From Judy Kennedy, August 15, 2017: This was posted on a friends facebook page and I really felt that I had to share it – so it is copied and pasted here. (From Editor: I hope I’ve included all of the conversations on this topic. If I’ve missed some, please send them and tell me where they belong in the time line.)
In response to several articles I have read, from friends and even family’s FB pages, in defense of the Robert E Lee monument in Charlottesville. (Keeping in mind that I am from Richmond, Virginia and many of my friends and family are personally grappling with their feeling about all of this)
No matter how exemplary Lee was, he led the army who was fighting for the right to continue the enslavement of the majority of a race. There is no getting around that. And it’s time for white southerners to stop romanticizing what we did and what we fought for. It was a broken, aberrant system and we have been brainwashed over the generations to think it was Gone With the Wind. It wasn’t. How can we continue to take pride in something that we know was morally reprehensible. We owe it to the generations of African Americans who have struggled to climb out of that mess, to at the very least, not have monuments enshrining the very people who subjugated them. Lee fought for that system to continue. He fought for the wrong side. He lost. We lost. Let’s move into the 21st century and use our energies to heal and not continue to divide.
I am as proud a Virginian as you will ever know. My family has been in Virginia since 1619. I’m 61 years old and I was raised to believe the myth…it was fed to me in my home, in my schools, in my community, in those statues along Monument Ave in Richmond. If you are from Richmond, you were taught that Monument Ave was almost sacred. All those beautiful statues of our Confederate heroes. You were even taught that if the horses were on their hind legs, rearing up, that their rider died in battle…like the JEB Stuart monument or Stonewall Jackson. My mother would give me history lessons about these men as we drove down that street. These monuments are considered the heart and soul of Richmond. It never occurred to me that anyone would take offense to them. I had to live away from Richmond for forty years to get any kind of perspective. It took decades to shed the misinformation and realize how harming and divisive those myths and statues are. And cruel. And hurtful to a great many Richmonders who do not have white skin. Finally, my southern pride and Virginia pride are not wrapped around a fallen flag and (beautiful) statues of misguided men, clinging to a horrible, wretched, inhuman system of enslavement. No matter how it is spun, the Civil War was about slavery. If you say it wasn’t about slavery…it was about state’s rights. You’re wrong…what the states were fighting for was the right to continue to have slaves. If you say it wasn’t about slavery, it was about economics, you’re wrong. Slavery drove the economy in the south. It was Virginia’s number one money maker…above corn and tobacco. If you say that it wasn’t about slavery, it was about preserving a “way of life, you’re wrong. Slavery was what allowed that way of life. There is no way to spin Robert E Lee’s military leadership separate from slavery. If you claim to not be a racist and are defending these vestiges of the Confederacy, and slavery, you need to take a good long look at your soul. I know it’s hard. It’s painful. It requires turning away from the teachings of your parents and grandparents and many people that you loved, that you considered good, decent people. I’m not saying that they weren’t/aren’t. But, we know better. WE KNOW BETTER. We do not dishonor them by turning away from their teachings when time and understanding have proven them wrong. We honor them by continuing to move forward, to evolve. We must evolve. And the statues must come down.
RESPONSES: Several classmates wrote back saying that this is a fabulous article. Other and longer responses follow, including another one from Judy: On such an important but as Sandy (Kohler) says “difficult issue,” I think it’s imperative to talk about it. I admitted in a private note to Sandy just a few minutes ago that previous to seeing the piece that I had sent you, I had been conflicted about destroying the historical statues, remembering how sad and angry I had felt when reading about how Al Quida had blown up the giant Buddas, yet knowing in my heart that our countrymen just has to get the racists feelings and behaviors we are seeing so transparently these days under control for the sake of our future, and our children’s future. I thought the writer of the piece put it well when he said, they and we know better NOW.
From Liz Hottel Barrett: Hi, classmates. We’re grappling with the same issue here in Annapolis and, I’m sure, in many other cities. Our statue of Justice Taney is most certainly coming down, but I fear that our governor’s motivation is political rather than moral. I am a northerner and have no tolerance for celebrating the southern heritage of slavery. However, rather than taking down the statue, I would much rather have a plaque that explains how times have changed and why we no longer honor this man. Let him be a reminder of where we have been.
Again, from Judy: A journalist on television last night suggested that the statues be moved to museums so that future generations can learn from them. I like that better than blowing them to smithreens.
Response from JoAnn Mayer Orlinsky: Liz – In Baltimore, since Mayor Rawlings Blake’s Comission said remove two of the four statues, there have been historical markers, which I thought could have been more explicative. Now it doesn’t matter at least here. Mayor Pugh really did well, I thought, by moving them all out last night.
And from Liz Hottel Barrett: I just hope they keep them. It isn’t wise to try to erase history. I’m sure many of you have visited Prague. On our visit about 15 years ago we enjoyed a trip to “Communist Park”. Outside the city in a vacant field are erected all the communist statues that were removed from the city and surrounds after communism was overthrown. It was interesting seeing them all together, and I’m glad that they weren’t destroyed. The erecting of statues to whatever cause is certainly history — it’s what people did during a certain time period. That is history.
From Joyce Fumia Wisnewski: Statues aren’t history.
From Liz Kaplan Thornton: No, but they convey history and transmit an impression of history, just as words and pictures do. They are a way of telling history and our judgement of it. I also like the idea of putting these statues into museums, in a historical context, but Edward pointed out that those museums couldn’t be on government property. The issue is that they (the statues) are currently on government property and that implies the approval of the government, which is unacceptable to those protesting them. I think Liz’s (Barrett) idea of explanatory plaques would solve that. Who would write them? Who would approve them? I don’t like the idea of destroying them. We should not be destroying parts of our history, nor re-writing it.
From Patricia Peterson: There are a number of ways in which Germany has overcome the problems of monuments to its past. One good example is a plaque attached to a small monument to Germans from the Leibnitz high school who fought and died in World War 1. The monument was erected in 1920? and stands near the school in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The monument praises those who died for their country in the war and ends with the latin phrase “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”. (it is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country). In 1989 The district council of Kreuzberg attached a plaque below the monument which explains that this phrase, dulce et decorum… was used in the past to send german soldiers to their “so-called heroic death.” The plaque ends by stating that “the District Council of Berlin-Kreuzberg demands, in this year of peace 1989, NEVER AGAIN WAR.”
