The Politically Correct Memorial

January 27, 2002

by Charles E. Perry

By now, I’m sure everyone has heard about the flap over the proposed memorial for the World Trade Center Firemen. There is an historic photo which shows three firemen raising an American flag over the rubble, and it was proposed to make a statue depicting this as a memorial. Big problem though, all of the firefighters in the picture were white, so the PC crowd has decreed that one firefighter in the statue be black, and another be Hispanic.

Well, why stop there? If we’re going to alter the depiction of a real, historical event so nobody feels left out, let’s go all the way! The white firefighter should be carrying a purse, and flirting with the black firefighters so gays can be represented, too. There should be a female fire chief observing them and telling them how to do it, both so that women can be represented, and because we all know what clods men are.

One of the firefighters should be in a wheelchair. I know it doesn’t happen in real life, but we surely don’t want to leave the handicapped out, do we? And while we’re at it, we have to add a fourth firefighter to the scene who must obviously be a Hassidic Jew to represent all Jewish Americans. We certainly don’t want to leave them out.

Now, this may generate some controversy, but we have to represent Arabs as well. I propose that we have an Arabic head lying atop the rubble. Sure, it’s not the same as giving them a firefighter, but at least they’ll be represented. If anyone asks, the Arabic head came from one of the victims who was in the trade center at the time. There’s no need to be nasty about it, and we certainly wouldn’t want to remind anyone that the terrorists were from the Middle East.

Chelsea Clinton can be portrayed in the background,clutching a cup of Starbucks, and gaping in horror at the flag being raised. She can represent all those who were offended at the flag being displayed on fire trucks and the like after 9/11. Next to her, we could have former President Clinton taking an envelope full of money from a Chinese banker, thereby getting Asians represented in the memorial too, and honoring the man whose destruction of our intelligence capability was one of the primary causes of the event.

There should be a hand clutching an eagle feather and some beads rising from the rubble. This would serve to honor Native Americans, and to remind us all that if we hadn’t stolen Manhattan from them in the first place, there would have been no Twin Towers to fall. You can’t leave those "mea culpas" out of a good, politically correct memorial.

Now, some people that I’ve talked about this with have suggested that the firefighter in the wheelchair should be FDR, but I have to adamantly say no. You have to draw the line somewhere, and having FDR in the memorial just wouldn’t be historically accurate.

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Charles E. Perry is a freelance writer living in Michigan. He has done a variety of things in his life, including Ward Supervisor at the State of Michigan's Maximum Security Mental Facility. His degree is in accounting, but he discovered writing and now spends his time hunched over a keyboard, hollow-eyed, looking for just the right word. Perry is the author of "How Government Should Work: A Look at the Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States," currently pending publication.

Send the author an E mail at Perry@ConservativeTruth.org.

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