Robert E. Lee statue being melted down; bronze to be re-used for new more inclusive art
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https://www.npr.org/2023/10/26/1208603609/confederate-general-robert-e-lee-monument-melted-down-charlottesville-virginia
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/26/1208603609/confederate-general-robert-e-lee-monument-melted-down-charlottesville-virginia
Not just any Lee statue, the one from Charlottesville famous for the Unite the Right Nazi rally that culminated in Heather Heyer getting murdered.
I ended up in Charlottesville for a wedding a few years back and unintentionally parked right across the street from the statue. It was covered up with plastic; sent a shiver down my spine when I realized what it was. I’m glad they’re melting that shit down to turn a hate symbol into something beautiful. RIP Heather, you stood up for real American values.
Charlottesville was the wake up call for many. Never I expected nazis openly marching on US soil, chanting slogans straight from WW2... nearly a century after WW2.
It also must suck for the locals to have their town's name being forever associated to those scums.
Are you even tangentially familiar with US history? US citizens have historically been right up there with Nazi level hate. Racism didn't just go away. It just became illegal to own slaves.
Nazis admired a lot of things from the US: eugenics, the genocide of the Native Americans, anti-semitic oligarchs like Ford.
The way WWII went made the US pump out anti-nazi propaganda to support its fight against the horrible regime. Let's not forget that before, and after WWII the US Government supported many fascist groups as long as they were anti-communist. It was just convenient to foster anti-nazi sentiment during the war, especially with strange bedfellows like the USSR after they were betrayed by Hitler.
You think I don't?
I wasn't pretending racism just 'went away', but I had met so many bystanders (pretending racism wasn't that big of a problem because they didn't get to experience first hand) arguing it would eventually go away with the dinosaurs, until Charlottesville happened right in front of their eyes. That made even bystanders realize how serious it was.
"Tangentially familiar"? What is this? Reddit?
Yeah, generally, I prefer stuff like this to get preserved for historical value, just out of public view.
But many of these things are rallying points for hate right now, and the value of actually destroying that in the present outweighs the value to any historian or student of history in the future.
This one in particular. History won't miss it. Burn the fucker.
The vast majority of these statutes, including this one, were erected decades after the Civil War and have no historical value beyond being physical representations of Jim Crow. The guy that commissioned it purchased land and oversaw the creation of a whites only park on the site where it was erected. They were rallying points of hate when they went up and they still are.
It would be nice it it was just now, but those things were built as symbols of hate from the start.
As much as I am all for inclusive art, I would have not melted that statue and instead put it in a museum as a memorial to who the south once thought of as a hero. Maybe add some context like how he shouldn't be celebrated, but still provide historical context as to his person and insight into how people back then thought of him.
Don't worry, it's the south. They have about a thousand more statues of that traitor at least.
Why? They're a dime a dozen and were put up in the 1900s largely due to the Daughters of the Confederacy and to reinforce Jim Crow laws.
They aren't really worth preserving. A picture can be taken to explain how awful these things are.
Museums don't store this sort of thing though. Since it's not from the civil war, it's not sensible to store and exhibit such a thing. Imagine if people started telling the Louvé to display paintings inspired by the Mona Lisa, because it's basically the Mona Lisa. Museum curators would have no reason to do so, despite what the public thinks.
Edit: Also the statue is a piece of propaganda rather than actual history. There's honestly not much to say about the statue itself. The bulk of what could be said is about Lee, and actual historic pieces of his life do exist in museums. Displacing those real historic exhibits in exchange for this statue would be a shame.
Propoganda + Time = history.
The statue doesn't say much about the civil war. But it does say alot about the Jim Crow era in which it was built. Personally I think this is even more important because the Jim Crow era is far less well understood by most Americans, and far more relevant to the race issues we see today.
Exactly this. Plus, unfortunately, there are plenty of Confederate monuments and statues erected way after the Civil War whose sole purpose was "scare those black people into knowing their place." Some of those can find new homes in museums displaying the history of racism (with added context), but we can't preserve all of them. So melt the rest down and reuse them in ways that uplift people instead of oppressing them.
It's absolutely history but just not Civil War history. This is the Charlottesville statue and it's iconic of our contemporary far right nationalist problem. Imagine things like this being a part of an exhibit laying out the turmoil our country is going through.
Edit: A lot of key pieces of history are missing because people didn't look to the future. I think some of it should have been carefully stored in a basement somewhere. Out of sight for at least 20 years.
That would be one huge museum of equally bad similarly looking statues. No need to preserve them all, because there are so many of them, a couple will do.
That doesn't sound like a fun place. Hey honey want to take the kids to the museum of poorly made statues of hate today?
Yeah, the caption should be segregation now, segregation forever. And if we are legally forced to stop scratching, we will make their place clear by building statues to the people that fought to keep them slaves when they get their rights from the federal government. The statues were about sending a message to those that believed segregation was done. The stairs being melted is the right move to send a message to those that built them.
Unless the statue was erected by George Wallace, that caption is irrelevant. Put a caption of Lee's written words:
There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence.
This passage is commonly cut off after the full sentence before you get the full context in which Lee actually cares about how bad slavery is for white people and how slavery was good for the enslaved.
If they like the confederacy so much, they should go join them.
Oh wait, they’re all dead losers. Lmao
Wooo.
Aside from the insanity of glorifying a literal traitor who orchestrated the death of thousands of US Citizens (and that is a massive underestimate of Lee's impact) and it being a lightning rod for bgotry: Why the hell would people celebrate a loser? Like, not just in terms of having supported bigotry and hate but more as someone who got his ass beat.
And holy crap are people gonna be angry at the inclusive art.
There was this kid in my 4th grade class obsessed with Hitler and Nazis apparently because he thought they were like James Bond villains or Darth Vader.
Hollywood really didn't do a good job of portraying these people as the dysfunctional fuckheads they were.
In the defense of Lucas, Vader was the hero of a tragedy meanwhile Palpatine is basically an amalgamation of three different politicians and if lucas was being completely honest Palpatine would be named Richard W. Hitler.
It's more then just Star Wars. Hollywood seems to think that cold professionals are the only way to depict nazis and nazi allegories. I wish there were more depictions closer to "are we the baddies" where they hugely miscalculated something because if their arrogance. But it's harder to write a hero character when the villain trips over themself.
Not only that, but Robert E Lee himself thought that there shouldn't be any statues to the Confederacy. After it failed, he was of the opinion that the country should move on - not glorify that time.
So not only were they building statues to a losing traitor, but they weren't even following that losing traitor's wishes on the one thing he was right about!
It wasn't an unnecessary detail, it is integral to the story because it is deliberate positive symbolism. To counter that the original statue stood for deliberate hateful symbolism.
I was expecting a photo of him melting into a pool of lava like the Terminator, but I guess this is probably more efficient
Yeah, some of the MAGAt Nazis have already announced that they will keep laying down a wreath every year on the new statue that is being cast, no matter what.
It would be hilarious if they held their solemn loser ceremony around a giant dildo every year!
Lee was technically a USG, and was probably one of the best generals in the war. He pretty much kicked the north's ass until the lack of industry in the south became an issue.
Yeah, I’m from the south but I love to shit all over the confederacy, and fuck Lee for being a traitor and siding with racists, but he was an extremely competent tactician. He shouldn’t be exalted for it at all but to say otherwise isn’t telling an accurate history of the Civil War.
Yeah, what he learned from the Mexican American war served him well. Shame it was used for traitors and resulted in drawing out the war.
I majored in history but I’ll fully admit the civil war is not my area of expertise, so when I say I think I remember that he was torn on which side he wanted to serve please take that with a grain of salt. It doesn’t absolve what his choice ended up being, but I think it’s a bad idea to dismiss him as a historical figure to study and learn about and from(his mistakes especially). And again just to be clear, fuck Robert E Lee, but he was a relevant and complicated historical figure we shouldn’t dismiss him out our hand while not ever glorifying him.
I aint dissmissing him, im calling him an asshole. Two different things, theres much ya can learn from him and his actions. Foesnt stop it from being a shame he was a traitorous cunt.
Oh yeah I was mostly commenting for others I didn’t think you were defaming the piece of shit. He sucks and backed the wrong horse, if he wanted a legacy he should’ve put human kind before homeland
When him and Grant's forces actually met on the battlefield he got fucked up. The extent of his skill was overblown by decades of lost causers.
I'm pretty sure this is wrong. I'm no historian, but I have been reading a lot about the US Civil War recently, and based on that my impression is that he's generally regarded as highly competent and probably would have been given command of the Army of the Potomac over McClellan had he decided to stay with the Union.
For the first two years of the war Lee and Jackson won every major engagement they had with the Union forces. It wasn't until Gettysburg that they really got a bloody nose, and that at great cost to the Union and at least partially only because Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was such a badass.
Grant was highly competent as well, and relentless, and he had more men and materiel and better resupply. Once Sherman completed his run to Atlanta, it was pretty much over and just a matter of how Lee was going to surrender.
I never claimed the war was not already over due to Sherman, however, Lee's hypothetical leadership of the Army of the Potomac has very little to do with the fact USG tactically defeated him in the Overland Campaign. They most major engagements until Lee met Grant, and the better general won. Based on what I've read about Overland, it wouldn't have mattered if Lee was on equal footing, he was consistently outmatched by Grant.
I'd say that bronze is tainted and should be entirely disposed of, but that would probably annoy environmentalists.
It's a fucking material with insane recyclability, what it was previously used in won't have an influence on what it's repurposed for, it's the Confederacy not a fucking 1000-year-curse. "Tainted" is about as good an excuse not to recycle it as "I don't wanna".
I could support this, but then only private capital would erect monuments. And what would they erect monuments to, Elon Musk? Donald Trump?
I like the idea of a representative, democracy, building statues and monuments supported by the will of constituents.
I mean they did build a gold statue of trump at CPAC, and "public dot com" and "$EGT crypto" both built statues of musk.
people can make whatever art they want. If it's truly popular it will last. The proof of the pudding and all that.
Hot take: I think they shouldn’t have melted the statue down in the first place and stuck it in a museum instead.
It shouldn’t have been out in public in this day and age because you know what the fuck kinds of people would even commemorate Robert E. Lee, but it should have been put into a museum as part of the history of the US because… well, he’s a sort of important player in US history. What he fought for isn’t representative of what the majority of sane Americans believe in, but it’s also cool to see a statue from the 1920s and why they wanted to commemorate a piece-of-shit Confederate - and a shame it got melted down, because it is a part of history whether we like it or not.
It isn't required that we save every depicti9m of the guy in existence for museums to reference the guy or his role in the civil war. These statues were built 50-100 years after the war had ended in order to harass those who were seeking equality and civil rights at the time. This would be akin to some rightwing fascists constructing a statue of Osama Bin Laden in NYC in 2051. Would you not argue that such a statue should be melted back down immediately?
Every depiction? No. But such a significant one should be saved. It should stand as a reminder of the harm it did, the public acceptance of it, and the prevailing ideals in the time it stood.
Not in a "he's important and still worthy of being memorialized" kind of way, but in a holocaust museum kind of way.
And that will be done, just not with this particular statue. There are tens-, likely hundreds, of thousands of similar statues out there for such a candidate.
i wrote a paper in college about this exact situation and had the same take lol, should’ve preserved it (in a museum) for history reasons.