Goodbye, Confederates: Thoughts from a Southern Preservationist
Last week, my hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, was one of many across the South forced to face something its residents had long chosen to ignore. It was our very own elephant in the room.
Actually, “elephant in the room” might be the wrong term. Elephants are hard to miss. I can’t imagine anyone would rally around the elephant, praising it for damaging the door frame and defecating on the floor. No one really wants the elephant to be in the room, but no one will take the steps to remove it.
In Bentonville, our elephant is a celebrated piece of the city’s historic fabric. We talk about it with pride and defend it from meddling outsiders in the name of heritage. We convince ourselves that our town wouldn’t be the same without it. Our elephant is a Confederate statue in the center of the downtown square, and it’s time for it to go.
Growing up, it never crossed my mind that there was something wrong with the monument. We called him “Feddy,” and he stood in the middle of a town square that people rarely visited. We’d spend time with Feddy in the summers, stick our feet in the fountain beneath him, and talk for hours. He was the most prominent architectural feature in my Arkansan childhood.
It didn’t occur to me that the non-white students at my school may not have had the same relationship with Feddy.
As a white kid in a small, wealthy town who’d never heard racist comments from family members and friends, I grew up thinking that race was a problem that only plagued the big cities where people were angry and cruel. Why make a big deal out of a statue? It was just a silly relic from a lost age; a bit of roadside other-ness that we could point to as evidence that we were southern, and that we were proud, and that we were definitely not Missouri.
Now, I have a degree in historic preservation, and I live and work in Austin, which is one of the most racially segregated cities in the south. Every day, I encounter reminders that most southern cities were specifically designed to exclude black people. There are plenty of people alive now who were not allowed to enjoy places that I try to preserve in the name of heritage. And for many of these people, the architectural landmarks they grew up with are quickly disappearing.
Historically black neighborhoods and black-owned buildings have been disproportionately affected by the forces of time. Protective landmark ordinances tend to favor the high style, easily researched homes of wealthy white historic figures. Although many preservationists today are prioritizing historically disadvantaged communities, it is too late for some historically black neighborhoods. Much of the historic building stock that remains are the historically white communities that we prioritized early on — and these communities were specifically not built for people of color.
As a white southerner, I have a choice: Will I work to give these historically exclusive places new life as places shared by all people? Or will I continue to propagate the idea that white southerners are being gracious and kind for allowing people of color to share their space? We can’t tear down historic black neighborhoods and then act like our white heritage is being threatened by people who want to feel welcome in a historic place.
If we are serious about addressing the racial problems that permeate every southern institution, white southerners must stop acting like the Confederacy is part of a shared heritage that we should be proud of. It’s not. I have Confederates in my bloodline. I don’t know their motivations. I don’t know if they were “fighting for their homeland” or if they were pro-slavery. But I do know that they were on the losing side, and that side fought for an institution that bound, beat, and imprisoned generations of innocent human beings on the basis that their life was less important because of their skin color.
I’m not saying we should stop mourning Confederate soldiers. War is fought in shades of grey; no one wins when young men die. But white southerners must recognize that our “lost cause” is an early twentieth century fabrication meant to promote a victim complex and justify racial hatred. By clinging to “southern pride,” we are living according to terms created for us by people with an ulterior motive.
Southern pride is a tricky concept. Google the term and you’ll see that it’s been widely associated with Confederate battle flags, white supremacists, and uneducated poor white folks. It’s a concept that allows people in some of the most economically desolate places in the country to feel like they belong to something equal parts glorious and melancholy. The African-American perspective is not included in the colloquial definition of “southern pride.”
This bothers me because I love the south. Despite its problems, I think it is one of the most interesting and beautiful places in the world, and I will probably never permanently leave. But the hardest thing for me to recognize was that our current concept of southern pride is rooted in white self-consciousness, not actual pride.
If we were really proud of ourselves, we wouldn’t fight and scream and kick against the removal of Confederate monuments. That’s what teenagers do when their egos are hurt. That’s not what people who are proud of their heritage do. People who are proud of their heritage encourage silenced voices to be heard. They understand that the pain a Confederate statue causes certain groups outweighs the sentimental feelings they have towards the monument.
No society is perfect, and we cannot wait until our problems are resolved to be proud of where we’re from. Likewise, we cannot condemn every aspect of our past because of a widespread societal evil. We have to remember our history.
However, there is a difference between preserving history and being ruled by it. It is our job to appropriate the exclusive spaces of the past and create a future that is truly for all people. Let’s create a new reason to love the south — one that isn’t rooted in white supremacy and racial oppression.
We are not erasing history when we remove Confederate monuments from public places and move them to museums. We are acknowledging that they are important parts of history, but that they do not represent who we are now. A statue in the middle of a city square sends an important message about about our values. If we care about moving forward, we have to stop living in the past.
Let’s be proud that we’ve recognized it’s time to say goodbye to the Feddy in the square.
