The local newspaper, the Daily Progress, ran this article and this editorial on the topic. The editorial defends the propriety of discussing the possibilities, defends the idea of adding more statues, but insists that the existing Confederate statues remain. And on the topic of adding more statues, the editorialists wonder:
"Is there a modern philanthropist out there who would balance Mr. McIntire's commemorations of the Confederacy? Who will step up?"
Mr. McIntire is the rich guy who created some of the existing statues and parks (one of them on condition that it include a school for white children). That we rely on the super-wealthy to determine what we memorialize from our past ought to cause even those who believe we're treating the past correctly to stop and question that assumption.
If we were not nationally dumping over a trillion dollars a year into war-making, we could build new parks and statues with public money and public decision-making. But nothing keeps the war dollars flowing like the war-glorification in our public spaces. President Kennedy said that until the conscientious objector receives the respect and prestige of the soldier war will go on. But even if we defunded it a teeny bit, we could use a teeny bit of the savings to honor those we most appreciate from Charlottesville and beyond. In my ideal fantasy, we would begin the process of choosing individuals or movements to honor by reading the late historian Howard Zinn, and in the end we would be wise enough to include a little statue of him somewhere, not god-like super-sized on a horse, but life-like, the same size as the rest of us, the same size as our young people who must understand their own potential for greatness.
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