About Those Statues...

I have no mixed feelings about statues of Confederate soldiers and politicians being removed from anywhere but battlefields, towns where military operations/headquarters occurred, and museums. I think they should be taken down. 

I say this as a member of the Hampton family of South Carolina, whose son Wade Hampton was a general in the CSA and the post-war governor of the state. Wade Hampton’s statue is at the Capitol building in large part because he was the one who forced the state to abide by the requirements for readmission to the Union following the Civil War. Even so, the Hampton family was among the largest slave-holding families in the USA prior to the war. Could South Carolina lift up someone else in Wade Hampton’s place to honor in the US Capitol without hurting my feelings? Absolutely.

As to all the other statues, the infographic showing the peaks of installation of these monuments speaks volumes about their actual purpose. The vast majority of non-battlefield/military operational statuary was installed during the late 1910s and 1920s or the late 1950s, times in American history when the nation was under particular stress as non-white citizens were seeking the equal rights promised to them under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. As we continue to see today, people who have never had to worry about free exercise of their rights were scared that allowing others those same rights would somehow make them less free; white supremacy and white pride rose (again) to prominence and the installation of those statues was a symptom of that infection. Their continued presence in town squares and on university campuses around the country (not just in the old Confederacy) is a symptom of the continuing infection of white supremacy and white pride.

I understand why advocates for the preservation of these statues are afraid that the memory of the men honored by them will be lost if the statues are removed. They’re right. Taking these statues down will result in the loss of the particular memories of these men that these statues seek to preserve: that of heroic men willing to sacrifice life and limb for a cause in which they believe. To that I say: HALLELUJAH! The cause for which they fought—and make no mistake, they fought for the preservation of the institution of slavery first and foremost, with “states rights” only as the sop to respectability in the years following the war—was always a losing cause. It was immoral per se. Removing the statues will not result in the forgetting of the cause; rather, without the statues and the distraction of “heroic” men, we should be able to address that which we should never forget. Not so very long ago in American history, half of our population (probably much more!) felt it was perfectly fine to own other human beings and not only to own them, but to do so because it was perfectly acceptable to consider people with skin color other than white (and, more broadly speaking ethnicity other than northern European or religion other than Christian) less than human.

It is abundantly clear that a subset of the population of the United States still feels this way.

There is no other explanation, truly, for the white supremacy movement. There are people I dislike tremendously in this world, both people I know personally and people about whom I know only through their public words and actions. I would never deny their humanity. I cannot fathom any way that someone who thinks of people who are not white Christians as human beings could possibly march through the streets of a town or city with torches and weapons shouting the vicious slurs we heard in Charlottesville. I just can’t. And as much as I would like to return the favor by considering this particular subset of the population of the United States to be subhuman, I can’t. My Christian faith prevents me from seeing any sibling, no matter how repugnant and inhumane their beliefs, as any less worthy of God’s love and care than any other human being; I know that the same is true of people of many other faith traditions, as well. What I can do is trust that God is even more heartbroken and revulsed by their attitudes and behaviors than I am and that we who are heartbroken and revulsed are being strengthened to work together—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, humanists, agnostics, atheists, and all other good-hearted humans—to counter this hatred with love. Baltimore’s removal of statues this week and Boston’s overwhelming outpouring of love in the face of hate today were good starts. Let’s keep up this work until it isn’t needed any more (yes, I’m an optimist!).

Removing the statues from all but battlefields, military encampments/siege sites/headquarters, and museums that teach actual history strips away the facade of respectability around the Southern cause. Without the statues to “remind” people of what they think was true, perhaps we can get to the very serious and long overdue work of reparations and relationship building that will strengthen our country for the serious challenges ahead. We are and always have been an work in progress as a country, never perfect but hopefully on a path that moves us closer each generation to the ideals of equality, freedom, and liberty for ALL people.