Confederate Statues: A Blot on Our History
For many people nowadays, it is safe to say our society is now a landscape of political correctness and newfound controversies. The growing discussion about Confederate statues and the history behind them is a great example of this, and it has a lot to do with how people perceive America and its history today. Personally, I feel America has greatly changed since these controversial figures were alive and breathing, prompting me to feel strongly about why these statues don’t belong in today’s America. Despite what politicians support or how they think people opposed to the statues being taken down are “decent”, our current society has a varied opinion and interpretation of what these statues mean to different people. This is especially important now, since this whole discussion grew traction after the #UniteTheRight rally, organized to protest a Robert E. Lee statue removal, occurred a few weeks ago. …show more content…
In our second article, Kuntzman references the curious case of Benedict Arnold, a soldier that stood with the English during the Revolution. Despite his brave efforts in battle, many Americans believed he didn’t deserve the respect of having his name on a single plaque or boot for that matter. It is easy to say that people like Robert E. Lee were brave, courageous men, but some people won’t come to terms with the fact that these same men were defending institutions that contain the dark side of America’s history. These evil ideals are what most of the people that gathered at the rally wanted to defend. It wasn’t ‘“history and culture”’ that these people sympathize with. It was the moral code that the Confederacy held which prompted such people to “unite” in the first place. These figures garner people full of hatred who threaten the lives of innocent people, and that’s what the alt-right refuses to be ashamed
For many people nowadays, it is safe to say our society is now a landscape of political correctness and newfound controversies. The growing discussion about Confederate statues and the history behind them is a great example of this, and it has a lot to do with how people perceive America and its history today. Personally, I feel America has greatly changed since these controversial figures were alive and breathing, prompting me to feel strongly about why these statues don’t belong in today’s America. Despite what politicians support or how they think people opposed to the statues being taken down are “decent”, our current society has a varied opinion and interpretation of what these statues mean to different people. This is especially important now, since this whole discussion grew traction after the #UniteTheRight rally, organized to protest a Robert E. Lee statue removal, occurred a few weeks ago. …show more content…
In our second article, Kuntzman references the curious case of Benedict Arnold, a soldier that stood with the English during the Revolution. Despite his brave efforts in battle, many Americans believed he didn’t deserve the respect of having his name on a single plaque or boot for that matter. It is easy to say that people like Robert E. Lee were brave, courageous men, but some people won’t come to terms with the fact that these same men were defending institutions that contain the dark side of America’s history. These evil ideals are what most of the people that gathered at the rally wanted to defend. It wasn’t ‘“history and culture”’ that these people sympathize with. It was the moral code that the Confederacy held which prompted such people to “unite” in the first place. These figures garner people full of hatred who threaten the lives of innocent people, and that’s what the alt-right refuses to be ashamed