The Honorable Judge Robert McGuiness
Alameda County Superior Court
I have been asked to submit a statement on the upcoming hearing before you in the matter of Jynona Norwood vs. Evergreen Cemetery.
While I truly understand the pain and anguish Ms. Norwood is experiencing, you have such a difficult task before you in weighing not only the law, but what is the right thing to do.
I have been asked to speak for my family who lost two loved ones in that tragic event.
I would like to implore that you take the following into consideration.
The Holocaust; such a terrible terrible occurrence, yet, we remember this by the many museums dedicated to the remembrance of those that not only perished at that time, but the survivors and their generations of family members who lost.
I speak now of personal events in being a highly decorated two tour US Army Viet Nam Combat Medic Veteran. Even though I cannot bring myself to visit the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington DC, it serves to comfort hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
I relocated from California with my family of 5 to Tennessee 9 years ago. My daughter got into a fist fight with a White girl in school over the display of the Confederate Flag, being Black she felt terribly offended. I sat my family down and explained to them this: to many the confederate Flag represents their heritage. I said to some it may mean racism but to many it represents Southern Pride. I told them that this was history and you cannot change history, you cannot simply think you can bury it and think it would go away.
Even in ancient history when pharaohs would erase the name and any reference of outcast from the obelisks, books and even forbidden to speak the name, yet here we are today studying those very same outcasts.
Should Jim Jones Jr. change his name to comfort the minds and feelings of those offended? No, neither should we try to erase the events and names of those involved in that tragedy.
I implore you to sensitively rule in the favor of not trying to erase, bury, ignore or otherwise lie by denial the events that did indeed happen.
Nathanael Jackson and Family; Loved ones of Ronald and Nancy Sines