Why Do We Honor Traitors In Our Schools?

The Confederacy was created for only one reason -- to protect the right of the Confederate states to enslave human beings. That is a fact. 

Another fact is that the leaders (and soldiers) of the Confederacy were traitors to the United States. They denied their citizenship in our country, and worse, they actually waged war on the United States -- killing soldiers who defended our country. 

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are still 198 schools in this country that have Confederate-themed names. Why do we allow this to be? Why do we honor traitors to this country by naming schools after them.

This gives the impression that we support their traitorous actions, and gives our students the impression that we still support the slavery and discrimination that they fought for.

This must change!

Statues Of 11 Confederates Desecrate Our Capitol Bldg.

 The statue at left is of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. The statue on the right is of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the vice-president of the confederacy.

These statues are not in some history museum. They are in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

They are among 11 statues of Confederate officials and soldiers that are desecrating the U.S. Capitol.

I know there are those who claim they represent our heritage, but what heritage? Do we really want to glorify a heritage of hate and racism. These men fought to. keep slavery legal. They believed in the supremacy of Whites. There is no doubt of this. It is in the constitutions of the states that made up the Confederacy.

And they were traitors. They actively worked against the United States of America. These 11 men should not be honored. They should be vilified.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked that the statues be removed from the Capitol building. States could replace them with real American heroes (each state donates two statues to be exhibited in the Capitol). She is right! The statues symbolize the racism that is too prevalent in this country. They must go!

Here, from KIRO7.com, is a list of the 11 states that should be removed:

Jefferson Davis, statue donated by Mississippi: Davis, who owned a cotton plantation in Mississippi before the Civil War, was the president of the Confederate States of America during the war.

James Zachariah George, statue donated by Mississippi: George was a leader in the state during Reconstruction and was a staunch white supremacist. Called the “Great Commoner,” George was a lawyer and a member of the Mississippi Secession Convention. He signed the state’s Secession Ordinance.

Wade Hampton, statue donated by South Carolina: Hampton was one of the largest slaveholders in the Southeast prior to the war. He fought for the Confederacy, reaching the rank of lieutenant general. After the war, he became the leader of the Redeemers, a political coalition that hoped to enforce white supremacy in all aspects of life. Hampton, a Democrat, was elected governor of South Carolina in a campaign that became known for its violence against black and Republican voters.  

John E. Kenna, statue donated by West Virginia: Kenna was 16 years old when he fought for the Confederacy. He was wounded, and when he returned home, he dedicated himself to becoming a lawyer. He was a prosecuting attorney and then a judge. Kenna, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. House in 1876 and to the U.S. Senate in 1883. He died in office at age 44.

Robert E. Lee, statue donated by Virginia: Lee, a graduate of West Point, was the commander of the Confederate States Army. Lee married into one of the wealthiest slaveholding families in Virginia – the Custis family. Upon the death of his father-in-law, Lee was charged with managing Custis’ estate. He would eventually free Custis’ slaves, five years after Custis’ death, per the orders in his will. Lee also owned slaves.

Uriah Milton Rose, statue donated by Arkansas: Rose, an attorney, was a strong supporter of the Confederacy. He became chairman of the Resolutions Committee of the state Democratic Party, determined "to preserve 'white man’s” government in a “white man’s country.” He served as president of the American Bar Association. He helped found the Rose Law Firm, where Hilary Clinton was a partner.

Edmund Kirby Smith, statue donated by Florida: Smith was born into a wealthy slave-owning family in St. Augustine, Florida. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Mexican–American War, he joined the Confederate States Army to fight in the Civil War. Eventually, he would command the Trans-Mississippi Department after the fall of Vicksburg to Union forces. He was the last Confederate general to surrender after the end of the Civil War.

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, statue donated by Georgia: Stephens was a Confederate politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States. He was a Democratic representative in the U.S. House and was the governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883.  

Zebulon Baird Vance, statue donated by North Carolina: Vance was a member of the Confederate military before being elected governor of North Carolina and the U.S. Senate. Vance favored the modernization of the Southern economy following the war.

Joseph Wheeler, statue donated by Alabama: Wheeler was a commander in the Confederate Army of Tennessee before he served as a general in the United States Army during both the Spanish–American War and Philippine–American War.

Edward Douglass White, statue donated by Louisiana: White was captured during the Civil War as he was fighting for the Confederacy. After the war, he was elected to the Louisiana state Senate and served on the Louisiana Supreme Court. A Democrat, White represented Louisiana in the United States Senate and was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. A few years later, President William Howard Taft appointed him chief justice of the Supreme Court.

It's Time To Remove Confederate Plaque From Capitol Bldg.

The plaque pictured above is in the Texas Capitol Building, and was placed there in 1959 (likely in response to the civil rights demonstrations that were starting to grow at that time). It is not only offensive to have a plaque honoring an enemy of the United States, but the plaque contains an obvious LIE -- that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. The plaque is an abomination to all decent Texas of all colors, and it needs to be removed.

Here is what the editorial board of The Dallas Morning News had to say:

It's never simple raising concerns about Confederate monuments and symbols in this state. There's a fiery debate anytime there's a mention of removing these relics.

Such was the case when state Rep. Eric Johnson started raising questions a full year ago about the Confederate plaque near his Capitol office. We understand the emotional feelings about not erasing history. But imagine suffering the indignity of being face-to-face day in and day out with a hurtful reminder that celebrates keeping your race of people in bondage.

This newspaper has repeatedly argued that these divisive tributes no longer belong in our public spaces. We're flummoxed as to why it's taken so long to get rid of this one. Not only is it offensive, but it also offers a distorted and widely debunked history lesson about the Civil War. It's past time for it to go.

The plaque, erected by the "Children of the Confederacy" in 1959, features the group's creed, including a "pledge ... to study and teach the truths of history (one of the most important of which is, that the War Between the States was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery)."

Historians say that's hogwash. What's more, the time and context for when these tributes took place matter. Many were not done in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but rather at the height of legally mandated segregation. Bent less on history than on subordinating people. 

So why is this plaque still hanging in the state Capitol in Austin? Stunningly, it seems to come down to a disagreement about who is authorized to remove it.

Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, first made his removal request to the Texas Preservation Board, charged with maintaining and preserving the Capitol, the Governor's Mansion and other properties.

Gov. Greg Abbott, the board's chairman, has said that because the Legislature authorized the plaque's installation, lawmakers should be involved in deciding whether to remove it. More than 40 lawmakers support its removal, according to the Austin American-Statesman. They include Republican House Speaker Joe Straus. 

Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, joined the cause in April, asking Attorney General Ken Paxton to offer an opinion on who has the authority to remove it.

We encourage Paxton to rule soon so this long-overdue removal process can get underway.

But Texas has already made great strides in the kind of state it wants to be today. The Southern Poverty Law Center says Texas has removed more Confederate symbols than any other state in the three years since the killing of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., that renewed the effort to take them down.

Texas needs to add one more to the pile. The public seat of democracy is no place for such a thing.

Republican Party - White Guardian Of The Confederacy

The following is just part of an excellent and thought-provoking article by David M. Drucker in Vanity Fair:

The transition from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Reagan, and now to the Party of Trump, did not happen overnight. In 1950s America, the one that the enthusiastic Trump voter might have in mind when the president pledges to “Make America Great Again,” the progressives were Republicans. There were few Republicans in the South back then—whether voters or politicians. But those that existed were generally at the forefront of advocating for civil rights, in the tradition of the party that formed in part to end chattel slavery of African-Americans and the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who prosecuted the Civil War that extinguished it. The Democratic Party, the party of the Confederacy and the Old South, still represented racism and oppression, and to the extent that African-Americans were able to vote, they tended to vote Republican.

That began to change in 1964, when U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination. The libertarian from Arizona opposed federal civil-rights legislation on federalism grounds, a position rejected by liberal whites and, naturally, African-Americans. President Lyndon Johnson, who was accelerating the Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights and racial tolerance, crushed Goldwater in the general election, fueling the movement of white Southern Democrats toward the G.O.P.

To a degree, it was the organic consequence of the two parties’ shifting attitudes toward whether the federal government should force states to honor and uphold the civil rights of African-Americans. But it also was the result of a deliberate strategic choice made by the Republicans. As the debate over civil rights roiled the U.S. and the fabric of American society was stretched thin by the loosening of traditional social norms, the Republicans spied a path to a governing majority, and an end to a losing streak that by the mid 1960s included 7 of the previous 9 presidential elections and 14 out of 16 elections to determine control of Congress. Millions of voters were scared that the country was unraveling; they were uncomfortable by what they perceived as a disregard for authority, disrespect of country, and devaluing of religion and the family. A good number of them were in the South.

Republicans also courted them, sometimes with forthright policy appeals to restore conservative governance and traditional American values, sometimes with coded language—as Lee Atwater infamously explained—that preyed upon their unease with racial equality. . . .

The current debate over Confederate symbols cuts to the central, existential question hanging over the G.O.P. The Republican Party today is an amalgam of upscale white suburbanites who are moderate on social issues but conservative on fiscal and national-security issues, and exurban and rural populist working-class whites, who are quasi-liberal on economic matters and foreign policy, but conservative on politically charged social issues.

But the key demographic in this coalition is “white.”

The Republicans becoming the guardians of the Confederacy is a function of the G.O.P. becoming so predominantly white, and yes, the predominant party in the South. The Republican project to take over the South was completed in 2010, when the red wave that swept Republicans into power in Congress and state capitals across the country ejected the last remnants of white Democratic authority. So by the time Trump responded to Charlottesville with vows to protect “our culture” and “our history,” and protect Confederate monuments from being relegated to some museum’s dusty storeroom, there were few sympathetic voters left in the Democratic Party to cheer him on. But there were plenty of Republicans.

“The Republican Party didn’t just capture the South; the South captured the Republican Party,” said Matt K. Lewis, a conservative writer for the Daily Beast, and CNN commentator. . . .

The modern-day manifestation of that is a rejection of anything deemed “politically correct,” a boiling sentiment that helped propel Trump to the Republican nomination last year, and then, the presidency. You could say that defending the Confederate statues, symbols, and historical figures, in 2017, is peak political incorrectness. . . .

The Republican Party is in the midst of its own civil war, one likely to play out in G.O.P. primary contests for the House and Senate throughout the 2018 midterm cycle. The outcome could determine whether Reagan-era conservatism, or Trump-styled white identity politics, comes to define the party brand. Steve Bannon, the nationalist firebrand behind Breitbart News and Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House, is raising resources and recruiting primary candidates to challenge G.O.P. incumbents on the 2018 ballot, with the goal of electing more like-minded Republicans: economic populists, immigration restrictionists, foreign policy non-interventionists. Joined by a cadre of co-conspirators on the right, his goal is to expel, among others, the Republicans who have been at the forefront of courting nonwhites to join a more inclusive G.O.P. centered around free-market economics, and comprehensive immigration-reform legislation. Republicans just like this were on the party’s primary ballot for president in 2016—and were soundly rejected in favor of Trump. Will it happen again?

There May Be A Solution To The Confederate Statues

These charts are from the newest Public Policy Polling survey -- done between August 18th and 21st of a random national sample of 887 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.3 points.

As the top chart shows, the general public is split on the appropriateness of statues in public places of Confederate military figures and politicians (39% support, 34% oppose, and 27% don't know what the hell to think). But when you look at the racial breakdown, you can see the problem this country has. Among Whites, about 49% support the monuments and 29% oppose them. It's different among Nonwhites -- Blacks (11% support and 49% oppose, Hispanics (3% support and 47% oppose), and other races (23% support and 44% oppose).

These monuments expose the racial problem we have in this country. Too many Whites still harboring racist views (shown by their support for monuments honoring those who who fought to keep slavery and white supremacy).

The second chart gives us a ray of hope. There seems to be a solution that a substantial majority of all races can agree upon -- moving the monuments out of the public square and into museums (where they can be displayed in a historical context). That would be supported by 57% of Whites, 63% of Blacks, 61% of Hispanics, and 55% of other races.

It's a compromise, but it's one I think most people could happily live with.

Yes - Honoring A Heritage Of Hate Makes You A Racist

The photo at left is of a statue honoring Confederate soldiers in the city I grew up in -- Vernon, Texas. I never understood why that statue was there -- of a soldier who fought against the United States and for the institution of slavery. But it is there, and probably will be for a long time to come (the county voted 77.1% Republican in the last election).

This is not an anomaly in Texas or the rest of the Confederate states. There are more than 1,500 statues similar to it dotted throughout these states.

Finally, there is a movement to remove the statues, and some cities (like New Orleans) have already done it. But that movement infuriates others. They claim these statues just honor their heritage, and should remain standing.

Heritage? Just what kind of heritage is it honoring? Every one of the Confederate soldiers, from the lowest private to the generals, fought against the United States of America and killed American soldiers trying to defend the Union. And they did that to make sure the rich planters in their state could continue the institution of slavery. They, and their officials, were convinced that White people were superior to Black people.

It is not uncommon to hear those who defend the statues (and the flying of a rebel flag) say they are not racists, but just want to honor their heritage. They don't seem to understand that racism is not determined by what is claimed, but by the actions of those making the claim. And if you defend and honor a heritage like this, then you are a racist (whether you want to admit it or not).

You may be a closet racist -- one who would not march with the KKK, the white supremacists, and the nazis, or openly display your feelings. But if you honor and defend the Confederacy, your actions in doing so do make you a racist. You simply cannot defend and honor those who fought to maintain slavery and white supremacy, and not be a racist.

The statues should be removed. Put them in a museum, so we can always remember this shameful chapter of our history and never repeat it -- but they don't belong in the public square. They are just reminders that we have not yet rid ourselves of the disease of racism. They are symbols of hate.

In Defense Of Removing Confederate Statues

Recently, New Orleans just removed the statues of Confederate heroes. This angered many racists throughout the country. But the mayor of that beautiful city, Mitch Landrieu (picture by Derek Bridges), gave a passionate speech in defense of removing those statues. He said:

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

Apology Needed

I was born and raised in a state that abandoned the Union for a treasonous attempt to form a different nation, and I wouldn't mind hearing an apology either. And I'm sick of hearing about the "war of northern aggression", or that the war was over "state's rights". The South left the Union because they wanted to justify and continue the institution of slavery. Any attempt to deny that is just a lie.

Post- Racial ? Not Even Close !

A couple of years ago some people were saying that America had entered its post-racial phase. The ides was that because the United States had elected an African-American as its president, surely we were beginning to get past the terrible racism that has plagued this country since its founding (when slaves were only considered 3/5 of a person).

And that endemic racism has been very hard to get rid of. It took a Civil War costing the lives of many thousands of Americans to end slavery. But even after slavery was abolished and the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, racism did not go away. It just changed forms and assumed the form of segregation, the KKK and other forms of Jim Crowism. It then took another 100 years to outlaw those forms of racism.

After the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s, racism did not disappear but it did go underground so it was not quite as upfront and in-your-face as it had been in the past. Even in the South it was starting to be considered gauche to be overtly racist in public. The war against racism had not been won, but many battles were beginning to be won.

Then we progressed enough to elect Barack Obama as president. But don't think this meant the country was post-racial -- far from it. If anything, having an African-American president seemed to give the racists permission to crawl back out from under the rocks where they had been hiding, and once again make their odious views public. Once again racism became a public menace -- a menace that could now be disguised as conservative politics (which has to be making conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley turn over in their graves).

Politicians have been favoring the rich over everyone else since the Reagan administration, and this has resulted in a very unfair America -- and in the final term of Bush it finally culminated in the current recession. But those were white presidents, and while there was some complaining, poor, working class and middle class whites generally went along with what was happening.

But when Obama was elected that all changed. Now we had the teabaggers complaining loudly about socialism and big government takeovers -- even though the president and his policies were actually center-right on the political scale (and rather embarrassing to real progressives). Even the great socialist eveil health care reform was only a slight reform and strengthening of the prevailing capitalist system -- and most of the reforms had been proposed by Republicans in the past.

Obama's great sin is not in being a socialist or even a liberal -- he's not either. It is the color of his skin. The teabaggers just can't stand having an African-American president (just look at their signs when they rally) and their political views are a thinly-veiled excuse for their racism. The "birthers" are even more obvious about their racism. They never worried about a birth certificate when whites were president (or even when McCain ran for president -- who actually was born in a foreign country).

And its worse than just the teabaggers or the birthers. The KKK and white-only militias are seeing growth once again, after a couple of decades of declining membership. And even some state leaders are once again starting to celebrate white privilege. Some states are celebrating the 150 anniversary of the formation of the Confederacy (an act of treachery by 13 Southern States). And in Mississippi, the state is considering a license plate that would honor the racist hero Nathan Bedford Forrest (pictured above).

I'm sure those wanting to honor the Confederate general with a license plate will say it is just a celebration of "Southern heritage". That's nonsense. It's nothing less than a celebration of racism. And a cursory glance at the life of Forrest will confirm that. During the Civil War, at Fort Pillow, he massacred hundreds of African-American troops -- after they had thrown down their weapons and surrendered! After the war, he was very active in the KKK. Although he did not found the organization, he did centralize the disparate KKK groups under one banner and gave them a recognizable leader after being chosen Grand Wizard.

Honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest isn't a celebration of Southern heritage -- it's a slap in the face not only to minorities, but to all decent Americans. And it's just one more example of racism in America. The election of Barack Obama to be president did not mean America was post-racial. It just showed how racist the country still is. We still have a long way to go before we live up to the dream of equality written in our Constitution.

Texas Not Celebrating Its Confederate Treachery

On February 1, 1861, exactly 150 years ago, the state of Texas seceded from the United States and joined 12 other states in the Confederate States of America. Texas then joined those other states in declaring and engaging in war on the United States -- a violent and traitorous action. While only five minor battles were actually fought in Texas, over 90,000 Texans fought for the Confederacy in many battles throughout the war (out of a total free population of 419,000).

Some Southern states are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Confederacy, and trying to rewrite history to redefine the causes of the Civil War. By claiming the war was not about slavery (which it obviously was about) but instead over states' rights or economic issues, they can justify their celebration of the treacherous event.

Fortunately, Texas is not one of those states celebrating the dubious anniversary. There are no official state-sanctioned events commemorating Texas secession. Even the state's far-right Republican leadership wants no part of celebrating the fight to keep slavery legal. But that brings up the question of why. When many of its Confederate brethren are celebrating, why is Texas not doing so? I think there are several reasons, and some of them are:

* Texas is well on its way to becoming a state where minorities will soon make up the majority of the population. Celebrating slavery and white supremacy is just not smart politics.

* In the last few decades Texas has grown rapidly due to immigration from other states, and many of those people came from north of the Mason-Dixon line. These new Texans do not have Confederate ancestors and have no wish to celebrate the institution of slavery (or the fight to keep it).

* While Texas had 181,000 slaves when they seceded, they were primarily located in East Texas and the Gulf Coast. After the war, Texas' history was mostly involved in a Cowboy/Western tradition, and today most Texans identify more with that tradition than a Southern one.

* At least a third of its non-slave population voted to stay in the Union (including Texas' most revered hero, Sam Houston, who was run out of the state for not swearing allegiance to the Confederacy). Four counties voted to stay in the Union, and in one of them (Cooke County) there were over 50 people hung for remaining loyal to the United States. Other counties also had such instances of Texan against Texan, and even today there are hard feelings among some over these events.

I'm sure there may be more reasons for Texas to avoid making itself look foolish by celebrating the Confederacy. As a life-long Texan (whose family has been in the state for several generations), I am just happy that there are no official celebrations. Our current Republican leaders have given the state enough to be embarrassed about without dredging up this unsavory bit of history.

All Texans should remember the horrible mistake Texas made by seceding from the Union and fighting to keep slavery. We should remember it so we don't ever repeat it. But it is certainly nothing to celebrate.

Confederacy Not Deserving Of Honor

Recently, there has been a big hullabaloo made about Southern politicians honoring those who fought for the Confederate States of America in the Civil War. This is really nothing new in the South. For years there have been Confederate apologists who don't mind re-writing history to fit their own viewpoint.

These people always overlook the real reason the Confederacy was created and the Civil War was fought. They will tell you it was to protect Southern "heritage and values" or to defend "states' rights". But none of them, including the recent proclamations by Southern politicians, will mention slavery. They'd like for people to think their ancestors weren't traitors (as they really were), but defenders of the South.

Frankly, that's a gross and ridiculous misrepresentation of history. Here in Texas, the people of the state voted on whether to secede from the Union or not. At that time, there were 604,215 people in the state (30% of whom were slaves). The vote to secede was won by a 76% majority of Texas voters.

To learn the reason the people voted to secede, just look at this direct quote from a document the state published in 1861. It's called "A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union":

"That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states."

I don't see anything there about "states' rights". But it clearly states that Texas is leaving the Union because it believes that white men are the only ones that should have equal rights and the institution of slavery needed to be continued and protected. In fact, they even try to claim this is the "revealed will" of christianity's god, and slavery is good for both the slaves and slave-owners.

In my mind, the only saving grace is that not all Texans in 1861 (or now) wanted to defend slavery or leave the Union. The governor, Texas hero Sam Houston, resigned his office and left the state when the people voted to secede and join the Confederacy. There were also 24% of the voters who voted to stay in the United States. They did not support slavery or the traitorous actions of the secessionists. In four counties, a majority of voters voted against secession, and dozens of Union supporters were hanged by secessionists in one of those counties (Cooke county).

But the majority of Texans at that time voted to join the other Southern states in committing treason by seceding from and fighting against the United States. None of these states did this to protect their heritage or defend states' rights. They committed this treason for only one reason -- to continue enslaving and abusing their fellow humans.

Where is the honor in that? How can there be any honor in slavery or treason?