So the monument is coming down, while I applaud the open carriers, I do support the removal of all confederate memorabilia from any and all government building's... No one need remember who finished second.. They should replace the statue with a statue of William Lloyd Garrison, in my humble opinion.
The ugly realities of African slavery in this nation cannot be defended....except perhaps as not quite so bad as some might presume when compared to Northern industrial treatment of blacks. (Read carefully. Slavery was worse than northern treatment. But northern treatment was bad enough to make slavery not look as bad as it is.)
Nor can objective, informed persons deny the very real role that slavery played in the War Between the States on both sides. It is most unfortunate, however, that gov/union schools have erroneously (perhaps even maliciously) elevated slavery from an undercurrent to primacy on the Confederate side.
It is time to
carefully evaluate which Confederate monuments are appropriate memorials to valor and honor in defense of home and hearth, vs which glorify slavery or create a legitimate affront to reasonable sensibilities of
Southern residents. What Yanks, the Hollyweird types, the NYC-based media, Ivy-League snowflakes, or even I think of such monuments and memorials should be entirely irrelevant.
Advocating for the eradication of history and culture is a very dangerous thing. Not only might it start the kind of culture war that involves more than just words, but it is a terrible precedence to set.
Do we remove Washington and Jefferson from Mt. Rushmore because they owned slaves? Does Lincoln come down because his words, while progressive for his day, can easily be made to sound horribly racist and bigoted to our modern ears? Will Teddy Roosevelt have to come down for war mongering and his love of blood sport (ie hunting)?
Should we erase the Rev MLK from history because of the hypocrisy of a "man of God" also had adulterous affairs? Will some future generation demand the removal of Rosa Parks memorials if we discover she engaged in some unforgivable conduct during her life?
There are certainly aspects of southern culture I find personally offensive. I find New England even more offensive and have enjoyed watching the reaction of the sanctimonious (white) Northerners and their NYC media to Michael Che's comment about Boston being "the most racist city" he had ever visited. But it would be a tremendous loss to the national history and character to erase the history and culture of any of these regions.
Reducing the complexities of the War Between the States to a couple of one-dimensional caricatures--white knight of the North battling the evil southern bigots and slave owners--is unbecoming an educated America. But exactly what one might expect from the current state of information and indoctrination.
If nothing else, some monuments to now controversial figures forces us to remember and confront the controversy. If Missouri wants a memorial to Governor Lilburn Boggs I won't be paying homage. But neither will I demand it come down, nor complain when that memorial prompts greater remembrance of the "Extermination Order" he issued against my ancestors.
The current assault on Southern culture and remembrance of their war heroes cannot end well. Even if it does not erupt into something terrible in the short term, such historic cleansing will be bad for the nation in the long run.
Charles