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To My Fellow Southerners
Aug. 17th, 2017 02:47 pmMy great-great grandfather enlisted at 16 just in time for the siege of Richmond. My father heard stories from him and his sisters about the war when he was a small boy. (Ltc. Custer used the family farm as a base for a little while, too.) My family goes back to 1613 in Virginia. I went to boarding school in Richmond, and I think Monument Avenue is lovely.
These statues must go.
That's it. Whatever romantic notion of some grand civilization destroyed by manufacturing tradesmen from the north that you're hanging onto must go, too. The reality is that the South fired the first shots. The stated reasons for the war in the individual states' articles of secession included slavery, very often as the chief motive for seceding.
Our ancestors were racist. It's sad, but it's true. The best thing we can do is stop reinforcing this racism with public monuments to individuals who violated their oaths as officers in the Army of the United States. Too many southerners try to say the War was about honor. If that's true, why are we celebrating oath breakers?
(Adapted from a comment I made at Slate)
These statues must go.
That's it. Whatever romantic notion of some grand civilization destroyed by manufacturing tradesmen from the north that you're hanging onto must go, too. The reality is that the South fired the first shots. The stated reasons for the war in the individual states' articles of secession included slavery, very often as the chief motive for seceding.
Our ancestors were racist. It's sad, but it's true. The best thing we can do is stop reinforcing this racism with public monuments to individuals who violated their oaths as officers in the Army of the United States. Too many southerners try to say the War was about honor. If that's true, why are we celebrating oath breakers?
(Adapted from a comment I made at Slate)
