From the article:
A lawsuit before the Maryland Supreme Court seeks to stop the sale of a parking lot in Bethesda that currently covers the remains of a historically Black cemetery to developers.
The Bethesda African American Cemetery Coalition argues that since the land is a burial ground the sale of the land requires court approval if the land is to be used for another purpose.
“This issue is really critical because right now there are literally hundreds of African American burial grounds around the United States that are in various stages of desecration,” Steven Lieberman, the attorney who is representing the Coalition told USA TODAY in February.
I support the removal of all cemeteries, white or black. Land should be used for the living. Cremate or compost the dead.
I agree with this in principle, but cemeteries are for the living. It would be good if our post-death rituals could use up less land of course; I fully support social changes in that direction. For now though, a lot of people find comfort in visiting their ancestral remains.
Cemeteries are also extremely useful to archaeologists. We wouldn’t know anywhere near as much about the past without them.
also, we ritualize literally everything. Watching TV is a ritual, and you watch anything older, likely some dead people are in it or worked on it.
All food is eating dead things and most meals have some sort of ritual associated with it.
Even the most ardent atheist ritualizes their morning shower, or experiences the ritual of listening to music etc
The ritualization of a death process - per capita and at scale - is much less destructive to the planet, society and public spaces than, say, driving a car or playing golf.
A lawsuit before the Maryland Supreme Court seeks to stop the sale of a parking lot in Bethesda that currently covers the remains of a historically Black cemetery to developers.
“All these graves, all these souls, they were somebody one time,” Gagnard told the Alexandria Town Talk — a part of the USA TODAY Network. “And they still matter. So we just do our part.”
Goddamn. Turned it into a parking lot… some people suck
