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AZDuck's Considered Opinion on Southern Monuments
AZDuck
Member Posts: 15,381
As a son of the South, I took a lot of pride in some of these kinds of monuments as a kid. In particular, there's a monument to Dick Dowling for the Battle of Bolivar Pass which should never be torn down. Defense of Texas from invaders is always a good thing. Also too, the Alamo, San Jacinto, Goliad, the "Come and Take It" flag from Gonzalez (although it's been profaned).
Likewise, if Virginians like their Robert E. Lee statues, they should be able to keep them. People in Charlottesville didn't like them anymore. It's really nobody else's business at that poont. I'm sure that Lynchburg and plenty of other towns in Virginia are still chock-full of Lee statues and Confederate symbols.
However, everyone should have a gimlet eye for Southern monuments which were erected as symbols of white supremacy during the Jim Crow period and especially post WW2, when, Southern "heritage" was becoming code for white supremacy and their exponents' and their desire to keep darkie down.
General Lee himself is a contradictory figure. Owned slaves, did not want Virginia to secede, but when it did, he followed his state. His plantation in Arlington was seized by the Federal government and turned into a war cemetery for Union soldiers, now known as Arlington National Cemetery. Tequilla referenced "Washington and Lee University." The "Lee" is because he served as the university's president after the Civil War, and his management helped prevent the closure of the institution.
Lee himself did not want Confederate symbology at his funeral, and disapproved of it generally.
Put another way, there's ONE monument to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in Germany, despite his unquestioned talents as a leader and his opposition to Hitler. That monument is located where Rommel committed suicide rather than face trial by a Nazi kangaroo court.
And yes, the Rebellion of Treason in Defense of Slavery is roughly akin to Nazism on the good<---->bad spectrum. Anyone saying it was about state's rights needs to read the goddam Confederate constitution or the writings of any secessionists.
People in whose states and towns Civil War monuments are located can best decide how and whether they should continue to be displayed. If they are displayed, IMO, they should be accompanied with an interpretive plaque describing the role of slavery in the Confederacy, post-Civil War Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement which helps to illustrate how the monument came to be.
TL;DR- if they like their racist monuments, they can keep them
Likewise, if Virginians like their Robert E. Lee statues, they should be able to keep them. People in Charlottesville didn't like them anymore. It's really nobody else's business at that poont. I'm sure that Lynchburg and plenty of other towns in Virginia are still chock-full of Lee statues and Confederate symbols.
However, everyone should have a gimlet eye for Southern monuments which were erected as symbols of white supremacy during the Jim Crow period and especially post WW2, when, Southern "heritage" was becoming code for white supremacy and their exponents' and their desire to keep darkie down.
General Lee himself is a contradictory figure. Owned slaves, did not want Virginia to secede, but when it did, he followed his state. His plantation in Arlington was seized by the Federal government and turned into a war cemetery for Union soldiers, now known as Arlington National Cemetery. Tequilla referenced "Washington and Lee University." The "Lee" is because he served as the university's president after the Civil War, and his management helped prevent the closure of the institution.
Lee himself did not want Confederate symbology at his funeral, and disapproved of it generally.
Put another way, there's ONE monument to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in Germany, despite his unquestioned talents as a leader and his opposition to Hitler. That monument is located where Rommel committed suicide rather than face trial by a Nazi kangaroo court.
And yes, the Rebellion of Treason in Defense of Slavery is roughly akin to Nazism on the good<---->bad spectrum. Anyone saying it was about state's rights needs to read the goddam Confederate constitution or the writings of any secessionists.
People in whose states and towns Civil War monuments are located can best decide how and whether they should continue to be displayed. If they are displayed, IMO, they should be accompanied with an interpretive plaque describing the role of slavery in the Confederacy, post-Civil War Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement which helps to illustrate how the monument came to be.
TL;DR- if they like their racist monuments, they can keep them
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While those in the march were small minded idiots, it's best for everyone if you just let them exist in their own vacuum. Should they have been allowed to march in peace, none of this shit would have happened and they would have been ridiculed as the backward ass racists and idiots that they are. But harmless ones. You aren't going to change these people's minds on race issues. You just hope that they don't breed and pass that shit on. And when you fight them on the street, they are going to do some crazy shit. They have nothing to lose.
Other than Grants Pass I can't think of anything that has the winner on it. For instance the Federal refuge here is named after Joe Wheeler and the state park up the road on the Elk River is named after him too.
Essentially everything down here is named after a racist and the catch all is "It's tradition."
I lived in the area of Germany where almost all of the fighting took place and there are Nazi graves stones everywhere, but that's it. It's like the Rommel statue. They were honored where they died because they were Germans and they were fighting for Germany which is always a noble venture, but there isn't Nazi shit everywhere and everything named after them.
The love of racist, treasonous, losers over a hundred years later is pathetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appomattox_(statue)
A short way from the statue is a stone historic marker with a bronze plaque upon which is engraved the following:
"THE CONFEDERATE STATUE
The unarmed Confederate soldier standing in
the intersection of Washington and Prince
Streets marks the location where units from
Alexandria left to join the Confederate Army
on May 24, 1861. The soldier is facing the
battlefields to the South where his comrades
fell during the War Between the States. The
names of those Alexandrians who died in service
for the Confederacy are inscribed on the base
of the statue. The title of the sculpture is
“Appomattox” by M. Casper Buberl.
The statue was erected in 1889 by the Robert E. Lee Camp
United Confederate Veterans."
A few years ago Alexandria, now even more liberal, began to discuss tearing the statue down or moving it. It has not gone anywhere, yet. I'm generally ok with it as it is since as far as I can tell there isn't hiding in this area from the fact that the war was over slavery. Similarly no one hides on Mt. Vernon that Washington owned slaves or in Monticello that Jefferson did.
I also remember very distinctly some quiz contest I did in elementary school (team format) where the answer to a question was The Battle of Bull Run and our team answered it as the Battle of Manassas, because that was what came to mind and we were taught both the Union and Confederate names for many battles. We were initially told we were wrong and then appealed and were given credit for getting it right. Confederate battle names matter!
The discussions are starting to occur about changing school names which were named for Confederates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-school-board-votes-to-change-name-of-jeb-stuart-high-school/2017/07/28/b5c45d44-7323-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.9f5b59a403b6
I like Generals who win; I don't like Generals who lose. They're losers and should not be celebrated.
Lee was a loser.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/opinion/mitch-landrieus-speech-transcript.html?_r=0