Quote:
Originally Posted by finnbow
Statues to the anonymous soldiers who died for the Confederacy are scattered everywhere throughout the South and haven't been the subject of such removal controversies. The issue is Confederate leaders and generals (and their ideologies) that have been deified and whose statues were erected as an overt display of racism in the Jim Crow and civil rights era South (same goes for the Confederate battle flag, BTW). The anonymous soldier statues were, by and large, erected very soon after the Civil War to honor the memory of the dead, not their (lost) cause. It's OK in Germany to have memorials to its war dead (and such memorials commemorate both war victims and soldiers (also generally viewed as victims of Nazi ideology)). What's not OK is to have memorials to Hitler or Nazi ideology.
Regardless, what you think is appropriate in Charlottesville is irrelevant if you don't live in Charlottesville. Their City Council chose their course of action through a democratic process. If your town wants to keep a Nathan Bedford Forrest (the KKK founder) in the town square, fine (as Tennessee does in its state capitol in Nashville). If Charlottesville wants to remove one of RE Lee, also fine. It's none of your business.
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Not quite true. They removed one at the circle in Reidsville that was simply an unknown soldier. Actually , a black guy knocked it down with a big truck and they chose not to replace it. Nobody went out and strung up the black guy or anything.