Among the many despicable and racist-affirming things said in yesterday's unhinged press conference by neo-fascist bigot Donald "Rump" Trump was his claim that "very fine people" were among the white supremacist mob to simply protest the removal of the statue of Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park. Ignoring the fact that monuments of this sort were erected during the Jim Crow era to glorify the Confederacy, to oppose civil rights, and to humiliate African-Americans, Rump went on to conflate memorials to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with statues of the treasonous leaders of the Confederate rebellion against the United States. The continued existence of these monuments to treason is not about historical preservation or recognizing a "culture" (unless one is talking about the culture of white supremacy). It is about celebrating a system of slavery and white supremacy, and about providing a rallying point for every sick Nazi, white supremacist and KKK member today.
Last night, Baltimore finally removed four statues of these traitors to the U.S. There are at least 1,500 such monuments still in existence, mainly in the South. They needed to come down long ago, and every decent person, every patriot, should demand their removal in the places they live.
(photo: A statue of a Confederate soldier is pulled down in Durham, NC on Monday)
