Mandalore76 said:
Some historical context on the Confederate Flag and monuments:
The Confederate Battle Flag was originally used by Southern Heritage organizations in memorials to the fallen soldiers of the South during the Civil War. It wasn't commandeered by white supremacists until over half a century later.
"What is remarkable looking back from the 21st century is that, from the 1870s and into the 1940s, Confederate heritage organizations used the flag widely in their rituals memorializing and celebrating the Confederacy and its heroes, yet managed to maintain effective ownership of the flag and its meaning. The flag was a familiar part of the South’s symbolic landscape, but how and where it was used was controlled."
"It was in the hands of students that the flag burst onto the political scene in 1948. Student delegates from Southern colleges and universities waved battle flags on the floor of the Southern States Rights Party convention in July 1948."
" the KKK did not use the Confederate flag widely or at all in its ritual in the 1860s and 1870s or during its rebirth and nationwide popularity from 1915 to the late 1920s. Only with a second rebirth in the late 1930s and 1940s did the battle flag take hold in the Klan."
https://www.historynet.com/embattled-banner-the-true-history-of-the-confederate-flag.htm
A number of statues of Confederate leaders (Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis) were sculpted by Edward Virginius Valentine over the course of his artistic career. His "Recumbent Lee" statue was commissioned by Washington & Lee University as a memorial in the Chapel, which Robert E. Lee is buried underneath. After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee had served with distinction as President of Washington College (his name was added to the name of the college after his death). The "Recumbent Lee" statue was placed in Lee Chapel on the campus in 1875 within 5 years of Lee's death (1870).
The Robert E. Lee statue removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans, LA was sculpted by Alexander Doyle (born in Ohio and spent his artistic career in NYC after having studying in Italy). The statue was commissioned by the Robert E. Lee Monument Association, of which, Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Fenner was president. Doyle also sculpted the Alabama Confederate Monument at the Alabama State Capitol which was primarily funded by the Ladies Memorial Association of Alabama, and plans had begun for it as early as November 1865. Doyle's other works include The General Beauregard Equestrian Statue, honoring P. G. T. Beauregard.
Many of the statues and monuments were erected by the South to memorialize and honor their fallen soldiers. To hand wave it away as solely intending to state "hey black people, we still own you" is a misrepresentation.
In so far as to say the vandalization and removal of the statues somehow helps the black community and eases racial tensions across the country, there is this quote from BET founder Robert Johnson:
People tearing down statues “have the mistaken assumption that black people are sitting around cheering for them saying ‘Oh, my God, look at these white people. They’re doing something so important to us. They’re taking down the statue of a Civil War general who fought for the South,” Johnson said.
“You know, black people, in my opinion, black people laugh at white people who do this the same way we laugh at white people who say, ‘we got to take off the TV shows,’” he said.
“[It’s] tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on a racial Titanic,” added Johnson, who became the country’s first black billionaire in 2001. “It absolutely means nothing.”
Black Americans, Johnson argued, would benefit more from structural changes like economic equality.
“Look, the people who are basically tearing down statues, trying to make a statement are basically borderline anarchists, the way I look at it,” Johnson told FOX. “They really have no agenda other than the idea we’re going to topple a statue. It’s not going to close the wealth gap. It’s not going to give a kid whose parents can’t afford college money to go to college. It’s not going to close the labor gap between what white workers are paid and what black workers are paid. And it’s not going to take people off welfare or food stamps.”
He also rejected the idea of canceling TV shows like "The Dukes of Hazzard" because of the Confederate flags that appear in it, and the move to put a prologue at the start of the film “Gone With The Wind,” warning of racist content.
Johnson also lashed into white celebrities who use their social media platforms to apologize for their race.
“You know, that to me is the silliest expression of white privilege that exists in this country. The notion that a celebrity could get on a Twitter feed and say, ‘oh, my God, I am so sorry that I am white,’” he said. “I don’t find any black people getting on Twitter and saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry I’m black.’ And we got the worst problems. … My thing is: embrace being white and do the right thing.”
Johnson urged white Americans to sit down with black Americans and ask what they really want.
“White Americans seem to think that if they just do sort of emotionally or drastic things that black people are going to say, ‘Oh my God, white people love us because they took down a statue of Stonewall Jackson,’”he said. “Frankly, black people don’t give a damn.”
https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/bet-founder-robert-johnson-slams-protesters-for-toppling-statues/
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