The recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, have been a tragic reminder of the hatred and white supremacy so deeply embedded in our nation’s fabric. While our attention is rightfully placed on the victims of the violence that ensued, we must not forget what brought such a large group of awful, dangerous racists to gather there in the first place. They were there to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park as well as the removal of other Confederate statues and memorials in public spaces. Fortunately, they aren’t getting their wish.
In light of this event (and because it’s simply long overdue), elected officials around the country are moving forward with plans to remove Confederate monuments in their respective cities.
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The mayors of Baltimore and Lexington, Kentucky, said on Monday they would push ahead with plans to remove statues as a national debate flared anew over whether monuments to the Confederacy are symbols of hate or heritage. [...]
Officials in Memphis, Tennessee, and Jacksonville, Florida, announced new initiatives on Monday aimed at taking down Confederate monuments. And Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, a Republican, urged lawmakers to rid the state's Capitol of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and early member of the Ku Klux Klan.
This is a great step forward into the year 2017. These monuments have no place in public, for many reasons.
Heritage is not an excuse for the display of hateful symbols that are a reminder of a time when people were kept in bondage—particularly in this day and age. In Germany, Nazi propaganda is banned. Now, this isn’t a perfect solution. It hasn’t stopped neo-Nazi political parties from emerging, nor has it stopped alt-right groups from using these symbols and salutes. But it does send a message that a civilized society that has begun to come to terms with its racist past does not condone glorifying historical reminders of harm and atrocities perpetrated against marginalized groups.
Today, the German criminal code prohibits the public use of a symbol of any “political party which has been declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court.” This includes the swastika, the Nazi salute, and several other symbols of the Third Reich. Punishments can range from fines to up to three years in prison. Mein Kampf and other Nazi propaganda works are also banned.
Still, supporters of Confederate memorials are prepared to argue to the death for their statues and the right to display the Confederate flag. Oftentimes, it seems as if they don’t even really know what they are fighting for—except to keep reminding us about the past. Ironically, they are the very same people who tell blacks to get over slavery. Yet they are the ones deifying generals and soldiers from a war fought more than 150 years ago—a war in which their side actually lost. So if anyone needs to get over the past, it’s most certainly them. But they have a “cause,” and they are hellbent on seeing it through.
"Where does it stop? The Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves. Do we tear those down?" [Carl Jones, chief of heritage operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans] said in a telephone interview.
Jones is wrong, as Egyptian archaeologists say that the pyramids were, in fact, built by free workers—but facts don’t matter to this bunch. Neither does the well-being of anyone who might be impacted by their need to keep these symbols of hate and racial animus alive and well. This is not about heritage. And you can’t cherrypick here: this war was about slavery and the economics of what chattel slavery meant to the South. So let’s be honest, the real reason that they want to preserve these monuments is because they don’t necessarily see these things as bad. And that is really the heart of the matter.
As Bree Newsome, the woman who removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house in 2015, said:
You can dress it up and call it heritage, but let’s call it what it is: white supremacy in action. There is no reason to have these statues in public in America in 2017. And if we insist on keeping them up so that racists can have their way and continue to see symbols that foment their hatred, we have no right to be surprised when they become violent and kill people like they did in Charlottesville.