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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsYou want a confederate monument? My body is a confederate monument.
Opinion, but worth sharing more widely than the editorial forum.
NASHVILLE I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.
If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.
. . .
You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesnt understand. You cannot say it wasnt my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I dont just come from the South. I come from Confederates. Ive got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selmas Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.
If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.
. . .
You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesnt understand. You cannot say it wasnt my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I dont just come from the South. I come from Confederates. Ive got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selmas Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/confederate-monuments-racism.html?fbclid=IwAR1VA0YUxfbE7XHrPRGKm_hobDU0EQjIqCHpVONi6UwkTQ66P5531z7tkWk
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You want a confederate monument? My body is a confederate monument. (Original Post)
Ms. Toad
Jun 2020
OP
This is superb writing. It shows the truth behind all the cover-up and charming stories.
CaliforniaPeggy
Jun 2020
#5
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)1. Powerful, Ma'am
Home truths.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)2. K & R nt
Hekate
(90,189 posts)3. 5th Rec & off to the Greatest page
NNadir
(33,368 posts)4. Wow. Very powerful. n/t.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,296 posts)5. This is superb writing. It shows the truth behind all the cover-up and charming stories.
Brava, Ms. Williams!
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)6. Wow.
Ms. Toad
(33,915 posts)7. Morning kick for visibility. N/t
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)8. Heavy. Powerful. Thank you, Ms. Caroline Randall Williams
Thank you.
raging moderate
(4,280 posts)9. Very powerful!, yes. Ms. Caroline Randall Williams, kudos to you!
And how DARE anybody suggest that your ancestors, trapped at the very HEART of the Confederacy, should not be respected? They should be honored for their lengthy, courageous, ingenious, and compassionate struggle in the grip of the giant fiendish conspiracy that was the slave system in this country! And not only in the south, either; let us not forget that slavery was eradicated very gradually in the north, and it was pretty horrible there, too.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)10. Kick