About Those Statues
I have not written much about the removal of Confederate statues, even though my hometown, Charlottesville, is at the center of the controversy. Honestly, I have a hopeless feeling about it and the subject makes me depressed. I do feel that the issue is not being approached from the correct point of view by either side, so I wanted to give my perspective. Statues of Confederate commanders are not about slavery. I have literally never heard anyone honour these men because they supported slavery, and only marginalized groups outside of the public discourse consider them as standing for anything racial. The number of demonstrations recently, almost all including members of the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacist groups, gives a misleading impression of how these statues are viewed by most people. I have no evidence that these protests were organized by members of the left, but I do believe that, if the left wanted to make a case for removing the statues, t...