument

Well, that didn’t take long. No sooner did Asheville clear away the last remains of the Vance Monument than a few rebellious diehards have launched a campaign to rebuild it.

Zeb 2.0 is needed, one commentator said, to regain an opportunity “to engage in meaningful dialogue about our past” and “to educate future generations about the nuances of our history” [“The Case for Rebuilding the Vance Monument,” May 15, Xpress]. Overlooking nuances of our history like white supremacy, a less conflicted voice claimed Zebulon Vance deserves a new monument because he devoted his life to “the welfare and defense of North Carolina” [“Why the Vance Monument Should Come Back,” June 5, Xpress].

Some of us have, it seems, an obelisk-shaped hole in our hearts. And it still has the name Vance on it.

But there’s good news!

You can put away the stones and the trowels and the plumb lines. No opportunities for meaningful dialogue have been lost. No chances for learning historical nuances have been destroyed. You’uns don’t need another obelisk honoring a racist.

The “visioning plan” currently approved by the City Council foresees a Pack Square Plaza that contains something better than a new monument — an open “gathering space” where Ashevilleans can discuss anything they want, including their infamous native son.

It’s a libertarian’s dream — a spontaneous community gabfest with no guidance from government on what subjects to talk about, no official prompts on what facts to consider important and no implied expectations on what conclusions to draw.

If fire-eating evangelists want to preach the gospel of Zeb in that sacred space, they can exorcise their demons to their heart’s content. If more thoughtful souls want to condemn him to perdition, they can do that, too. And the few curmudgeons still offended by the absence of Vance’s ghost in the public square can avert their eyes — a silent protest that won’t cost so much as a can of spray paint.

Some folks, of course, might just mill around without discussing nuances or exchanging dialogue or making any meaningful contributions to Critical Vance Studies at all. Every town has its slackers. But at least a few old-timers should be on hand to regale inquiring minds with tales of the great man’s adventures.

Picture a local graybeard describing how Vance, mustaches blowing defiantly in the wind, held the assembled masses spellbound as he remonstrated with unmatched eloquence against the African savages running amok after Emancipation.

Imagine the young’uns leaning forward in rapt attention as they discover how virtual slaves — excuse me, convicted vagrants — were worked to death in the mountains long after the Civil War just so Zeb could have a railroad.

If there’s time, they might even get around to literal slaveholding and that little Confederate dalliance.

Scholars from across the region will be able to stand on the very spot where the Vance Monument once was and proclaim to anyone who’ll listen how praiseworthy — complicated and despicably racist but ultimately praiseworthy — their boy was. They even might pocket a little loose change from compassionate passersby who mistake the learned commentary for something else.

The Pack Square plan also provides for a “meditation grove” where folks can retire to reflect on the nuances they have gleaned from their dialogues in the gathering space. So the participants won’t be all talk. They’ll have a chance to think, too.

Adventurous souls might even experiment with a reverse procedure whereby they do their thinking before they start talking.

But be warned. Many people might find the inversion of normal experience radically unsettling. Best stick to tradition when change confuses.

Before we close this chapter in Western North Carolina history, allow me a final postscript. As a self-appointed founder of the Critical Vance Studies movement, I’ve watched the debate for several years now, and I’ve come to find that the pro-Vance side, like the history to which it’s addressed, was full of unexpected nuances.

Defenders of the old Vance Monument tended to fall into one of four categories: those who ignored Zeb’s white supremacy entirely; those who thought that his white supremacy was no big deal; those who thought that honoring a white supremacist was no big deal; and those who thought that the best way to critically examine Vance’s racism was to honor him with a 75-foot obelisk in the town square. The latter opinion was the only one really worth discussing — and it has been great fun tearing it to shreds.

A fifth group despised Vance’s racism as much as I did, but they liked the look of the obelisk itself and just wanted a new honoree to replace him. I’ve never had a beef with Team Obelisk per se, apart from its pedestrian taste in public art, and we’ve all learned to make allowances for Asheville on that score. In fact, I’ve even lent some backhanded support myself on occasion.

In my heart, I favored demolition. But early on, I judged that option a bridge too far, so I was willing to settle for leaving Vance on one side of the pedestal and adding three other notables — including at least one Black person — on the other three sides.  Readers can review my argument here and here.

My fellow obelisk preservationists, though, didn’t do as good a job of making their case. They never explained how 12 decades of association with a virulent racist could be erased by a mere “oops” declaration; they never explained how their proposed modifications squared with North Carolina’s opaquely written monument-preservation law; and they never did a cost estimate for the remodeling work necessary to change the inscription. They just rhapsodized about the landmark’s supposed grandeur without sweating the hard details.

And that’s why they lost. People who think it’s sufficient to have a sweet, liberal conceit floating in their heads should not be surprised when more focused and determined revolutionaries carry the day. Team Obelisk has no one to blame but itself.

If people want to continue this discussion, they should feel free. But there’s really nothing to add. I suggest we just let the controversy fade to black.

— Peter Robbins
Marshall