GOP Votes To Restore Confederate Monument

Listen, I have raised this point many times, but it’s always worth repeating: It’s interesting that as much as they love to highlight that Democrats largely supported slavery–when of course being a Democrat then was a Southern slave-owner thing–it is Republicans (and not the “Party of Lincoln” Republicans) who passionately believe in the necessity of preserving the legacy of the Confederacy. A reminder: The Southern Democrats of the 19th century “Confederate States of America” only existed for roughly four years. And it’s rallying cry was “protecting states rights,” in particular the right to own other human beings.

But in the real time of 2024, and just days before Juneteenth, here’s what’s happening:

Yesterday, 192 House Republicans voted in favor of restoring a Confederate monument to Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery. It had been removed last December since, well, the soldiers of the Confederacy were American violent insurrectionists and traitors, so there’s that.

But likely even more offensive is that the monument includes a Black woman, in their words, “Mammy” who was caring for a white child. It’s almost as if Republican legislators are out here fetishizing the most oppressive period in Black American history by voting for it to be presented in great detail as a symbol of pride for the time when it was illegal for the overwhelming majority of Black people in America to control their own lives.

Fortunately, the amendment to reinstall the monument at the park was voted down 230-192 by the Democratic majority and 24 of the less anti-Black oppression-loving Republicans, but the fact that the vast majority of GOP legislators, and only GOP legislators, wanted the restoration to happen really says it all.

From Newsweek:

The Confederate Memorial was unveiled in June 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson to commemorate soldiers and sailors who died fighting for the proslavery Confederate States of America during the Civil War. It includes depictions of Black slaves, one looking after a white soldier’s baby, another appearing to follow his master into battle.

A national campaign to remove Confederate monuments ramped up following the murder of 46-year-old Black man Georgia Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. A number of monuments were torn down by protesters in subsequent demonstrations, while others were later removed by the relevant authorities.

On Thursday, the House voted on an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act calling for the Arlington Confederate Memorial to be reinstalled in its original position.

During the House session, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Georgia)—who proposed the amendment that would have directed “the Secretary of the Army to relocate the Reconciliation Memorial, also known as the Reconciliation Monument, to its original location in Arlington National Cemetery”—erroneously called the memorial “a powerful symbol of the healing and unification of our nation after the deep divisions of the Civil War.” Wait, what?

This is how you know that when Republicans refer to American unity, they’re really just talking about white people. Imagine thinking that Black people—either now or during the period of emancipation and reconstruction—are going to look at a statue that shows slaves caring for white children and following white men into the battle to ensure their ongoing slavery, with patriotic pride. Imagine Black people not thinking that the most of important of outcome of the Civil War was their freedom.

Today’s white conservatives pretend to want wide American unity when what they really want is simply unity in pushing forward an anti-Black, anti-human agenda. They also pretend that the country is only divided racially because we keep talking about race. Never mind the legislated poverty, the police violence, the laws that don’t say they’re directed at Black people but Black people are the ones most harmed by them? We’re divided because the reality of ongoing anti-Black racism that is destroying Black people of all ages, is denied by whites. And because rather than work to correct the lingering effects of the nation’s white supremacist history (and present, if we’re keeping it a buck), Republicans would rather deny white privilege and white nationalism while constantly putting them on full display.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

SEE MORE:

Lawsuit Filed To Remove North Carolina Courthouse’s Confederate Monument For ‘Faithful Slaves’

“Supporting White Culture’: Florida Bill To Protect Confederate Monuments Advances