Yes, the Confederate statues (primarily erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy) need to be removed and placed in American history
museums where children will learn about this country’s despicable history of slavery.
No, removing public memorials valorizing those who fought a war in order to maintain slavery will not “rob the nation of its history,” as conservatives are now lamenting.
Has Germany’s prohibition of public memorials to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi comrades robbed the German public of its historical memory about the Holocaust?
Of course not.
The current conservative hand-wringing is reactionary balderdash, pure and simple. But then reactionary balderdash is what gave rise to these statues in the first place. It comes as no surprise, then, that contemporary reactionaries are marching in step with the tradition.
Many (most? all?) of these Confederate statues, memorializing men like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, were erected by chapters of a southern women’s organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Their purpose was to keep the southern flame burning for “the lost cause,” which was regularly translated into the rhetoric anticipating how “the south will rise again.”
The monuments were the first resurrection, so to speak, of the southern states’ reassertion of white supremacy.
These monuments were erected as reactionary displays against Lincoln’s vision for southern Reconstruction.
UDC statues stood (and still stand) as cruel reminders to every former slave, and to all of their descendants (who certainly were never consulted about whether they wanted a memorial in their community to the nobility of white slave owners), that they were still surrounded by the living, white descendants of their former, white slave owners who still believed in White Power.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy even published a children’s catechism (a series of questions and answers for them to memorize; many Protestant churches use catechisms), fusing the racist with the religious dimensions of the confederacy together.
Here is an excerpt of what the children memorized about slavery:
[13] How were the slaves treated?
With great kindness and care in nearly all cases, a cruel master being rare, and
lost the respect of his neighbors if he treated his slaves badly. Self interest would have prompted good treatment if a higher feeling of humanity had not.
[14] What was the feeling of the slaves towards their masters?
They were faithful and devoted and were always ready and willing to serve them.
[15] How did they behave during the war?
They nobly protected and cared for the wives of soldiers in the field, and widows without protectors; though often prompted by the enemies of the South to burn and plunder the homes of their masters, they were always true and loyal.
You can read the entire catechism here.
This sort of revisionist defense of slavery remains widespread. I have read it and heard it myself in Christian circles in recent memory.
The UDC is a racist organization, and their statues are a national disgrace. (Please learn more about it here: “7 Things the UDC Might Not Want You to Know About It,” “Time to Expose the Women Still Celebrating the Confederacy.” You can also find a list of their monuments here.)
These UDC statues are foul effigies silently extolling the depravity of slave ownership.
They are cold, marble sign posts directing us to the outermost boundaries of humanity’s lust for dehumanizing and brutalizing “the other.”
They are demonic fetishes elevated through human sacrifice — not of white lives but of black lives.
They commemorate white supremacy and the sacrifice of African blood, blood shed in the stinking holds of innumerable slave ships; bodies dumped into the Atlantic as shark food; human beings stolen, whipped, beaten, raped, sodomized, and sold to the highest bidder.
These statues need to come down.
They must come down.
