Being a writer often forces you to reflect on what you’re writing about and why. Why do I care in this situation? What draws me to this story or topic? You’ll often find yourself at a discourse, writing passionately about a subject, then suddenly wonder why you give a damn at all. Because honestly, many things that we’re passionate about don’t have little to no effect on us. They aren’t even a part of our day-to-day lives until we hear about them. So, I have to ask people who don’t live in Charlottesville this simple question: Why? This isn’t a monument that most of you were even knew existed. I doubt most of you have personal ties to Robert E. Lee himself. Is this a statue that you’ve even seen in person? Is General Lee someone you admire? Does it represent a time in our country that we truly want to remember? General Robert E. Lee even opposed depictions of the Confederacy, and its leaders, under the belief that they would deter the nation from healing after the war. So, if those who actually represented the Confederacy didn’t support the erection of these statues, then why do you?
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana
Do you know what I learned in school about the Civil War? The timeline of events (mostly battles) and how Abraham Lincoln worked to free the slaves and was assassinated for his views. This was from a prep school in the Pacific NW. Kind of inaccurate and glossed over, don’t you think? It wasn’t until I started looking at visual art, paintings, photographs, and statues, that I began looking deeper into our history. It made me more aware. It made me care.
I don’t have personal ties with nor support the ideals of the confederate. There isn’t any major civilization that has been on the wrong side of history. If we start erasing parts of our past, the parts we don’t like or agree with, how will our future generations learn from those mistakes?