How Ignorance is Winning in Charlottesville

Zwartz Talk is presenting the December 19, 2016 City of Charolettesville’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorial, and Public Spaces which was calling for a transformation of Charolettesville’s public spaces including Lee Park where the statue of Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveler stood.  The Commission’s official position that that the City and its statues perpetuated the racist Lost Cause version of the Civil War and that racist story line had to be repudiated and the city’s culture needed to be transformed.

There were two men who opposed the Commission to reject the Lost Cause version and transform the city’s culture.  In its Preface the Commission wrote:

We need to transform them (statues) in place so that they may serve as a public reminder of the visibility and scale and endurance of those harms (slavery and its aftermath), while at the same time making clear our rejection of those harms. (bold added) 12-19-2016 Commission Report

Neither the Alt-Right nor the Alt-Left wanted peaceful compromise.  Jason Kessler represented the forces on the Alt-Right who want to preserve the history of the racist Lost Cause narrative, while Wes Bellamy, vice mayor of Charlottesville, was thwarting the transformation work of the Commission.  Kessler worked to bring the KKK, the Nazis and other White Suprematists while Bellamy worked to bring the Alt-Right, the Antifas and many innocent youth to Charlottesville.  Neither was going to allow the City Council to derail their adding to their political base.  Leaders of extremist groups use violent confrontations to build political bases on the extremes.

As one will read in the Commission’s report, the city had already rejected the racist Lost Cause version and the statues were going to be used to repudiate this old racist narrative.  I venture that very few of the counter protestors who came to oppose racism knew that the City had already decided to reject the old and that it had set forth an extensive new direction whereby everyone in the city could work together to make known the prior evils which segregationists have sought to hide.  In brief, there was nothing to protest — except the Alt-Right whom Kessler and Bellamy had worked to bring to Charlottesville.

201612-19 Charlottesville Commission on Race etc

Very sad to say, but our foolish President came out today (2017-8-17) to support the KKK’s the Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War.  He tweeted:  “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”

Of course, we trust that the City of Charlottesville will press ahead with its plans to repudiate the history and culture of the Lost Cause interpretation.