Since the North won the Civil War – not against the current South but the slave-owning South – in 1865 – I find it neither original nor shocking that people want to topple statues of General Lee.
Lee was a traitor of our Constitution whose actions led to the needless deaths of thousands of Americans and would have led to the continued slavery of thousands more. The only potential argument I can see is that the statues are art, and art can depict even the things we despise, and people whose cruelty we do not want history to forget. Apart from that, I wish these communities had downed the statues long ago, as a community action, done safely, peacefully, and decisively. I thought most of the country had felt the same way for decades.
If buildings or schools were being bombed or burned, that would be an astronomically different matter, because lives would be being threatened and property that costs community money wasted. On the whole, I am seeing this as soft crime, the expression of sentiment long held by most of the country. I hope. But I do think that such actions should be left to the local communities, who should take a look at history and realize that these men and symbols often represent racism and hatred, even if in the South they are seen as complex and tragic figures. They may be appropriate subjects of art, but likely not public art.
