Yes because I wanted to shit on them before they got toppled.
But hey, while we’re on the topic, I wanna give you some perspective on one of the types of people who defends confederate statues. Buckle up, it’s a long personal read.
Growing up a white Jew in Texas, we were taught about the civil war and about how it started over lots of things, but our teachers were pretty open that it was about slavery. We got taught about brother fighting brother and that we lost and that slavery is bad, yadda yadda (I say it so blasé because that’s kinda how it was treated). As young students, we’d be really upset by these concepts and the teachers would reassure us that all this was a long time ago and everything’s all better now and that racism is dead. Then they’d take us to see a fun little Civil War reenactment.
This Civil War reenactment was this cute thing where we elementary school students would go to a fair and get either an American flag or a Confederate flag and you’re told that you have to cheer for your side. You’re told not to worry if you’re on the winning side or the losing side cuz we’re all here to have a good time! I got a Confederate flag. Of course, I was sad, my side was gonna lose! Overall, it was a pretty fun day, though.
I went home with my losing-side flag, and I used some thumb tacks to put it up on my wall. My Dad said I probably shouldn’t do that and I said that I know they lost but it was a lot of fun. Why wouldn’t my parents want me to have a souvenir from my fun day? So, there it remained on my wall. Just like the posters on the walls of my classrooms. Posters of General Lee, the Confederate flag, the Declaration of Independence… You know, American history things.
You see? It’s ok to have a Confederate flag on my wall, cuz I’m not racist. Racism is dead. Sure, our side lost, but it’s just part of history: things from long ago. That’s why we need to have posters and statues to remind us of these things that happened a long time ago. Statues help you remember things. Like great people, such as George Washington, Davey Crockett, the Minutemen…, Confederate soldiers…, Sam Houston. Obviously, all great people, cuz they had statues and statues are made of great people…
Fast forward to high school and I’m now in a Jewish youth group. We’re a bunch of silly guys and we open every meeting with the pledge of allegiance. The meeting guide we follow, which is nearly a century old, says to honor the colors of America—being such silly guys, we would have everyone check their underwear and would say the pledge to up to three guys with red, white, and blue underwear. When I became the chapter vice president, I decided that our practices were disrespectful and decided to put a flag inside our mobile podium.
So, I took my souvenir Confederate flag, now left hanging for nearly a decade, and I pinned it inside the podium. At our next meeting, we said the pledge to the Confederate flag. The youth group advisors said nothing cuz we were such silly young guys and boys will be boys. Plus, it was just a Confederate flag, exactly like the ones on classroom walls, on our statues, at our theme park.
Not long after this, one of our black Jewish friends joined our youth group. Really, his family were just about the only black people that most of us knew. When he attended our first meeting after I’d added the Confederate flag, he grew livid seeing us say the pledge to such an artifact of hatred. Her lectured us and told us to remove it, but everyone defended our use of the Confederate flag.
Surely, he was joking when he said that it made him uncomfortable, it was no different than the dozens of other Confederate flags around town and in classrooms. We all played along with his, what we thought was pretend, anger. I jokingly said something about the flag being there to represent the colors of the United States; someone else made a joke about our black friends being part of the colors of the United States. I laughed loudly and senselessly repeated this awful and offensive joke to the treasurer to make sure he put it in the meeting minutes so we could laugh again at our next meeting.
Our now revictimized friend shouted at us and then loudly and passionately explained how offensive we were being and why, which was honestly more than we deserved and more patient than I think I could ever be if I were in his position. A number of the guys didn’t get it at all, and I only understood that I’d hurt my friend’s feelings, but I didn’t understand how or why he was hurt so badly. All that I knew was that I did something bad starting with that flag and that I needed to make things right, so I offered to let him burn my flag.
Fortunately, he accepted and we all watched him burn this silly little souvenir. As I watched my childhood memory burn and considered what an extreme measure it took to help my friend feel better, I started to understand that part of the problem for our friend was how casually we were willing to accept offensive imagery. And that our ideas which hurt him because of his race and the jokes that we made as part of it proves that racism was alive and well as living among us. That day, I began to recognize that my entire life since being young to that moment, we’d been surrounded by propaganda which convinced us that the Civil War was not that bad, that the villains were cool guys, and that racism was dead.
So to everyone who says that statues should be left alone and aren’t hurting anyone, you tell them about how they’re such powerful propaganda that it was able to guide a group of Jewish boys to innocently pledge allegiance to a Confederate flag and mercilessly harass a beloved friend as a joke. Those “harmles” mementos are propaganda and they only confuse the young masses who study them in school.
Crush and burn all of the statues and flags and teach the kids the fucking truth. This shit isn’t a game and we need to stop letting people act like it is. Burn them all. Not another child should be indoctrinated by these atrocious symbols. It happened to me and it needs to never happen again.