Stop Defending the Confederacy

A call to end romanticizing white supremacist ideology

America finds itself in the middle of a culture war. Whether or not it can cast aside its Confederate memorabilia will determine a path for inclusion or exclusivity. While some defend the historical significance of the statues, Americans must consider the history of the Confederacy before making their final decision.

The Confederacy consisted of anti-American rebels more interested in lining their pockets than maintaining domestic tranquillity. These men killed millions of Americans due to white privilege. Black people, forced to work, created a booming economy. Yet, white supremacists claimed their whiteness made it great. Confederates feared African freedom would jeopardize their economic stability. Losing slaves challenged the myth of white supremacy. If Americans agree that white supremacy is the wrong path, symbols romanticizing the Confederacy must be dismantled, along with their flags, and white-washed history.

Union forces defeated the white supremacist Confederate Army in 1865. However, white supremacist ideology lives on in our white-washed history books and our public spaces adorned with their imagery. The Northerners benefited from Black soldiers, willing to risk their lives for freedom, then disregarded the needs of Black people in the South. The Federal Government permitted the former Confederates to implement the Black Codes, infringing on the civil rights of Black citizens. The former Confederates lynched Black men and women, depriving them of due process. These statues were erected in this spirit.

While white-washing historians claimed Americans fought the Civil War over opposition to taxation by the North and States’ rights, this is purposefully misleading. These history books helped to shape the views of American citizens. To be clear, Americans fought the Civil War over slavery. Southern plantation owners realized their economy would crumble without free labor by slaves. Thus, a threat to possessing people became a threat to maintain economic mobility and political strength. White-washing historians misled students, insisting the Civil War started due to over-taxation by the Federal Government and States’ Rights. Historical mischaracterizations of the Civil War lend credence to those who aim to romanticize it.

What rights were the Southern states fighting for? They were fighting for the right to own slaves. They disagreed with paying taxes given that Northern states had refused to assist in re-enslavement attempts.

“The declaration of secession for Texas is perhaps the most dogmatic. On Feb. 2, 1861, state leaders published a defense of slavery that amounted to little more than a bizarre, quasi-eugenic treatise for white supremacy. “Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people,” it begins, before taking a wildly offensive turn, even by the standards of the day:

‘We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable’ (Flanagin, 2015).

They asserted that African descendants possessed no right to the American dream. Confederate states defected because the Federal Government refused to send runaway slaves back to their captures. Their freedom undermined the authority of white supremacists in the South. To strike back, they united as the Confederacy, starting the Civil War in an attempt to maintain possession of African slaves, thereby maintaining their economic stability. This has always been about a predatory type of capitalism, incapable of recognizing the humanity of people involved.

Slave owners knew that Black people were intelligent. They stole Black people from African nations who had unique languages, economic systems, and societal norms. The white supremacist lie masks itself in ignorance, denying that they knew Black people were people. It just was not profitable to admit it because slave owners became prosperous at the expense of Black people.

The South fell behind the curve during the Industrial Revolution. After losing their enslaved workforce, they struggled to compete economically with the North. They wanted to control Black people and maintain as much of the Confederate way of life as possible. White supremacists used law enforcement and organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to rule through fear.

Americans do not need statues as a visual reminder of the Confederacy. The skin of Black people serves as a reminder. Many white Americans feel awkward upon gazing at Black people because they know why a large African population exists in the diaspora. White people kidnapped Africans and brought them to establish a new country in which they would be powerless. To maintain the Southern slave-based economy, Confederate soldiers risked their lives and committed treason against the United States. Leaving the Union to fight to keep slaves was not honorable; it was deplorable.

African Americans are the descendants of prisoners of war. They kidnapped, beat, lynched, maimed, raped, and killed citizens of African nations. Yet, America failed to engage in restorative justice. Any true ally to Black people should support the condemnation of America’s past war crimes. The United Nations does not condone war crimes. Presently, the United States possesses membership.

For the purpose of this Statute, ‘crime against humanity’ means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

Murder;

Extermination;

Enslavement;

Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

Torture;

Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

Enforced disappearance of persons;

The crime of apartheid;

Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health “ (United Nations, 2020).

America violated the human rights of Black people through enslavement, Jim Crow Laws, sexual abuse, forced pregnancy, and a litany of other crimes.

No country has the right to enslave groups of people. This is a human rights violation. If countries in the United Nations do not adhere to the standards set, it undermines its ability to monitor human rights violations. To remedy this accountability nightmare, America should participate in restorative justice which could heal the wounds left by slavery and systematic racism.

The persecution of Black people through Jim Crow laws in the south violated the Civil Rights of American citizens. Introducing the Civil Rights Act set a tone going forward but did not address the harm it caused for generations of Black families.

When people defend the Confederacy, their statues, or the legacy they are romanticizing the bloody and traumatic history of this country. America can never be great without understanding itself, acknowledging mistakes, and bravely moving forward.

Confederate statues, erected during the Jim Crow era, embodied the military might of white supremacists. They aspired to terrorize Black people without intimidating white Northerners. They deprived Black people of their civil rights as these statues sent a powerful message.

Black people, along with Northerners won the physical war but lost the ideological one. These statues remind anyone who looks upon them that white-supremacists maintained governing control. Their presence further perpetuates the idea that Confederate generals, like General Robert E. Lee, were heroes to be remembered lovingly.

General Robert E. Lee was not the hero American historians portrayed him to be.

“The presence of black soldiers on the field of battle shattered every myth that the South’s slave empire was built on: the happy docility of slaves, their intellectual inferiority, their cowardice, their inability to compete with white people. As Pryor writes, “fighting against brave and competent African Americans challenged every underlying tenet of southern society.” The Confederate response to this challenge was to visit every possible atrocity and cruelty upon black soldiers whenever possible, from enslavement to execution.

Lee had beaten or ordered his own slaves to be beaten for the crime of wanting to be free; he fought for the preservation of slavery; his army kidnapped free black people at gunpoint and made them unfree — but all of this, he insisted, had occurred only because of the great Christian love the South held for black Americans. Here we truly understand Frederick Douglass’s admonition that “between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference” (Serwer, 2020).

For the sake of American civility, the statues should be removed. No good faith argument concerning human rights violations could defend the maintenance of these monstrosities on public lands. In honor of the slaves who were carelessly condemned to lives of servitude and the Northerners who sacrificed their lives to create a more just, and unified America, take these statues and symbols down.

Those inspired to dismantle symbols of white supremacy should act locally, thinking globally. Americans can write to their city council representatives and state representatives. Using their voices, they can demand the removal of Confederate statues and memorabilia. Symbols of unity can replace these symbols of division.

References:

Flanagin, J. (2015, April 10). For the last time, the American Civil War was not about states’ rights. Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://qz.com/378533/for-the-last-time-the-american-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/

United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. (2020). Retrieved July 20, 2020, from https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml

Serwer, S. (2020, June 24). The Myth of the Kindly General Lee. Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/