It’s hard not to feel sorry for the folks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as they try to figure out what to do with Silent Sam, the bronze statue honoring a Confederate soldier that occupied a prominent spot on campus until August of this year, when protests resulted in the toppled monument being moved to an undisclosed location (no joke).
Watching UNC officials wrestle with this issue has been painfully hilarious. Ever go to the circus and see a Volkswagen Beetle arrive at the center ring, disgorging an endless stream of clowns who proceed to run around maniacally, kicking up a sawdust storm of chaos in their oversized shoes? OK, you’ve got the picture.
University Life has learned that a solution may be at hand. Through back channels, the President of the United States has contacted UNC and offered to place Silent Sam near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. According to a confidential source within the Administration who uses the code name J-Kush, the President’s logic is straightforward: “Both monuments honor soldiers. Nobody knows who Silent Sam really was, except that his name was Sam and he didn’t talk much. Pretty much the same story for the unnamed guys in the Tomb.”
J-Kush maintains that “there is no way we’d let protesters get near any of the monuments at Arlington, so we’ve got that covered. Of course, the President realizes that using a U.S. soldier to guard Sam might draw criticism, given the whole Confederate thing, so the site would be patrolled by Clarence ‘Hard Tack’ Clussner, a retired security guard who worked for the Winn-Dixie grocery chain for over 35 years. Clarence is good people. He doesn’t look for trouble, but he doesn’t walk away from it, either. He once snatched a turkey leg from a shoplifter and then beat him to within an inch of his life with it. Trust me, that was the last time anybody tried to steal poultry from a Winn-Dixie in Jacksonville, Florida.”
We asked J-Kush if relocating Silent Sam to such a high-profile, sacred location would send the wrong message to the American people about how the President views the role of slavery in U.S. history.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Well, OK then. Stay tuned.