I think its easy to demonize confederates and nazis. Truth is, most of those people were brainwashed and led to believe things that reinforced a system that violated human rights. You can bet the commoners were disturbed by it, but systematic suppression causes people to do horrible things. That kind of thing doesn't fly nowadays, and for good reason. Lee on his high horse might have been a good general and a gentleman, but it also a clear symbol of defending that systematic suppression.
One would hope that southern whites have a lot more to be proud of than clinging on to concept of the confederate states of America and its legacy of slavery. It comes off like an excuse for white pride. There are surely better symbols of the South than the confederate flag.
Washington and Jefferson were southern whites who owned slaves, but they were integral to the formation of the United States who worked for the welfare of the American people. They worked tirelessly against the violation of human rights, and yet still were guilty of tolerating racism and systematic oppression. I think a lot of people have negative feelings on their slavery, and rightfully so, I think they themselves felt conflicted about it toward the later parts of their lives, but did little to help it. In spite of that, I don't see their monuments in DC going down any time soon. Their overall contributions are too heroic. I think we should be asking why they weren't abolitionists before repurposing their monuments. Part of me thinks that they fell victim to the systematic suppression that reinforced the hideous notion that whites were the "superior race". But still, they could have done something about it, perhaps they would have feared public backlash in their home states? Who knows. It's tragic that it's taken so long for whites to understand how much nonsense that is, that white domination was due to culture, geography and the Darwinist ecology of the human race on a global scale. Absolutely nothing to due with divinity or biology.
I think it was a good move to remove Jackson from the $20 note, which I could only imagine is due to his policies against Native Americans. They should remove Grant too, quite frankly, like Lee, a good general, yes, but he ended up becoming a horrifically corrupt president that worked to unfairly punish Southerners. Not exactly something to venerate. Someone here mentioned it earlier, look what that turned into, a battle cry. Kind of like Britain and France after the First World War to Germany. I think we all know what that turned into...
The take down of confederate statues is not a means for a battle cry. It's a step in the right direction. There is nothing violent about it. No shots were fired.
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