Take Down the Confederate Monuments

Take Down the Confederate Monuments

The events of Charlottesville have me thinking about my role as an historian and teacher. This was reinforced by these comments by James Alex Fields Jr.’s high school history teacher. I don’t think any one teacher can be responsible for the ideas of a single student. But perhaps if I teach more broadly I can make a difference in the challenging process of facing our own racist history. And so, here’s my argument for why we need to take down the Confederate monuments, all of them.


First, we must start by addressing slavery. The desire to continue owning people as property was the central reason for the formation of the Confederacy. Those who created that treasonous anti-American government were clear about that from the beginning and throughout the Civil War. The “states rights” they fought for was the “right” of states to have their slave codes enforced throughout the United States. (See: Fugitive Slave Laws.)

Second, we need to recognize that, following the Civil War, powerful white Southerners (joined by white Northerners) engaged in a concerted effort to re-write the history of the Confederacy as one of patriotic valor in defense of a American principles: states rights, individual liberty, small government, local control, etc. In the process, what they really reinforced were old American ideals of racism, specifically white supremacy.

Third, as part of that effort, white Southerners sold lies about their central leaders. Perhaps most important was the new historical image of Robert E. Lee. In the history you probably learned as a child (and which I did), Lee was the reluctant gentleman general, fighting out of duty to his beloved Virginia even though he knew the cause was wrong. In truth, Lee thought no such thing. As this article well-chronicles, Less was a slaveholder and unrepentant white supremacist throughout his life. The cause he fought for was the cause of an exclusively white America.

Fourth, these monuments aren’t left over from our distant past. Most were erected decades after the Civil War, either during the early twentieth century (to reinforce the ideas promoting Jim Crow segregation) or the 1950s and 1960s (to combat ideas of the Civil Rights movement). The idea that they should be grandfathered in as relics is silly. They were built long after the Civil War to bolster false claims about the War and to promote ideas of white racial superiority. They were erected specifically to give white nationalists monuments to revere. (You can watch that history unfold in geographical terms here, or see this handy chart prepared for a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

Fifth, these monuments haven’t lost their power. People of color have been speaking up with that message for decades, sharing their pain at seeing the Confederacy revered in public spaces. While that should be enough, the events of Charlottesville reinforce that those on the opposite side – the neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, KKK, and other white supremacists – also see these as potent symbols of their ideology. They are upset about the possible removal of Lee’s statue not because it represents ‘the South’ (which was 40% black on the eve of the Civil War) or even ‘white culture’ (he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, white and black). They are upset about removal because Lee’s statue represents white supremacy, the ideology shared by Confederates and Nazis alike.

Should we learn this history? Certainly. But these monuments don’t help us do that. They were erected to obscure the true history of our nation. It is past time that we saw through them and removed them as an obstacle to our ongoing fight against racism.

 

 

The Democratic Split

The Democratic Split

An old division is rearing it’s head again in the Democratic Party. It’s gone public in the disruption of Bernie Sanders’s speeches by #blacklivesmatter protesters, first at Netroots Nation in July and then again in Seattle on Saturday (see here). For those who consider themselves left, liberal, or sympathetic to these movements in general, such disruptions can be confusing. Aren’t Sanders and the protesters both on the same “side”? Only if we reduce everything to the standard liberal/conservative binary.

Looking more closely at the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, we find a continuing division between those whose focus on racism and those who focus on class. Sanders represents the latter group, which can be traced through the Occupy movement and back to original New Deal priorities. As a left-populist, his focus has been on economic security, with Wall Street serving as a primary villain.

In contrast, the Black Lives Matter protesters can trace their lineage to the mid-century Civil Rights Movement, with its demand that the United States address systematic racism, a fight that is still very much in progress. While they sometimes made common cause with those focused on class, the two movements aren’t automatically aligned. Just as often, those focused on racism have seen candidates like Sanders as implicitly contributing to the problem of systematic racism by treating it as a secondary issue. Similarly, protests focused on race can frustrate economic populists because their seem to narrow the debate.

In this context, the struggle between Sanders and these protesters isn’t that surprising. It’s part of the regular campaign process of the party working out it’s priorities. Both groups are struggling for control of Sanders’s agenda and by extension control of party resources. Sanders has responded by trying to build a bigger tent, encompassing both groups (as in his speech Saturday night and his hiring of a new campaign secretary).

So the real question is, what about Clinton? Why hasn’t she faced such public pressure? Part of this is quality campaigning: She skipped Netroots Nation (knowing it wasn’t a sympathetic audience) and hasn’t done many large public events yet (because she doesn’t have to). Part of it may also be that she has stronger ties with both wings of the party. Though Obama has overshadowed this, the Clinton’s were once seen as particularly close to black activists. She may have successfully courted enough economic liberals to tamp down their criticism. It helps that Sanders has so far chosen not to go negative on her, buying her some more time before addressing these issues.

It will be most interesting to see what happens when Clinton begins to campaign more publicly. Will she feel the need to embrace economic populism? Or will she ally herself with anti-racism activists as a counter to Sanders? Either approach would seem to pull her leftward, away from the centrist position she’d prefer to cultivate for the general election.

On Lincoln and Our Second Founding

On Lincoln and Our Second Founding

In honor the 4th of July weekend, I’m sharing this post I wrote last year at this time:

 

I recently had the opportunity to sing “American the Beautiful.” The lines that most hit me are in the third verse:

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!

When I sing these, I don’t think about Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc. Instead, I usually think of Abraham Lincoln. If you stop to think about it, loving country more than self is a very high standard, perhaps an impossible one. How many, even in our armed forces, enter and serve for totally selfless reasons? What about those running for political office? It may well be that no one has yet achieved that standard in real life over the long term. But if anyone came close, I would guess it was Lincoln. He is also mostly responsible for making the Civil War a battle of “liberating strife.” He often angered even allies with his willingness to grant mercy: to soldiers, to civilians, and to former Confederates. He wasn’t perfect in that regard, but he was remarkable among human beings and presidents.

Lincoln is also my favorite “Founding Father.” When the Declaration of Independence declared that “all men are created equal,” it pretty clearly meant “all white men.” The 1787 Constitution (which we rightfully revere) only got the nation through 73 years before engulfing us in a conflagration over the “slave question.” It took the re-founding of the United States during and after the Civil War to established the kind of nation we have today. The Civil War Amendments – 13, 14, & 15 – radically redefined our nation by ending slavery, extending citizenship and rights beyond the boundary of race (and beyond the federal government into the states), and guaranteeing the right to vote. All of those ideals haven’t been perfectly enforced to this day, but the fundamental ideas are now enshrined in our supreme law. Altogether, the nation that Lincoln founded is much better than the one established by the revolutionary generation. Lincoln built that new nation on their foundation – and often claimed that his vision was theirs – but his vision of liberty actually far outstripped the old. For that, I am grateful.

The Constitution Has Everything To Do With It

The Constitution Has Everything To Do With It

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” – Ninth Amendment During the ratification of the Constitution, critics worried about how their rights would be preserved in the context of a new, much stronger federal government. In response, supporters suggested a Bill… Continue Reading

Confronting Our Problems Face On

Confronting Our Problems Face On

“We are capable of bearing a great burden once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.” – James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time I fear that America is not capable of this. This was in stark relief in the aftermath of the South Carolina shooting. A white young man entered… Continue Reading

Rubio Rising

Rubio Rising

At this point, trying to discern who is winning the (mostly invisible) Republican presidential contest is like reading tea leaves. But some clues this weekend suggest that Marco Rubio is in position to take a solid lead. First, let’s start with what his competitors are saying. Lindsey Graham (ok, not really a competitor, but also… Continue Reading

Gender Before Race?

Gender Before Race?

There’s a claim that pops up occasionally in feminist circles: That when it comes to equal rights/opportunities, women always come last. At least in the context of race, this is simply not true. The most common evidence cited for this proposition is the discrepancy between the 15th Amendment and the 19th Amendment. The former, banning the… Continue Reading

The Presidential Race – June Edition

The Presidential Race – June Edition

It’s been three months since I wrote the last update, and what’s really remarkable is how little has changed. Yes, we’ve had a string of announcements (with more coming this month), but the state of the field has remained basically static. My guess is that behind the scenes things are tightening but that we won’t know… Continue Reading

The Most Important Tech Issue For 2016

The Most Important Tech Issue For 2016

I’m a tech guy in my professional life. I design and create software for a living and I follow the news around the software world very closely. I’ve been thinking about what issues would be most important from a tech perspective for the 2016 presidential election, and patent reform is hands-down number one. Several years… Continue Reading

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