The issue at hand is not about statues in general. It is about monuments to confederate leaders.
Perhaps that is because the message of these memorials does not threaten you. But imagine how someone who is already feeling despised might feel threatened by these displays.
Symbolic stuff certainly can do that. The sight of the American flag in the center of town can inspire a love of country. That translates into behavior.
There are much more effective ways to preserve history in greater detail than a bronze statue. Things like books. Or a neutral plaque minus the bigger than life image on a pedestal.
They have learned from history. That is why they want the monuments removed.
I understand your point of view, and respect that it’s your point of view. You’re entitled to have it.
But to many, if not most, southerners, it’s entirely a different thing. If we were to say “the only real heroes were northerners, and we’ll commemorate them” (and we ought to commemorate the Yankees) then one is saying “southerners who went through as much and mostly worse, we can’t honor”.
And so, we’re honoring the ancestors of millions while dishonoring the ancestors of millions. If we’re going to do that, we ought to be pretty clear that the reasons for doing so are sufficient and that we’re not creating a whole new set of problems in doing it.
Not far from where I sit is a memorial statute to Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, a Union general who died at Wilson’s Creek. Also, and in the same cemetery, there is a memorial statue to Gen. Sterling Price, former governor and commander of Confederate forces at that battle.
Now, one could have said several years ago (and some would still say it) that the memorial to Lyon shouldn’t be there. After all, it was he who led the invasion force into the state, captured many of the Missouri State Guard at St. Louis without having any reason to do it other than suspicion. It was Lyon who ordered his troops to fire on civilians in St. Louis. So there would be people who do not think Lyon worth commemorating. Had he not been killed at Wilson’s Creek, he probably wouldn’t have been. There’s something about dying in battle.
Or should we leave Lyon’s statue and remove that of Price? Price was immensely popular in the state, took some personal risk in the “Mormon wars” in western Missouri by protecting the intensely unpopular Mormons from the mobs with State Guard troops, and was elected governor. He opposed secession, but went over to the Confederacy when Lyon invaded St. Louis.
Or should we take both statues down?
Now, perhaps 50 or 60 miles away and still in Missouri, there is a bronze statue and significant memorial to George Washington Carver, who grew up there as a slave. That statue was put up a long time ago. Nobody whose ancestors fought for the south tore it down, or demanded that it be torn down. It was revered by everybody, and today, schools take children there to learn about Dr. Carver in a way that books don’t really teach. After all, Carver was a scientist later in life and developed things both whites and blacks could use. He was not a firebrand, and perhaps that’s why nobody seems to want to put him on any denomination of the currency.
I assume we’re not going to tear down the statue and memorial to Dr. Carver. I assume we’re not going to tear Lyon off his pedestal. Just Gen Price, maybe?
It isn’t as if nobody around here is ignorant of slavery. Nobody is ignorant of the life of George Washington Carver. People who know anything much know about Lyon and Price and about the battles. People likewise know that May Belle Shirley, later known as Belle Starr, then a young girl but a stout southern sympathizer, stood in a doorway watching the German troops from St. Louis retreating from Carthage, driven out by Confederate forces. And there are, indeed, memorials to Belle Star there, notwithstanding that her future life had more than a touch of banditry to it. Jesse James was a Confederate guerilla fighter of uncertain commission during (and after) the Civil War, and there are memorials to him, notwithstanding his clearly outlaw history after the war.
In Waverly, Missouri there is a bronze statue of Jo Shelby, also a Confederate. When the war ended, he headed to Mexico with a number of his men and fought for the government there. He returned later and was appointed U.S. Marshal of western Mo by then-President Cleveland, in which office he served honorably. Do we tear his statue down?
The south suffered severely during Reconstruction. Notwithstanding the Union never recognized Missouri’s secession after the Lyon invasion, Missouri still underwent Reconstruction, and it was possibly the worst of all. Yet, people who think of themselves as fundamentally “southerners” don’t complain about the injustice of it to this day.
Nor does anybody complain about the University of Kansas calling themselves “Jayhawks”. “Jayhawkers” were guerilla fighters who robbed, killed and raped in western Missouri well before and during the Civil War. Are we to ban KU from using the “Jayhawk” mascot? Does anybody demand that? No.
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