“Getting rid of statues of losers is something everyone should rally behind”

This week on Mixed Up Confusion, I recommended looking back to Episode 15 to my recommendation of The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans by Charles Royster. In particular, the chapter on “The Vicarious War” in a discussion of why these monuments came to pass and what we should do, and how we should feel, about it.
As someone who grew up in Virginia, has a degree in history, is a Civil War “buff” (if that’s a thing, and only if we keep going into Reconstruction), and host of a silly podcast talking about Bob Dylan, I want to give my two cents and my four steps to removing Confederate monuments from the United States of America.


Step 1
Find a map and note the historical North and historical South. Any Confederate statue in the North (yes, Baltimore, I see you) or in the former Territories (looking at you Montana, among others) comes down. Simple.
Step 2
Move to the historical South. As someone who’s traveled it extensively, I have as much affinity for it as I do incredulity. We gotta up our game. Here’s where maps start to fade and we need to ask the past some questions.
For the sake of argument, let’s take Robert E. Lee. No reason at all his name is the first to pop into my mind. Let’s run him through the paces — what is the historical basis for a monument of his? Did Lee fight here? Was he born here? Did something of note happen here? If the answer, for Lee, for Jackson, for Beauregard, for the Johnston’s, for Chief Justice Taney, is no — then tear it fucking down.
And if there are statues because, let’s say, Lee passed through parts of Texas or, before the War, went down to Georgia to check fortifications, let’s ask ourselves: Have we ever memorialized any other person who has passed through our town? And if no, what message are we trying to send by erecting a statue of Lee, or Stonewall, et al.

Now before we go on, let’s establish now something important. The difference between a historical monument and a historical marker.
Donald Trump would have you believe that monuments coming down is some kind of “end of history,” a strike against “our culture.” This is coming from the same man who thought Andrew Jackson was around during the Civil War.
No monument has helped him from being insultingly stupid.
And dangerous.
Because it might sound pedantic, but equating historical monuments with historical markers is a big deal. Historical markers — in relation to everything I’ve said above — are essential to understanding the North, the South, the Territories, before, during and after the Civil War. Historical monuments are celebratory, hagiographic. They are what one generation chooses to exemplify and, frankly, should be open the next’s rejection. In a Confederate context, that celebration is only for the Lost Cause, is only for intimidation, is only in providing fuel for the hate game.
The biggest difference, and the most important, is context.
Step 3
We, that collective we, step back for a moment.
We’ve removed statues based on pure facts and the outcome of the Civil War. Now, we reckon with the history on a local level. How is this being presented? What story is this monument telling? It’s not always going to go well or bath one’s community in raw sunshine, but the act of conversation can open new doors that haven’t been explored in a generation.
Step 4
Finally, draw lines in the sand.
We aren’t all well-versed in everything. I know people are nervous about change, and even those on the side of progress, who want to see these statues of hate brought down, are also the same people that are preternaturally compelled to suss out all the “slippery slopes” in every issue. I’ll try to make it easy for you.
Historical markers, signposts into the past, shouldn’t be touched — telling local history should strive for inclusion of the good, the bad, and the ugly. If context matters, and we follow all these steps, then we’ll be on our way to removing ahistorical monuments and making them contextualized historical gravestones.
In short
Step 1: Confederate statues in the historical North should be done away with, OBVS.
Step 2: Confederate statues that are ahistorical in the historical South should be removed (and, in a perfect world, each should be replaced with a more accurate history).
Step 3: Contextualize every monument and talk about it, honestly, with historians — real historians, who actually know things, things beyond who won this or that battle, but know the ins and out of this region, this city, this state.
Step 4: Protect those that are contextualized and move on to other forms of bigotry and white supremacy beyond the myriad collection from this shameful war.
We’re taught to look at the Civil War and believe that it — the fighting, the bloodshed, the “heroics” on both sides — forged a nation. We’re taught to applaud the end of slavery and walk under the shadows of copper and stone of men who wished it good fortune and fought and died to protect its name.
It can be quite easy to be distracted by all the bullshit so it’s key to focus on what’s around you, and what you can do in Step 3, easily my favorite and the most important.
Support your local historians. Fight for history that tells the truths of your town and city, one that remembers the changes, for good or ill. Support efforts in public history, from their smallest conceptualization to their grand design. Challenge narratives. Confront preconceived notions. And if you’re worried about losing your “heroes” as these monuments fall — and they will fall — then it’s high time for you to get better heroes.

Finally, to be super broad, you are not your father‘s son. You are not your mother’s daughter.
You are simply you.
One breathing body, on the right side of history, can change an entire generation (or two, or three, or…) from the horrors its inflicted upon the world.
I’ll close with Bryan Stevenson, as on point today as ever:
You change your relationship to these histories of mass atrocities and violence. But when you don’t do that, things linger. The smog created by that history of racial inequality continues to compromise our health. And in this country, we haven’t done that about slavery. About lynching. About segregation.

