Opinion Today: 'My body is a confederate monument'

It's possible to change people's minds.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story June 26, 2020 By Honor Jones Cover Stories Editor “I have rape-colored skin.” So begins Caroline Randall Williams’s powerful essay about being descended from black women and the white men who enslaved them. The headline is: “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument.” One of the things I like best about this piece is how persuasive it is. You might be thinking: Aren’t Op-Eds always supposed to be persuasive? Well, yeah, but I sometimes worry that too much opinion writing is about trying to make already outraged people slightly more outraged. The best Op-Eds, like Caroline’s, do more than that; they make readers see the world differently. She’s not just writing for the people who already believe that Confederate monuments should be torn down. She’s also writing for the people who don’t get what the problem is. Once they’ve read this, they can’t say that anymore. Caroline’s essay made me think about one of my mentors, Trish Hall, who used to run Op-Ed. She published a wonderful book last year called “Writing to Persuade.” It begins with a list of basic rules of persuasion. One of them is “emphasize your similarities”: “People are more likely to agree with people who are similar to them.” Caroline turns that tactic inside out to devastating effect. “You cannot dismiss me,” she writes. “You cannot say it wasn’t my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates.” “Who dares to tell me to celebrate them?” she asks. My colleague, Jen Parker, started talking with Caroline way back in 2017 about the ideas behind this Op-Ed. I commend their patience, because I think it has the greatest chance of making a difference now. If you know someone who is still, in 2020, complaining about empty pedestals and rewritten history, send them this piece. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Jay Paul/Reuters   You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them? By Caroline Randall Williams Forward this newsletter to friends … … to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com Here’s what we’re focusing on today: Editors’ Picks We Know How George Floyd Died The idea that drugs played a role is just a new version of an old racist myth. By Carl L. Hart That Would Never Happen at My Parents’ Job People with the same jobs as their parents on how professions have changed. By Lora Kelley Why Did Kim Jong-un’s Sister Become the Face of North Korea? He’s fierce. She’s fiercer. 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