# What should we do with confederate monuments and statues? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 15, 2017, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694 "2017-08-15T01:11:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 28
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/541 "2023-09-18T17:20:14Z")
The latest from Ol’ Virginny: > **[VMI board votes to accept Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery](https://cardinalnews.org/2023/09/13/vmi-board-votes-to-accept-confederate-memorial-from-arlington-national-cemetery/)** > > The state military college’s board of visitors voted unanimously to accept Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s request to house the statue at its Civil War museum at New Market. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/542 "2023-09-19T07:19:56Z")
TBF, a Civil War museum is probably exactly where a historically significant Confederate statue belongs. > [@](#): > > The monument was designed by Moses Ezekiel, the first Jewish cadet to attend VMI. He fought with the Confederates at the Battle of New Market before graduating in 1867. […] > > VMI Board of Visitors member Hugh Fain […] said ahead of the vote that the monument was created “as a reconciliation effort” after the Civil War. > > Arlington National Cemetery’s description of the monument states: “The elaborately designed monument offers a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” […] > > But in 2017, 22 members of the Ezekiel family wrote to The Washington Post calling for the Confederate Memorial to be removed from the national cemetery. > > “Like most such monuments, this statue intended to rewrite history to justify the Confederacy and the subsequent racist Jim Crow laws,” the letter reads, later imploring: “Take it out of its honored spot in Arlington National Cemetery and put it in a museum that makes clear its oppressive history.” ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2023, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/543 "2023-10-27T12:36:28Z")
> **[Robert E Lee statue that sparked Charlottesville riot is melted down: ‘Like...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/26/charlottesville-robert-e-lee-melted-confederate-statue)** > > Brass from the statue of the Confederate general will be used for a public art installation in Virginia city ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2023, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/544 "2023-12-18T06:45:53Z")
[The tacky glorification of racism is to be removed “in the coming days”.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/confederate-memorial-removed-arlington-national-162112219.html) > ARLINGTON, Va. — A Confederate memorial is to be removed from [Arlington National Cemetery](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/06/arlington-national-cemetery-opening-new-section-with-civil-war-burials/) in northern Virginia in the coming days, part of the push to remove symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities, a cemetery official said Saturday. > > The decision ignores a recent demand from more than 40 Republican congressmen that the Pentagon suspend efforts to dismantle and remove the monument from Arlington cemetery. Ah, so we have 40 republicans in congress who think that’s the wrong thing to do? That tends to show me those 40 folks don’t belong in congress. Oh, just for fun, let’s see a good description of the monument in question. > The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, and was designed to represent the American South. According to Arlington, the woman holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, with a Biblical inscription at her feet that says: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” Really, now? Swords turned into plough-shares and spears into pruning hooks? Yeah, right. ISTM ‘twas a bit opposite of that. ISTR reading in history class that the ol’ American South took up arms against the United States of America. > Some of the figures also on the statue include a Black woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war. Can’t glorify your traitor ancestor without having a mammy and a body servant along for the ride, huh? And just maybe the poor slave [wasn’t all that willing to be along for the ride](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/diaries-left-behind-confederate-soldiers-reveals-role-enslaved-labor-gettysburg-180972538/). Same link, by the way, discusses some of those slaves jumping ship. That fucking statue is pure Lost Cause bullshit. It deserves to be gone. Personal note: I graduated from high school in Arlington Country, Virginia. In fact, while I was in high school, I lived just a few blocks down the road from Arlington National Cemetery. And, thankfully, the education I got did not include that lost causse nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2023, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/545 "2023-12-18T11:22:03Z")
Remove the soldiers on horseback. Leave all the horses. You’re not celebrating the combatant mounted atop the steed, right? That would be terribly racist! The horses and thereby, the ‘history’, is NOT erased. Everybody loves horses! ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2023, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/546 "2023-12-18T16:27:40Z")
Was anyone else surprised to learn we have a statue honoring US war enemies in Arlington? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/547 "2023-12-19T03:02:48Z")
And the [lost causers catch a break](https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-issues-order-keeping-confederate-204100046.html): > A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary restraining order barring removal of a memorial to Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. > > A group called Defend Arlington, affiliated with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, filed a lawsuit Sunday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, seeking the restraining order. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday. I quite like this bit from the judge, though: > In a footnote, Alston wrote that he “takes very seriously the representations of officers of the Court and should the representations in this case be untrue or exaggerated the Court may take appropriate sanctions.” ISTM he realizes some consider today to be the post-truth era and he’s not having it. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/548 "2023-12-19T03:34:59Z")
Not me. We have military bases named after confederate traitors. ---
**Author:** ![Sooner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sooner/32/7875_2.png) [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/549 "2023-12-19T14:10:38Z")
Fairly sure we do not at this time. Bragg is now Liberty Lee is now Gregg- Adams Hood is now Cavazos Gordon is now Eisenhower - and so on I am on several veteran website, and the usually suspects are in an uproar. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/550 "2023-12-19T14:29:36Z")
That is an incredibly recent development. We only decided in the past few years that naming military bases after the people who killed American soldiers was a bad idea and here is the kicker: that has been a controversial idea; a large number of Americans are quite vocal that we should honor America’s enemies. ETA: and here’s another kicker, the ones who want to honor our enemies consider themselves to be patriotic. Until 2021, the State of Tennessee had a bust of one of the founders of the klan in it’s State House. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/551 "2023-12-19T15:59:57Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Not me. We have military bases named after confederate traitors. I guess I knew that too. Just shocks me to see more examples of this sort of crap. > [@madmonk28](#): > > ETA: and here’s another kicker, the ones who want to honor our enemies consider themselves to be patriotic. 'Murica! ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/552 "2023-12-19T16:24:07Z")
Once actual nazis marched on Charlottesville to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee and then one of them drive a car into a crowd of protestors killing one person and then the president praised them as fine people and then that same president tried to overthrow the government and then he took the lead in the polls, I kind of lost my ability to be shocked by America. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/553 "2023-12-19T18:49:20Z")
All obvious patriots! When are we going to get a Fort Hitler or Fort Bin Laden already? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/554 "2023-12-19T19:10:23Z")
After Donald Trump is re-elected, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/555 "2023-12-19T20:57:57Z")
No, they’ll all be re-named Fort Trump-Georgia, Fort Trump-Texas, Fort Trump-West Point, and so on. Solves the Confederacy problem entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/556 "2023-12-19T21:06:42Z")
Hush your mouth! In other news: [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-judge-halts-removal-confederate-memorial-arlington-cemetery-2023-12-19/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-judge-halts-removal-confederate-memorial-arlington-cemetery-2023-12-19/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/557 "2023-12-19T21:25:52Z")
@Monty beat you to that story nine posts ago. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/558 "2023-12-20T08:41:01Z")
[And the removal is a go!](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-says-us-army-can-remove-confederate-memorial-arlington-cemetery-2023-12-20/) > Judge says US Army can remove Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery > > Dec 19 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday ruled that Army crews can continue removing a confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery, as Congress has mandated must be done by Jan. 1. > > U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston on Monday had ordered a halt to the removal as he considered a lawsuit against the work. > > In his Tuesday ruling, he rejected the arguments from the group Defend Arlington, who claimed in their suit that the Pentagon had skirted federal environmental law in its rush to take down the monument, and that the work would disturb nearby graves. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/559 "2023-12-26T16:20:43Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > All obvious patriots! When are we going to get a Fort Hitler or Fort Bin Laden already? Exactly this. When people say that statues are about teaching history, bad or good, my response is: “Let’s erect a golden statue of Bin Laden in Times Square then. Statues are about _glorifying_ history, not teaching it” Unfortunately they rarely get the point. They’ll normally think of some ad hoc reason why it’s not analogous “2001 is too recent to be history”, “Bin laden wasn’t American” etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694/560 "2023-12-26T16:21:45Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > “Bin laden wasn’t American” etc etc. Seems worse to me that an actual American took up arms against America than a foreigner, but what do I know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694.md?page=27) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-we-do-with-confederate-monuments-and-statues/793694.md?page=29)