Get Rid of All Statues and Rename All Schools That Honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the Other 11 Slave-Owner Presidents
If the Southern vestiges of slavery, which to civil rights activists represents racism at its worst, must be erased from history, then it stands to reason so must our 13 slave-owner presidents
By Howie Katz
Ever since the 2015 mass-murder by a white supremacist of nine black worshipers in a Charleston, South Carolina church, there has been a move by civil rights activists to remove all statues of Confederate war heroes sitting on public grounds and to rename all schools that are named in honor of those men. So far at least 60 statues have been removed and schools renamed.
Four Confederate monuments have been designated for removal in New Orleans. An obelisk honoring an 1874 uprising against Reconstruction by whites in New Orleans, was taken down on April 24 by workers wearing flak jackets and scarves to conceal their identities. The statue of Jefferson Davis was recently removed in the middle of the night. Statues of Confederate generals, P. G. T. Beauregard and Robert E. Lee are next on the chopping block.
Those clamoring for the removal of statues and the renaming of schools and parks say that symbols of the Confederacy and slavery are a painful reminder to blacks of white supremacy.
The latest effort to erase or rewrite history is taking place in Charlottesville, Virginia where the city fathers want to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee astride a horse.
The Houston Independent School District Board of Trustees has ordered that the names of seven schools be changed to erase the names of Confederate heroes, including Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson. And how much is that going to cost? $1.2 million taxpayer dollars. That’s $1.2 million so that some blacks won’t be painfully reminded of white supremacy
But why stop with Confederate heroes? If slavery represents racism at its worst, then we should tear down the statues of all slave owners and change the names of schools that bear their names. How about starting with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two large slave owners? And there are 11 other presidents that were slave owners who have either statues sitting somewhere on public grounds or schools name after them.
In addition to Washington and Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant were American presidents who were slave owners. Down with their statues! Get their damn names off those school buildings!
Think I’m kidding? George Washington Elementary School in New Orleans is being renamed for Dr. Charles Richard Drew, a prominent black surgeon.
We are seeing political correctness at its worst. Sure slavery was a dark part of our history. But history is what it is and it should not be erased or rewritten. That’s something Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung did.
I venture to say the majority of blacks in New Orleans don’t have the foggiest idea of who Jefferson Davis and P. G. T. Beauregard were. They probably see their statues as nothing more than repositories for pigeon poop.
And what about those seven Houston schools? Here again, most blacks have no idea who the people they are named after were. I don’t live in the Houston school district, but if I did, I would strongly resent $1.2 million of my tax dollars being wasted to placate a few rabble rousers.
That’s right, a few rabble rousers. I’m willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of blacks are not painfully reminded of slavery and white supremacy whenever they see a statue of Robert E. Lee or “Stonewall” Jackson, or whenever they see their names engraved on school buildings.
Re-write history? Hell we can’t even get current events fairly documented. We are in the ‘doomed to repeat’ stage now. Keep your head on a swivel and pay attention.
For instance today. We have demedia focused on Russia/Trump when it was Obama that was in office during the time they are saying the shenanigans occurred. I guess Obama was so flexible when it comes to dealing with Russia after his 2012 election we’re supposed to believe the truths that are being stretched now.
Federal agents killed with Fast & Furious weapons, IRS that over saw clear violations of privacy and fairness dealing with conservatives trying to get the same treatment as all of the liberal charities and political groups, blowing up the USDA budget to fund hundreds of millions in payouts for re-opening the Clinton era Pigford to become PII and PIII, complete whitewash of responsibility for Benghazi, billions funneled to political operatives for fake solar power, wind power, electric vehicles, etc that all seem to go to Obama era bundlers, All of that and a failed presidential candidate that took $100 million from the Russians for her ‘foundation’ during her tenure as SoS so the Russians can be guaranteed 20{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of our domestic uranium production merely scratches the surface of what we withstood with Obama.
And the political parties seem to have merged into a fortress of corruption that operate on their own agenda away from the populace. Yeah, I can still read about history to get facts. It’s much harder to find them for current events.
Let us not forget George H Hermann. One of Houston’s greatest benefactors was a Confederate Soldier, serving in the twenty-sixth Texas Cavalry in the War for Southern Independence. Are we going to rename Hermann Park and everything else named for this man?
Huey P. Newton Park would be fine. Just ask Black Panther lover Beyonce.
William Marsh Rice. Let them try and change the name.
‘Sheila Jackson Lee University’ sounds good. Oh oh, wait a minute, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Every time she opens her big mouth she reinforces the belief in white supremacy.
Rice is a private school, and not subject to government name changing
Sheila Jackson Lee is smarter than most people think. She’s pretty offensive and self serving, but she is not stupid.
Ross, I’m fully well aware that Rice University is a private school. While Jackson Lee may not be stupid, the voters who keep electing the shameless rabble rouser sure are.
“But why stop with Confederate heroes?”
I’m just fine with stopping at traitors who took up arms against our country.
Wonder how many American heroes statues would have Germany allowed if they had won the war?
None I hope.
How many statues of Lenin and Stalin survived the fall of the Soviet Union? When our Marines helped pull down that statue of Saddam Hussein were was our military complicit in erasing history?
How about this?
“On July 9, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in New York in front of George Washington and his troops. In reaction to what had been read, soldiers and citizens went to Bowling Green, a park in Manhattan, where a lead statue of King George III on horseback stood. The mob of people pulled down the statue, and later the lead was melted down to make musket balls, or bullets for use in the war for independence.”
http://www.teachushistory.org/american-revolution/resources/pulling-down-statue-george-iii
Was that erasing history?
The “heroes” of the confederacy are an oxymoron. Had the southern cause succeeded we would be living in a backwater like Brazil.
Statues of Jefferson Davis should be replaced by statues of Lincoln.
“Let’s get serious and remove all vestiges of US History” is a straw man that is beneath the wisdom of a man who has lived in this community for ninety plus years.
A final victory for the history revisionists of New Orleans. The statue of Robert E. Lee was lynched – oops, I mean removed – Friday.
The statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was removed last week. The statue of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was removed on Wednesday. And back in April, the city removed a monument in memory of the 1874 white uprising against Reconstruction.
While a few people are celebrating the lynching – oops, there I go again – of Davis, Beauregard and Lee, their removal has left many of New Orleans’ pooping pigeons pissed off.