An equestrian statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee became the excuse for the awful confrontation in Charlottesville, Va. two weeks ago.
Some people with Southern ancestry view confederate statues as embodying the old ante-bellum notions of gallant gentlemen, lovely ladies fanning themselves on verandas, moonlight and magnolia, happy blacks playing banjos, courage in battle, the humiliations and sorrows of Civil War defeat.
To others, such confederate symbols are deeply painful reminders of the slave labor that caused the South’s plantation system to flourish; of the selling of black slaves (“property”) on auction blocks; of the heartbreaking splitting up of black families; of the willful torture/murders of African-Americans; of the denial of human rights to blacks for so long.
Yes, some of those statues and artifacts are part of American history – from a long shameful chapter of it. As such, they belong in museums, not in public squares.
As for Gen. Lee, the following is an excerpt from a letter he wrote to his wife in 1856:
“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe but will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country . . . I think it, however, a greater evil to the white man than to the black man, and while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially, and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race, and I hope (it) will prepare and lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known and ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”
What verbal convolutions! “Painful discipline” (that is, forced slavery) is needed to “instruct” them so they will be ready when God decides to free them. But, meantime, get back to work!
Lee’s word salad reeks of cruel conclusions disguised as lofty paternalism. He relies upon “Merciful Providence” to whitewash the systemic crimes against black people. Lee wasn’t alone. Those same kinds of tortuous reasonings and twisted rationales were common as clay during the two centuries of slavery before the Civil War and after the Civil War.
There was even a widespread rationalization that slaves were susceptible to some kind of disease that would disorder their minds and cause them to want to run away from plantations. Self-deluded medical doctors even concocted technical-sounding names for the “disease.”
The notion that God intended blacks to be slaves was rampant, and it was the most despicable rationale of them all.
Lest we forget, some of our most revered Americans, such as Washington and Jefferson, were slave-holders, as Trump said in his Aug. 15 temper-tantrum in Tower lobby. They were not, however, traitors like Gen. Lee. Trump’s “moral” equivocations regarding Lee and Founding Fathers were a real stretch. And his contorted exertions to minimize the violent threats and behavior of white-separatist thugs are no better than Gen Lee’s bogus “moral” reckonings on slavery.
Trump claims he watched the Charlottesville videos closer than we did. Watch them again. You will see a mob of angry whites, bearing torches, wearing boots and helmets, clutching shields, sporting Nazi flags and silly alt-right symbols. All of them, their faces contorted with smug anger, are shouting insults aimed at Jews and Afro-Americans. Some on the other side were angry and out-of-control, too, but who can blame them when confronted with such neo-Nazi/KKK-style thugs whipping up such nastiness?
The real question raised by those videos is this: How in the world can those wannabe Nazis actually think this country belongs to them and them only?
All people of good will must denounce white-supremacist groups. They must be denounced constantly in the U.S. Congress, in the legislatures, in the courts and everywhere else they indulge in hate-mongering. What they are is walking ingrown toenails. In 1974, I witnessed the sorry spectacle of Klansman David Duke spewing his deranged nonsense at St. Cloud State University. We booed him. His vile notions were as repugnant then as now.
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed in Charlottesville by a neo-Nazi goon using his car as a weapon. In a Facebook posting, Heather had shared this: “If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.”
It is a national disgrace the current president of the United States – he who should be most outraged of all – is not paying attention.