I knew you were going to go there, unfortunately. When in doubt, bring the extreme Hitler reference up.
Sophia A. Nelson (and African-American) wrote this, which makes the point eloquently:
Although I agree with the powerful words and sentiments expressed by Mayor Landrieu of New Orleans last week about why he thinks Confederate statutes and symbols should come down, I do not think it reflects the great first amendment freedoms America was founded upon.
Let me be clear: I felt very differently about the Confederate flag because it was a waving symbol of hate, rebellion and division flying over modern day state capitols throughout the south. However, I am not opposed to people wearing the confederate flag on their hats or flying it in their yards. That’s called “free expression” and in America it is sacrosanct.
Just as we cannot tell people not to buy Nazi paraphernalia or collect it in their homes (no matter how abhorrent we may find it), we likewise cannot tell people they are not allowed to honor family members who fought for the confederacy or that their forbears could not raise monuments to southern heroes like Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson—both of whom were decorated and beloved West Point graduates and union officers before the south seceded from the union in rebellion.
No one is saying there should be a statue of some slave owner whipping his slaves and "let that stand".
The people who hated having black classmates at their school didn’t hate us because there were statues of Robert E. Lee or George Washington (our nation’s first President and a slave owner) on campus. It wasn’t because of a Gen. Stonewall Jackson monument VMI or downtown.
They didn’t like having black classmates because they had racist hearts. They honored racial prejudice. They harbored cultural bias. That, my friends, is what we must work toward eradicating.
And we won’t do it by hiding from our racist, slave owning, segregated past. If we start taking statues down, well, we better go for old Thomas Jefferson (master of a slave who was his mistress and mother of at least four of his children). And let’s not forget President Trump’s favorite president, Old Hickory—Andrew Jackson. Another slave-holding Indian-killing president of our nation. Get my point?
We do not learn when we run from our wrongs. We learn when we face them.
When we stop teaching about the failings of the Civil War, and the South - which we're apt to do because "its racist!" and when we no longer have the monuments honoring those that died in the war because "its triggering!" and when we remove the statues of the generals because "its offending!" we shouldn't be surprised when one day something like this happens all over again. Because we erased the errors from history.
So yeah, I don't agree with you at all.
