Restricted Opinions: Protests against removing Confederate monuments are not really about history

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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“When will they storm Washington’s Monticello?” Laura Ingraham askedominously this last week. The ***edited by jgg *** commentator’s tweet linked to news that a statue of Jefferson Davis, one of four contested monuments in New Orleans, was slated to come down Wednesday night.

The question was met with well-deserved derision, and a subsequent correction from Ingraham — George Washington lived at Mount Vernon, Monticello was Thomas Jefferson’s estate, and neither of those Founding Fathers ever interacted with Davis, the president of the Confederacy. But it did serve to illuminate an important fact about most pro-statue protests and demonstrations: They aren’t really about the history.

Whenever it’s asked why Confederate memorials should be kept in place, a predictable raft of arguments is brought forth. “You’re trying to erase the past!” “We’re honoring the memory of valorous men!” “How will we learn from history!?”

These claims don’t stand up. The truth is that the desperation to preserve this particular “heritage” and “past” is a facade for something more malignant. It’s privileged status, not history, that’s being protected. Whether or not they’re able to acknowledge it, the thing that all these indignant commentators rush to preserve is a toxic nostalgia for the time and place that Confederate monuments represent.

In most cases, as Ingraham helpfully illustrated, those protesting the monuments’ removal aren’t exactly avid historians; many couldn’t tell one Confederate general from the next. And despite what some indignant statue supporters might claim, moving memorials from the city center to a dedicated museum is nothing like leveling the Egyptian pyramids or tearing down the Roman Colosseum; it’s not destruction, it’s adding needed context. As for honoring the memories of honorable men, here’s what Robert E. Lee himself said about undue reverence for conflicts past: “I think it wisest not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.”

Read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...34b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.d6fd55c935ae
 
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