The Confederate Monuments Are Clearly About Hate, Not Heritage

Facts are stubborn things.

Confederate Statue And Flag

The opponents of removing Confederate statues from public places have often made the argument that the monuments are meant as a symbol of the supposed heritage of the South, not as symbols of racial prejudice or hatred. However, the history of when most of these monuments were erected demonstrates quite clearly that this is a lie.

Consider, for example, this chart from that Kevin Drum shares: (click to enlarge)


blog_confederate_monuments2

The chart shows two distinct peaks in the appearance of Confederate statues, one in the early part of the 20th Century, and the other during the Civil Rights Era. As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp points out this is not coincidental:

It’s not an accident that these statues were mostly built when the South was busy establishing Jim Crow and defending it from the civil rights movement. This is because the purpose of Confederate monuments, as Princeton historian Kevin Kruse argues on Twitter, is not to serve as pure historical markers — but to glorify the Confederate cause. They assert that a war fought on behalf of slavery was a just one, that the people who fought it were morally upright, and that white supremacy should be cherished as part of Southern “heritage.”

That’s why Trump’s equivalency between Confederate statues and one of George Washington misses the mark. Washington was a slave owner, yes, but the meaning of a Washington statue is not necessarily pro-slavery or pro-white supremacy — whereas that’s exactly the point of the vast majority of Confederate memorials in the United States.

Once you understand this point, it becomes obvious why neo-Nazis and white supremacists would rally to the defense of Confederate memorials. The only outstanding question is why the president of the United States would do the same.

In The Washington Post, meanwhile, History Professor Karen Cox expands on this argument:

Almost none of the monuments were put up right after the Civil War. Some were erected during the civil rights era in the early 1960s, which coincided with the war’s centennial, but the vast majority of monuments date to between 1895 and World War I. They were part of a campaign to paint the Southern cause in the Civil War as just and slavery as a benevolent institution, and their installation came against a backdrop of Jim Crow violence and oppression of African Americans. The monuments were put up as explicit symbols of white supremacy.

The group responsible for the majority of these memorials was the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), the most influential white women’s organization in the South in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Honoring Confederate heroes, generals and soldiers alike, was one of the group’s primary objectives, and the hundreds of monuments throughout the South — and beyond — serve as testimony to the Daughters’ aggressive agenda to vindicate the Confederacy. That lasting power of the mythology they made is still evident today in the raging battles over the fate of the memorials: While Baltimore officials acted quickly to take down four Confederate monuments in that city Tuesday night, laws prevent the removal of such memorials in some of the states that seceded from the Union during the Civil War. Most of those laws were passed only recently, in reaction to calls to remove the monuments or change street names honoring Confederate generals.

The 1890s, when the UDC was founded and monument building began in earnest, represented a decade of virulent racism across the South. Not content to disenfranchise black men, Southern whites went on a lynching spree. Ida B. Wells, the African American journalist and anti-lynching crusader, documented 186 lynchings of black people in 1893 alone — mostly men but women and children, too. As she wrote in her account “The Red Record,” these “scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land.”

Violence against blacks only increased in the early decades of the 20th century. In addition to continued lynching across the South, the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 demonstrated how seriously white men took their supremacy over African Americans: An estimated 10,000 white men and boys in the city went after black men, beating dozens to death and injuring hundreds more.

Amid that brutality, the pace of Confederate monument construction increased. The UDC and other like-minded heritage organizations were intent on honoring the Confederate generation, establishing a revisionist history of what they called “The War Between the States.” According to this Lost Cause mythology, the South went to war to defend states’ rights, slavery was essentially a benevolent institution that imparted Christianity to African “savages,” and, while the Confederacy was defeated, theirs was a just cause and those who fought were heroes. The Daughters regarded the Ku Klux Klan, which had been founded to resist Reconstruction, as a heroic organization, necessary to return order to the South. Order, of course, meant the use of violence to subdue newly freed blacks.

(…)

While Confederate monuments did honor their white heroes, they did not always rely on the true history of what took place between 1861 and 1865. Nor was that their intent. Rather, they served to rehabilitate white manhood — not as the losers of a war, but, as the monument in Charlotte, states, preservers of “the Anglo Saxon civilization of the South.”

Today’s defenders of Confederate monuments are either unaware of the historical context or do not care. Like generations of whites before them, they are more invested in the mythology that has attached itself to these sentinels of white supremacy, because it serves their cause.

The history of these monuments is nearly identical to the history behind the reappearance of the Confederate Flag, and more specifically the battle flag used by the Army of Northern Virginia. For much of the post-Civil War era, that flag remained largely confined to places such as Confederate cemeteries and other such locations. It wasn’t until the early part of the 20th Century and the Civil Rights Era that the flag began appearing in public again. Additionally, it was during the Civil Rights Era that states began to incorporate the design of the flag into their stage flag as part of what came to be called the “Massive Resistance” movement that came into being in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and other assaults on the Jim Crow regime that arose across the South. The intent of the resurgence of the display of the flag, and its incorporation into the state flags of states such as Georgia, Mississipi, and other states was to intimidate African-Americans and others involved in the Civil Rights movement and to rally whites around an easily recognizable symbol. In both cases, there was no appeal to heritage, only an appeal to racial hatred.

Given this, as Beauchamp notes above, there is a clear difference between statues honoring the Confederacy and those honoring men such as Washington and Jefferson. In the second case, the statues were and are meant to honor those who established the United States notwithstanding their imperfection. In the first case, the clear intent was to enshrine hatred and make it socially acceptable. The question is why the President of the United States would defend those who clearly wish to intimidate African-Americans and other minorities.

I’ll leave it to the reader to answer that question themselves.

 

FILED UNDER: Race and Politics, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. MarkedMan says:

    What is it with Republicans and their needing to live in some alternate fairy world of facts? It didn’t used to be this way.

  2. KM says:

    You know, this all could be solved by some enterprising conservative willing to host these statues on private land. They can either donate the land to a non-profit for the tax write-off or charge admission to see these pieces of history on private property with a gigantic sign telling liberals to suck it, there’s nothing they can do.

    Hmmm, wonder why no one has offered?? Could it be nobody actually cares about the damn statues themselves??

  3. Kylopod says:

    @MarkedMan:

    What is it with Republicans and their needing to live in some alternate fairy world of facts? It didn’t used to be this way.

    Define “used to.” The GOP’s embrace of “alternate facts” goes back to the rise of Reagan, and their embrace of the neo-Confederate cause can be traced to the Southern Strategy of Nixon. In other words, what you’re describing didn’t happen just yesterday; it’s about a half-century old.

  4. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    These things memorialize treason. They mark the southern states seceding from this nation for the express purpose of keeping human beings in the bonds of slavery. If you choose to aggrandize that then you are a pathetic human being. e.g. Mr. Trump.

  5. mattT says:

    They celebrate a heritage of hate.

  6. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @KM:

    some enterprising conservative willing to host these statues on private land.

    Could they house all the Neo-Nazi’s, in perpetuity, as well?

  7. mattT says:

    @mattT: My first comment could be taken as “Southern Culture” = “racist hate,” which was not my intended meaning.

    There are just so many other things to celebrate about the South; so many other possible heroes. Why celebrate – above all save God, for some southerners apparently – the leaders of a violent rebellion that killed hundreds of thousands in defense of chattel slavery?

  8. MarkedMan says:

    @Kylopod:

    In other words, what you’re describing didn’t happen just yesterday; it’s about a half-century old.

    Read more: https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-confederate-monuments-are-clearly-about-hate-not-heritage/#ixzz4pwvsnffO

    Yeah, but I’m more than a half century old myself…

  9. CSK says:

    It’s always interested me that, outside of the south, you almost invariably see Confederate regalia, most particularly the battle flag, and swastikas adopted by criminals and white trash. In the rural areas of New England, if you encounter a pick-up truck with a gun rack, the Star and Bars fluttering from an improvised flag pole, a swastika painted on the hood, a bumper sticker that reads “Don’t like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SH!T, ” and a snarling Doberman chained in the truck bed, it is always wise to proceed quickly in the opposite direction.

    No kidding: The Confederate battle flag and swastikas seem to go together.

  10. karl Derums says:

    Give it a brake! If you give the man half a chance to do his job this country would be better off.
    Karlis Derums

  11. CSK says:

    @karl Derums:

    No one is stopping Trump from “doing his job” (which he doesn’t understand and has no interest in learning how to do) except Trump himself, with his idiotic Tweets, nonsensical off-the-cuff press conferences, and allegiance to the pack of neo-Nazis who are his most ardent supporters.

    You have to face the fact that this malevolent charlatan/buffoon/ignoramus/vulgarian thinks that the presidency means that he’s still the star of his own reality show. He’s not on your side. He thinks you’re garbage.

  12. JohnMcC says:

    @karl Derums: Gosh, Karl, when he comes on my teevee he’s always telling me he is doing his job. You oughta listen in sometime. Seems he’s created a million jobs and scared away huge bunches of Mexicans who were headed towards Texas. He’s pushed the stock exchange way way up into the stratosphere. He’s saved millions of coal miner’s jobs and is just on the verge of bringing peace to the middle east.

    Or are you calling Mr Trump a liar?

  13. Mister Bluster says:

    @karl Derums:..Give it a brake! If you give the man half a chance to do his job this country would be better off.

    How will this country be better off if the racist, pervert, Republican President Pork Chop Pud gets a border wall built?

  14. grumpy realist says:

    @karl Derums: He’s not a 3 year old toddling up to show us he made a doo-doo in the right place, y’know.

    Considering how your side whined so much about President Obama not having sufficient “experience” in spite of the fact that he had already been a Senator, I think I have a perfect justification to demand that anyone who runs for President of the United States to be able to hit the ground running and get things done. Working with the other branches of government is a given. If you can’t figure out how to do that from the beginning, don’t run for POTUS.

  15. Jack says:

    In the first case, the clear intent was to enshrine hatred and make it socially acceptable.

    Obviously the people of Pennsylvania, their apparently obvious participation as part of the southern war of aggression, and our federal government wanted to enshrine hatred and make it socially acceptable when they built confederate monuments in Gettysburg. Because that can be the only reason. Yeah, that.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/15/gettysburg-park-officials-confederate-monuments-here-stay/570779001/

  16. James Pearce says:

    @Jack:

    when they built confederate monuments in Gettysburg

    Isn’t Gettysburg an open air museum and not, like, a town where people live?

  17. reid says:

    @Jack: There’s certainly a difference between a battlefield and a school, town square, or courthouse.

  18. de stijl says:

    @karl Derums:

    A vehicle brakes.

  19. Jack says:

    @James Pearce: @reid: No. Either the monuments were built to enshrine hatred and make it socially acceptable or not. There is no grey area.

    Town squares and court houses are the local versions of open air museums. Most of these monuments were built during a time when the vast majority of people never traveled more than 20 miles from where they were born.

  20. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Jack:

    Good. A battlefield is the perfect place to depict the evil of the Confederacy & its ideals, as well as a perfect frame for illustrating the depth of the treason committed by its soldiers and those who assisted them.

  21. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Beyond that, don’t give this vomit the attention he craves.

  22. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:

    Could they house all the Neo-Nazi’s, in perpetuity, as well?

    A concentration camp perhaps.

    @karl Derums:

    Break, Karl, break. Its hard to take you seriously, when… Let’s just leave it at its hard to take you seriously

  23. de stijl says:

    @grumpy realist:

    As presidents go in US history, Obama is an outlier in previous experience.

    He was light in that regard. It doesn’t mean he was bad at the job or was unprepared. Traditionally, he would be regarded as underseasoned for the role. That was one of of McCain’s biggest cudgels.

  24. Ben Wolf says:

    Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

    The Confederates were proto-fascists. Fascists are to be crushed, not honored.

  25. James Pearce says:

    @Jack:

    Either the monuments were built to enshrine hatred and make it socially acceptable or not. There is no grey area.

    You don’t really believe that, Jack.

  26. karl Derums says:

    I am sorry guys, you seem to far superior to me in every respect. But I do not recall me bad mouthing the past president. I think I gave him a break (thats Latvian It means to behave) I am very sorry that I offened you Have anice day Karlis Derums

  27. Jack says:

    @James Pearce: The article is titled “The Confederate Monuments Are Clearly About Hate, Not Heritage”

    If you don’t believe that you should talk to Doug.

  28. Moosebreath says:

    @James Pearce:

    “Isn’t Gettysburg an open air museum and not, like, a town where people live?

    Umm, no:

    “Gettysburg is a borough and the county seat of Adams County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg (1863) and President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address are named for this town. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Battlefield in the Gettysburg National Military Park. As of the 2010 census, the borough had a population of 7,620 people”

  29. Kylopod says:

    @de stijl:

    As presidents go in US history, Obama is an outlier in previous experience.

    Modern history, maybe. Lincoln had even less experience–just two years in the House of Representatives following (just like Obama) eight in the Illinois state legislature. Charles Francis Adams, who served in Lincoln’s administration, once wrote:

    “I must then, affirm without hesitation that, in the history of our Government down to this hour, no experiment so rash has ever been made as that of elevating to the head of affairs a man with so little previous preparation for his task as Mr. Lincoln.”

    The criticism of Obama’s experience was not unreasonable when he was first running. (I’m not saying I believe Obama’s inexperience was disqualifying; I happen to think experience is overrated in presidents, and that when the dust settles history will judge Obama to have been an excellent president.) But it eventually devolved into a meaningless slur. I remember Rick Perry talking about Obama’s “inexperience” as late as 2015! When you’ve already been president for over 6 years, you might be incompetent, but by definition you cannot be “inexperienced.”

  30. de stijl says:

    @karl Derums:

    You spelled “break” correctly in the context it was used this time.

    Sorry if I won’t acknowledge your butt-hurt because you got dinged because you effed it up previously. That’s on you and no one else. You’ll need to find a way to deal.

  31. de stijl says:

    @Kylopod:

    Presidents with unassuming resumes have had a strong impact.

    Obama and Lincoln have left lasting rhetorical gifts that “prepared” Presidents have not.

  32. JohnMcC says:

    @karl Derums: Hey! Don’t go, Karl. Really I want to ask a serious question. On my side of things we always get this accusation that the scandals and turmoil surrounding this administration is our fault and we’re hamstringing this well-meaning president’s agenda.

    But every time I see Mr Trump standing in front of a mic he’s bragging about his accomplishments.

    WTF?

    Or, on the other hand, you could just go away and stay away.

  33. James Pearce says:

    @Moosebreath: Thanks for clearing that up. Does the park service have jurisdiction over the Confederate monuments in town? Are there any Confederate monuments in town?

    I’ve never been to Penn, so I don’t know, but I would guess the National Park part of Gettysburg is like the National Parks here in Colorado. You know, inside clearly delineated boundaries that separate it from any nearby town that may share the same name. But Gettysburg is different?

  34. al-Alameda says:

    @karl Derums:

    Give it a brake! If you give the man half a chance to do his job this country would be better off.
    Karlis Derums
    there is no doubt that Russia would be better off if Trump had half a chance to do his job

  35. Moosebreath says:

    @James Pearce:

    ” Does the park service have jurisdiction over the Confederate monuments in town? Are there any Confederate monuments in town?”

    It’s been about 20 years since I last went to Gettysburg, but there are definitely Confederate monuments there, which are under National Park Service jurisdiction.

    “I’ve never been to Penn, so I don’t know, but I would guess the National Park part of Gettysburg is like the National Parks here in Colorado. You know, inside clearly delineated boundaries that separate it from any nearby town that may share the same name. But Gettysburg is different?”

    I doubt that is the case at Gettysburg — it certainly isn’t at Valley Forge National Park, which is within a few miles of my office. I am pretty sure in both cases there was a pre-existing municipality within which the Park Service acquired land to create the park.

  36. JKB says:

    Interesting that the first big surge also coincides with the 1896 election where William McKinley organized an event for Confederate veterans, with Union veterans in a national reconciliatory act. Yes, this campaign event did propel McKinley and Republicans into dominance in national politics till FDR.

  37. de stijl says:

    I grant this olive branch.

    Any memorial or statue memorializing any CSA traitor erected before 1880 is exempt. But appropriate signage will be affixed.

    All later statues and memorials and flags will be moved at government expense to an appropriate area in the federal district.

    If you can’t contemporaneously celebrate your heroes via heroic bronze statues, you’ve failed at the basic structures of statehood.

    A country isn’t really a country unless it can afford to make statues.

    The CSA couldn’t sustain a state that could afford statues. It could barely afford uniforms.

    The CSA seceded. And they failed. That act has consequences.

  38. steve says:

    We visit battlefields on vacation. Gettysburg is fairly close and have been there quite a few times. (The guides are great now BTW.) The people of PA did not have much if anything to do with confederate memorials as it is a national site. The memorials are well out of town. You have to go out of your way to see them, much different than having a statue in the middle of town. As to motivation, did the Southern states put those up to intimidate black people? Maybe, but I kin do doubt it since it was not in the middle of a town where JimCrow was used to make sure blacks were still treated as inferiors. IOW, context matters.

    Steve

  39. Kylopod says:

    @JKB:

    Yes, this campaign event did propel McKinley and Republicans into dominance in national politics till FDR.

    Funny, then, that neither McKinley nor any other Republican in the following two decades won a single state from the former Confederacy.

  40. de stijl says:

    @de stijl:

    Caveat.

    Nathan Bedford Forrest. In that case, everything has to go now:

    Schools, street names, statues, monuments. It all has to go.

    Any time, any era. It must go for the sake of the nation.

  41. DrDaveT says:

    @Jack:

    Town squares and court houses are the local versions of open air museums.

    There you have it, folks. Jack thinks that flying a swastika from the courthouse flagpole is no different from displaying one at the Holocaust Museum. Because a swastika is a swastika.

  42. grumpy realist says:

    @de stijl: I’d probably leave the statues where they are but put up a plaque explaining that they were plonked into place as a part of Jim Crow and not to take them too seriously. (“Mass produced! Cheap! Scare the darkies in your neighborhood for only $299 plus shipping!”)

    ….and then….(deep breath)….lots and lots and LOTS of birdseed!

  43. JKB says:

    @steve:

    Those established in the first 3 decades of the 20th century were more likely to be part of the coming together of the veterans in peaceful commemoration at the 50th and 75th anniversaries. A final nod to the brave soldiers as soldiers.

  44. JKB says:

    @Kylopod:

    Funny how the statues didn’t represent a problem until the recent Democratic party loss of statewide offices in the former Confederate states.

  45. JKB says:

    Today’s defenders of Confederate monuments are either unaware of the historical context or do not care.

    Funny how the history professor doesn’t address the 1913 50th anniversary celebration that brought veterans from North and South together. There was an emotional re-enactment of Pickett’s charge. But then why would a modern “history” professor know anything about that.

  46. JKB says:

    Today’s defenders of Confederate monuments are either unaware of the historical context or do not care.

    The history professor doesn’t address the 1913 50th anniversary celebration that brought veterans from North and South together. There was an emotional re-enactment of Pickett’s charge. But then why would a modern “history” professor know anything about that.

  47. Kylopod says:

    @JKB: Funny how the moment someone demolishes your argument you just change the subject and start talking about something else.

  48. JKB says:

    @Kylopod:

    What are you talking about. I said the the Republicans controlled national politics for near 40 years. You pointed out that that Republicans didn’t win in racist Democrat controlled Southern states.

    Segregationist Democrat Woodrow Wilson was the only Democrat President from 1896-1932. The House and the Senate were only controlled by the Democrats for 6 years during that period coinciding with the racist Wilson’s administration. And guess what, Wilson got us into the European war

  49. de stijl says:

    @Kylopod:

    Funny how?

    Funny like a clown?

    @JKB twas clearly trying to mend fences. Apparently there was a brokered 1913 thing that brought people together. It was emotional. Vets, the best people of all of us, were involved, so you know it was serious and meaningful.

    Why would you willingly ignore this rebuttal that has nothing to do with what you said?

    What are you hiding, @Kylopod>?

    Why am I better at JKB’s arguments than he is?

  50. Eric Florack says:

    So when are we going to see the call for the removal of statues of Lenin in Seattle, for example?

    Anybody is read anything I’ve written in the last couple of years knows that I am by no means a Trump supporter… But has anyone noticed how quickly the left has managed to change gears on this one? They go from accusing him of being in collusion with the Soviets in essence, to being a NAZI?

  51. de stijl says:

    @Eric Florack:

    You don’t really get the concept of totalitarianism, do you?

    How can one be simultaneously opposed to nazis and commie stalinism? That’s a real puzzler. You’ve flummoxed us, Erik

    You have finally boxed us into a corner from which we cannot extricate ourselves from. Kudos, dude!

    American citizens cannot negotiate a path between these two hard binary choices. Hitler or Stalin, who do I pick? Where’s my magic eight ball?

    “Signs point to yes?” WTF does that mean?

  52. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    I see the cockroaches have finally arrived. I was wondering.

  53. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    @Eric Florack:

    So when are we going to see the call for the removal of statues of Lenin in Seattle, for example?

    “The statue was unveiled on June 3, 1995, at the corner of Evanston Avenue North and North 34th Street on private property, one block north of a salvaged Cold War rocket fuselage, another artistic Fremont attraction.[8] (Wikipedia, emphasis added)

    We may be worthless scum on the Left Coast, but we understand private property rights. And by the way, “Seattle, Tear Down this Vladimir Lenin Statue” has it’s own Facebook Page. (And it was established before this weekend, too!)

    Any more questions, stormerboy?

  54. Kylopod says:

    @JKB:

    What are you talking about. I said the the Republicans controlled national politics for near 40 years.

    No, you’re backtracking now. Your argument wasn’t that the GOP dominated national politics from McKinley until FDR. That isn’t an argument at all, it’s simply a fact. (Well, sort of a fact, if you ignore Woodrow Wilson–but since he apparently got in because TR’s third-party run split the GOP vote in 1912, I’ll let that slide.) You offered a theory as to why this happened, and your theory is that it was rooted in McKinley’s decision to meet with Confederate veterans on the campaign trail in 1896 to patch relations. Your theory fails because McKinley didn’t win a single former Confederate state, and neither did any Republican for the next 20 years.

    The fact is that from the end of Reconstruction until the 1960s, Dems absolutely dominated the South. The problem was that until the New Deal, Republicans dominated everywhere else in the country. That’s why they won more elections in that period. The Dems were only able to win when they managed to pick up states beyond the South. In other words, you’ve got it backwards: Republican presidential victories weren’t dependent at all on support from Confederate states (and didn’t even get any for more than half of that period), but Democratic victories were entirely dependent on gaining some support from outside that region.

    You pointed out that that Republicans didn’t win in racist Democrat controlled Southern states.

    That’s exactly what I pointed out. And that’s why your original point is bogus: reaching out to Confederates wouldn’t have helped Republicans if they didn’t win a single one of those “racist Democrat controlled Southern states,” unless you are somehow under the impression that Confederate states and racist Democratic states were two separate things. What’s so amazingly convoluted about your argument is that you seem to be trying to have it both ways, on the one hand implying that modern-day Dems are permanently tainted by their segregationist past (completely ignoring the realignment that occurred in the 1960s in which the party embraced civil rights and the segregationists fled to the GOP) while simultaneously praising the Republicans for attracting neo-Confederate support, as if the segregationists and the neo-Confederates are two entirely different groups of people. It’s a convenient way of rationalizing the fact that the current Republican president is an apologist for the Lost Causers and treating it as somehow a coincidence that today’s neo-Confederates are marching alongside the Klan–the former the brave champions of the South’s noble heritage, the latter a vestige of the “racist Democrat Party.” Are you really this oblivious to the pretzel you’re turning yourself into?

  55. de stijl says:

    Privately owned statues are equivalent to city owned. QED.

    It’s the Dreher Principle.

    If one lefty did one thing I abhor, everyone to left of me is complicit.

    Apparently, I’m a snowflake. I’m also a SJW. Plus side, I am special, so that’s cool. Downside, I am The Left. That’s a big responsibility.

  56. Eric Florack says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker: as a matter of fact I do. How about Martin Luther King, who was very loudly against homosexuality and homosexual marriage? I’m willing to bet that there are some who are offended by that stance. When may we expect his statues to be torn down?

    One of the things that the left didn’t seem to take too much note of in world affairs was when the Taliban were blowing up all semblance of things not Islamic. Would you mind telling you what the difference between that and what these animals are doing is?

    Finally, Ponder the number of regimes that have gone to great difficulty to erase history. Ponder the nature of those regimes. Explain to me how you’re different.

  57. Eric Florack says:

    @de stijl: oh I understand the concept of totalitarianism very well indeed. In fact I’m observing it in action in Charlottesville right now. And it isn’t the supposEd Nazis.

    Look, let’s face it here.What we have in Virginia is Black people who were never slaves fighting white people who were never Nazis over a Confederate statue erected by Democrats, because Democrats can’t stand their own history anymore and somehow it’s Trumps fault?

  58. Tyrell says:

    George Washington and Thomas Jefferson under attack in Chicago ! Where is this going to end ?
    “The last remaining memorial in Washington was removed today. De-construction of Mount Rushmore starts next month”

  59. Eric Florack says:

    How many Japanese did FDR put into prison camps? I say let’s take him off the dime

  60. teve tory says:
  61. Kylopod says:

    @Eric Florack:

    How about Martin Luther King, who was very loudly against homosexuality and homosexual marriage?

    Pure fantasy. There’s virtually no record at all on King’s views on the subject, beyond one little piece from an advice column in the 1950s in which he seemed to treat a teenage boy’s homosexual attraction as a problem to be overcome. Of course people on both sides have tried to find support for their position in his words and actions (including his close relationship with openly gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin), but there really is nothing concrete to go on. He definitely never “loudly” denounced homosexuality, nor did he ever comment one way or the other about gay marriage.

  62. teve tory says:

    I have a friend who lives in Live Oak, where the last known lynching occurred in the 1970’s, who bought a house a few years ago. There is a rider in the deed which specifies that the property may never be sold to anyone who isn’t white, and non-whites may only live on the property if they are servants.

  63. teve tory says:

    Define “used to.” The GOP’s embrace of “alternate facts” goes back to the rise of Reagan, and their embrace of the neo-Confederate cause can be traced to the Southern Strategy of Nixon. In other words, what you’re describing didn’t happen just yesterday; it’s about a half-century old.

    Yep. Nostalgia and avuncular charisma distort the past, but Reagan was plenty racist.

  64. teve tory says:

    Maybe JKB isn’t aware that William McKinley was pretty strongly racist.

  65. teve tory says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker:

    Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker says:
    Thursday, August 17, 2017 at 01:23
    I see the cockroaches have finally arrived. I was wondering.

    Racist Trumper Deplorables aren’t just in Charlottesville. They’re all over.

  66. wr says:

    @Eric Florack: “They go from accusing him of being in collusion with the Soviets in essence, to being a NAZI?”

    Perhaps you’ve heard of the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact? It’s not impossible to be both.

  67. wr says:

    @Eric Florack: @Eric Florack: So when George W. Bush had the statues of Saddam pulled down in Iraq, he was just like the Taliban?

  68. grumpy realist says:

    Mr. “Beautiful Confederate statues”.

    So let’s just remove all these mass-produced pieces of pigeon-sh*t-covered iron and ship them to Trump’s hotel in Washington and Trumpy’s tower in NYC so he can enjoy them all for himself. Deal?

  69. al-Ameda says:

    @JKB:

    Funny how the statues didn’t represent a problem until the recent Democratic party loss of statewide offices in the former Confederate states.

    Funny how neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and White Nationalism didn’t present a big problem until the election of Donald Trump.

  70. Tyrell says:

    @teve tory: Those are known as “reverter clauses” by the real estate people and were common years ago. I knew one man that said his deed stated no sales to people related to General Sherman – I think he was just shooting some b.s.
    These reverter clauses are now frowned on by judges and rarely upheld. You can’t control property long after you are gone.

    Sherman actually helped parts of the south recover after the war.

  71. JKB says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker: but we understand private property rights.

    Irony. Lenin’s statue survives by resorting to private property rights. Not much of a communist, ws he?

    Learn from the mistakes of the past. Do not donate land with monuments upon it to the state or let them purchase it, as happened with Stone Mountain.

  72. JKB says:

    @teve tory:

    Ah, yes, such covenants in deeds. Of course, now illegal, but were popular with FDR’s New Deal housing policies.

  73. JKB says:

    @teve tory: Maybe JKB isn’t aware that William McKinley was pretty strongly racist.

    That’s terrible and after all those years of combat in the Civil War. I suppose he was just fighting to end slavery and not for civil rights of non-white people. Wait, I wonder how many statues we have to Union soldiers and leaders who were racist?

  74. JKB says:

    @al-Ameda:

    That is funny. That we’d hear more of the Democratic party’s historical paramilitary forces after Trump was elected.

  75. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    @JKB: And, once again, the goalposts have been moved to a completely different stadium.

  76. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Tyrell:

    They’re known as restrictive covenants, and they are explicitly unenforceable. In other words, they are not “rarely” enforced. They are never enforced. That’s been the case since 1948, in Shelley v. Kraemer.

  77. Matt says:

    @JKB: This being the statue that JKB is so obsessed with.

    http://farm1.static.flickr.com/15/22102331_1223937ef8.jpg?v=0

    The best was when a local business made a giant burrito for the statue and it ended up looking like a doobie. There is absolutely no similarity between the way the Lenin statue is treated and how the confederate statues are treated. The two aren’t even in the same book. Now if they wanted to start painting the hands of the confederate statues red to signify the blood on their hands like they do the Lenin statue then I’d be fine with that.

  78. DrDaveT says:

    @JKB:

    Wait, I wonder how many statues we have to Union soldiers and leaders who were racist?

    LOL, JKB just asserted a “both sides do it” equivalence between racists who fight to end slavery and racists who fight to protect it. And didn’t even realize that’s what he was saying.

    Honestly, we’ve got to do something about education in America…

  79. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @DrDaveT:

    As long as we’re doing equivalency:

    “Plantation” is just another name for “concentration camp”