Not just any Lee statue, the one from Charlottesville famous for the Unite the Right Nazi rally that culminated in Heather Heyer getting murdered.
I ended up in Charlottesville for a wedding a few years back and unintentionally parked right across the street from the statue. It was covered up with plastic; sent a shiver down my spine when I realized what it was. I’m glad they’re melting that shit down to turn a hate symbol into something beautiful. RIP Heather, you stood up for real American values.
Yeah, generally, I prefer stuff like this to get preserved for historical value, just out of public view.
But many of these things are rallying points for hate right now, and the value of actually destroying that in the present outweighs the value to any historian or student of history in the future.
This one in particular. History won’t miss it. Burn the fucker.
The vast majority of these statutes, including this one, were erected decades after the Civil War and have no historical value beyond being physical representations of Jim Crow. The guy that commissioned it purchased land and oversaw the creation of a whites only park on the site where it was erected. They were rallying points of hate when they went up and they still are.
It would be nice it it was just now, but those things were built as symbols of hate from the start.
As much as I am all for inclusive art, I would have not melted that statue and instead put it in a museum as a memorial to who the south once thought of as a hero. Maybe add some context like how he shouldn’t be celebrated, but still provide historical context as to his person and insight into how people back then thought of him.
Don’t worry, it’s the south. They have about a thousand more statues of that traitor at least.
Plus everyone and their cousin-sister has the middle name Lee.
Museums don’t store this sort of thing though. Since it’s not from the civil war, it’s not sensible to store and exhibit such a thing. Imagine if people started telling the Louvé to display paintings inspired by the Mona Lisa, because it’s basically the Mona Lisa. Museum curators would have no reason to do so, despite what the public thinks.
Edit: Also the statue is a piece of propaganda rather than actual history. There’s honestly not much to say about the statue itself. The bulk of what could be said is about Lee, and actual historic pieces of his life do exist in museums. Displacing those real historic exhibits in exchange for this statue would be a shame.
Propoganda + Time = history.
The statue doesn’t say much about the civil war. But it does say alot about the Jim Crow era in which it was built. Personally I think this is even more important because the Jim Crow era is far less well understood by most Americans, and far more relevant to the race issues we see today.
Exactly this. Plus, unfortunately, there are plenty of Confederate monuments and statues erected way after the Civil War whose sole purpose was “scare those black people into knowing their place.” Some of those can find new homes in museums displaying the history of racism (with added context), but we can’t preserve all of them. So melt the rest down and reuse them in ways that uplift people instead of oppressing them.
It’s absolutely history but just not Civil War history. This is the Charlottesville statue and it’s iconic of our contemporary far right nationalist problem. Imagine things like this being a part of an exhibit laying out the turmoil our country is going through.
Edit: A lot of key pieces of history are missing because people didn’t look to the future. I think some of it should have been carefully stored in a basement somewhere. Out of sight for at least 20 years.
That would be one huge museum of equally bad similarly looking statues. No need to preserve them all, because there are so many of them, a couple will do.
That doesn’t sound like a fun place. Hey honey want to take the kids to the museum of poorly made statues of hate today?
Yeah, the caption should be segregation now, segregation forever. And if we are legally forced to stop scratching, we will make their place clear by building statues to the people that fought to keep them slaves when they get their rights from the federal government. The statues were about sending a message to those that believed segregation was done. The stairs being melted is the right move to send a message to those that built them.
Unless the statue was erected by George Wallace, that caption is irrelevant. Put a caption of Lee’s written words:
There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence.
This passage is commonly cut off after the full sentence before you get the full context in which Lee actually cares about how bad slavery is for white people and how slavery was good for the enslaved.
But mah heritage! Them five years is the most important five years in history!
If they like the confederacy so much, they should go join them.
Oh wait, they’re all dead losers. Lmao
We should build a statue to Covid
I’m glad they broadcasted that completely unnecessary detail just to rub it in lol
It wasn’t an unnecessary detail, it is integral to the story because it is deliberate positive symbolism. To counter that the original statue stood for deliberate hateful symbolism.
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Yeah, some of the MAGAt Nazis have already announced that they will keep laying down a wreath every year on the new statue that is being cast, no matter what.
It would be hilarious if they held their solemn loser ceremony around a giant dildo every year!
Wonderful article, highly recommend y’all click through to read this one.
Reforge it into a statue of Katherine Johnson.
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The government (in any form, city, town, etc) shouldn’t erect statues or monuments.
I could support this, but then only private capital would erect monuments. And what would they erect monuments to, Elon Musk? Donald Trump?
I like the idea of a representative, democracy, building statues and monuments supported by the will of constituents.
I mean they did build a gold statue of trump at CPAC, and “public dot com” and “$EGT crypto” both built statues of musk.
people can make whatever art they want. If it’s truly popular it will last. The proof of the pudding and all that.
Nah popularity has nothing to do with it. Capital can build them, capital can protect them.
