Those People

I went to both meetings where the Cemetery Commission discussed closing the Charter Street Cemetery. I submitted a letter against the closure.  I seem to have been the only one.  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.

The discussion at those meetings was ... interesting.   

"I hate what Salem has become," said one member of the commission (I did not catch her name).  "Everyone comes here and everything is about witches.  You can't go downtown without seeing a bunch of people in black talking about horror."

She went on a bit from there, and that's when I started to see a big piece of the puzzle.

This seems to be less about historic preservation, and more about Those People, the ones in black talking about horror.  The people "we" don't like, the ones who aren't "like us," the ones who come here for the "wrong reasons."  Dammit, why aren't they coming to hear about the spice trade?  Or Hawthorne?  And why cant I go to Almy's on a Sunday afternoon anymore? 

We're all in favor of historic preservation.  Nobody wants to see the Charter Street Cemetery trashed.  It's irreplaceable.

But ...

Nobody was saying that at those meetings. 

There was finger-wagging at Those People.  The ones who come here for the wrong reasons, the reasons we don't like.  They're messing it all up for Us because they don't Get It ... like We do.   

I could be wrong, but I just feel that when it comes to sorting out the arguments in favor of closing the cemetery, historic preservation seems to have been the last thing on anybody's mind.