Restricted An Argument in Favor of Vandalizing and Removing Confederate Monuments

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Zack

First Sergeant
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Aug 20, 2017
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Los Angeles, California
Many of the monuments were put up during the “Nadir of Race Relations” between the 1880s and 1920s. They were put up as one of numerous steps, including rewriting textbooks, taken to minimize the hard-won rights of African-Americans.

How do Confederate monuments do that?

Monuments help define the identity of a nation. It is why many argue that the monuments are part of Southern heritage. But it is an exclusionary definition. The Confederacy was born, fought, and died for the preservation of slavery. The individual soldiers in the ranks understood this. The officers leading the troops understood this. In other words, the heritage being remembered is the heritage of a White South that oppressed its African-American population. It is a heritage that actively oppresses large parts of the Southern population.

Removing the monuments does not “erase” history; in fact, it expands history. It creates the space to tell the forgotten stories of African-Americans and other diverse groups who played an absolutely critical role in the construction of this country. It challenges the narrative that has been handed down to us by the era of Jim Crow and Black Codes. It asks us to reexamine the era and look for the forgotten voices.

Many fear that destruction of Confederate monuments represents a disconnect between younger populations and history. Yet the role of a historian is to engage with history, analyze it, look for new perspectives, and then look for the ways that it echoes in the present. Younger generations are not rejecting history. They are engaging with history in a powerful way and announcing that it is time to address head-on the institutionalized oppression in this country. Younger generations who vandalize Confederate monuments understand that our country was founded on slavery and that the Confederacy fought to preserve slavery. They may not know the dates of the Battle of Fredericksburg or be able to name the colonels of regiments, but they do know why the Civil War occurred and what the war meant for our country.

They are continuing today the struggle that began during the Civil War and was overthrown during Reconstruction to bring about true equality in this nation. They are the direct legacy of abolition movements.

Removing Confederate statues also will not cause people to forget the Confederacy. There are more history books than can be counted about the Civil War and new ones are being published every day. Many of them represent a new engagement with the era, challenging not just the morals and causes of the Confederacy but pointing out the hypocrisy and oppression of the Union. This is good, important work being done that will advance the field of history and benefit everyone who loves the Civil War.

Finally, I do not believe that the removal of Confederate statues represents a slippery slope. Whether the statues are removed or not each new generation will have to grapple with America’s past. It is a past that is uncomfortable, scary, sickening, and also, in some ways, hopeful. In so doing, they are building a new, more inclusive, and more accurate definition of what it means to be an American and what our history means.
 
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