Should Dublin Irish Festival be chastised for flying the Irish flag?
Re “Juneteenth divides us,” June 21: Don Denton’s letter criticizing Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson’s statement that “Juneteenth is a holiday for all Americans” raises questions that should not be dismissed lightly.
Denton finds the singing of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and the raising of a Juneteenth flag at the Statehouse somehow objectionable.
The anthem was written as a poem in 1900 to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and adopted by the NAACP as its official song in 1919. That year included the Red Summer, during which white supremacist violence in more than three dozen American cities, mostly in the north, resulted in the deaths of more than 50 Black Americans.
Denton writes that “[M]ore… ethnic events will foster division.” Uh-oh.
His logic suggests that in August, we should challenge the Dublin Irish Festival’s flying of the Irish flag and the singing of “The Foggy Dew” and “God Save Ireland” or, heaven forbid, “Danny Boy.”
Oktoberfest events feature the flying of the German flag and the singing of “Ein Prosit,” “In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus” and my German grandmother’s sentimental favorite, “Du, du liegst mir am Herzen.”
I doubt that suggesting these events be canceled or that they should feature the singing of “You’re a Grand Old Flag” would be well received locally. But who knows?
Steve Abbott, Columbus
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Think ‘ethnic events’ like Juneteenth are divisive? Cancel Dublin Irish Festival. | Opinion
Reporting by Letters to the Editor / The Columbus Dispatch
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