Fallout from the KKK and other white supremacists rearing their ugly heads in Charlottesville last weekend is taking many forms. Most notable is the way cities across America are removing monuments to Confederate leaders as if they were suddenly emitting a deadly airborne virus.
Remarkably, no less a person than President Trump is acting as pleader-in-chief for cities to leave these “beautiful statues and monuments” alone. But, in so many ways, this walking monument to racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc. might be emitting the deadliest virus of them all. Sure enough, impeachment proceedings are afoot in Congress to remove him … too.
But here is what I wrote about this frenzied reaction in “White Supremacy: The Tragedy and Folly of Charlottesville,” August 14, 2017.
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I can think of 99 things that bother me about racism in America today, but a Confederate statue ain’t one. But if challenged to settle this monuments issue, I would deem the only historically tenable, even if morally specious, way to do so would be to focus on the Civil War, bearing in mind the maxims: to the victor go the spoils and the victors write history. …
The Civil War was supposed to marginalize the racist ideology that rationalized black slavery and white supremacy. It failed. Nothing demonstrated this quite like the hundreds of monuments vanquished Southerners erected to honor those who fought and died to preserve this racist ideology. It’s particularly noteworthy that they did this in reaction to and defiance of racial advancement during the period from Reconstruction in the 1860s to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s (a.k.a. the Jim Crow period). That’s when they erected the Lee statue at issue in 1924, for example.
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Given this frenzy, I cannot resist sharing my abiding unease about the Washington Monument. Granted, construction began in 1848, long before the Jim Crow period that gave rise to Confederate monuments. But it is noteworthy that builders did not don its crowning cone until 1888, when Jim Crow was in its formative years.
More to the point, if you’ve ever wondered where KKK wizards got the idea for their white hoods, here’s my take from “Washington Monument’s KKK Imagery,” October 2, 2011.
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There was considerable media coverage last week of workers repelling down the Washington Monument to inspect damage caused by the recent earthquake.
Most people seemed mesmerized by the acrobatic feat this entailed. But I could not help noticing how much close-up images of the cone of the Monument resemble the hood of a Klansman.
I’ve read accounts of Free Masons – who were instrumental in building DC – inserting masonic symbols all over the city. Therefore, is it so farfetched to think that this monument, which was built between 1848-88 as a memorial to George Washington, also paid homage the prevailing symbol of white supremacy…?
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As indicated in my original commentary, I appreciate why monuments to Washington and other Founding Fathers should be exempted from this ISIS-style purge. Not least because one can draw a direct line between them and the melting pot that is America today; whereas one cannot do the same with leaders of the Confederacy — who fought to protect and preserve slavery as a fundamental way of life.
But, no matter its origin, what this monument might have inspired (and clearly symbolizes) should put this obelisk on the list.
Related commentaries:
White supremacy…
Washington monument…