Daily Kos: Sen. Kennedy, stripping traitors' names off military bases unfairly picks on the South [View all]

[Botany]

Sen. Kennedy's objection to the amendment is simple. He believes renaming bases named after Confederate traitors is unfairly targeting the South, because that is the place most supportive of the practice. Why are you singling out our traitors, you bastards?

Says Kennedy: "I think history will show that in the 18th century, in the 19th century, and well into the 20th century, there were many non-Confederate generals, soldiers and others, in both the South and the North who practiced racial discrimination, anti-Semitism and misogyny. I don't think we ought to just pick on the South."

snip

Those are the people being honored, and in places very far away from the "South." And few to none of them are being honored for their sublime military leadership; the statues were erected, and the bases named, generations later in a deliberate Jim Crow-era push to glorify the "heritage" of continued violence and discrimination against Black Americans. The statues were not put in the public squares because suddenly it became urgent to honor largely forgotten top and mid-tier traitors who had disgracefully not gotten their due, but as public statements glorifying terrorism against Black Americans—lynchings, arsons, and other violence—by elevating, as heroes, those who made themselves infamous for pursuing the ultimate act of terrorism in service to institutional white supremacy.

There's not much subtlety to it, which is why dancing around it now requires Kennedy to grand jeté his way past the entire Civil War to suggest that the Confederate names are being singled out for their practices of "racial discrimination," rather than "widespread murder for the cause of owning people."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/17/1953863/-Sen-Kennedy-says-stripping-traitors-names-off-military-bases-unfairly-picks-on-the-South?detail=emaildkre

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There is no both sides on this issue. Owning slaves and fighting for the violent end to the United States was wrong.