Confederate statues finally retreat from view
The heroes of the Confederacy statues are finally disappearing from their places of honor in the South. New Orleans just Friday took down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — the last of four monuments the City Council had voted two years ago to remove.
Again and again, the statues’ defenders charged that removing the likenesses of Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard will erase history. But they actually distort history. They obscure the central role of slavery in the nation’s bloodiest war and trumpet a message that the Confederacy was noble and worthy of esteem.
Why would we want to say that about those who fought a war against the United States to defend the buying, selling, owning of human beings? And why should African-American citizens today be expected to tolerate these reminders as they go about their daily business?
There are far better ways to publicly remember history. Some of these I have seen myself.
When I was 20, I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial in Germany. I saw the ovens in which the bodies of Jewish prisoners were burned. The sight is seared into my memory, as is the large sign at the site. “Nie
wieder,” it says — never again. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan also does history right. While visiting several years ago, I was struck by its candid telling of the history of Japanese aggression and militarism leading up to World War II and the city’s eventual atomic bombing by the United States. Through photos and artifacts (such as a melted watch stopped at the time the A-bomb landed, 8:15 a.m.) the museum captures the devastation. But rather than wallowing in victimization and vindictive anger, rather than glorifying the “divine” emperor and heroism of Japanese soldiers, the museum takes a balanced, selfcritical look at Japan’s guilt.
What is the point of Confederate statutes in the South? To send a message that the wrong side won the Civil War? That slavery should have continued? Philip Gorski, a Yale professor and author of the new book American
Covenant, sees the statues as a “half-disguised reaffirmation of white supremacy” that violates the American creed proclaiming all of us are created equal.
Perhaps the towering statues of the Confederate pantheon would not be such a daily insult to black citizens if they were contextualized by something analogous to the nie wieder sign at Dachau, or couched in documentation acknowledging what the Confederates were fighting for.
At the very least, let’s have historical context added to the sites where the statues now stand, acknowledging the stain of slavery at the heart of the story. Better yet, the statues should be moved to a museum setting, which is what New Orleans is doing. People interested in history may seek them out and learn more. And those going about their daily business — especially black people — need not be subjected to them and their chilling message.