I just discovered that I cannot type the word "statues" without remembering a sorry incident from my work life. We had hired a consultant—that is how horror stories commence, "We hired a consultant. . ."—to help us "develop more efficient work flows" that would in turn enable us to "leverage our human capital," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know how those people talk. That's what you get for all the money you pay them: a new way of talking that some people think sounds smart. By the way, when I say "we had hired a consultant," I don't mean it was in any way my idea. But I had to talk to the consultant, which I resented, because the normal work, which did not disappear, was a fulltime job without having to spend hours explaining stuff to idiots.
Anyway, the consultant was interested, naturally, in why we did many of the things we did. This was local government, and there were a lot of laws governing our work, so nine times out of ten the answer was "required by statute." This poor lady could not comprehend what statues had to do with our work processes. So I articulated more distinctly: "statUTES, like, you know, laws." She was still confused. Obviously not a word she knew and we forged ahead. Weeks later she produced a draft of a final document that included steps in our "as-is" work flow together with a corresponding column setting out the reason for each step, wherein she had inscribed, again and again, "required by statue," "required by statue," "required by statue." She asked me for comments about the draft. It had a million problems but all I could think to say was, "Change all the 'statues' to 'laws.'"
I don't understand all the love for Robert E. Lee and his traitorous accomplices. Here is W.E.B. Du Bois (pictured above) saying, in 1931, what I guess still needs to be said:
The most terrible thing about War, I am convinced, is its monuments,—the awful things we are compelled to build in order to remember the victims. In the South, particularly, human ingenuity has been put to it to explain on its war monuments, the Confederacy. Of course, the plain truth of the matter would be an inscription something like this: "Sacred to the memory of those who fought to Perpetuate Human Slavery." But that reads with increasing difficulty as time goes on. It does, however, seem to be overdoing the matter to read on a North Carolina Confederate monument: "Died Fighting for Liberty!"
The whole point of "honoring" Lee, and Stonewall Jackson and Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest, et. al., including the anonymous Confederate regular standing guard over the southern town square, is to inform African Americans that they should understand what we think of you by the fact that we put up a statue of him. These men are only known for one thing. None of them wrote the Declaration of Independence, or led the Continental Army against the British. Yes, many of the founders owned slaves, but they did not take up arms against our country—the one they founded—in order to defend slavery. It seems you have to question either the intelligence or the good faith of people who, like the current president, purport not to be able to make these kinds of distinctions. For those who argue that the South was fighting for some loftier principle than chattel slavery, here again is Du Bois to give that idea the respect it deserves:
Each year on the 19th of January there is renewed effort to canonize Robert E. Lee, the greatest Confederate general. His personal comeliness, his aristocratic birth and military prowess all call for the verdict of greatness and genius. But one thing—one terrible fact—militates against this and that is the inescapable truth that Robert E. Lee led a bloody war to perpetuate slavery. Copperheads like the New York Times may magisterially declare: "of course, he never fought for slavery." Well, for what did he fight? States rights? Nonsense. . . .
People do not go to war for abstract theories of government. They fight for property and privilege and that is what Virginia fought for in the Civil War. And Lee followed Virginia. He followed Virginia not because he particularly loved slavery (although he certainly did not hate it), but because he did not have the moral courage to stand against his family and his clan. . . .
It is the punishment of the South that its Robert Lees and Jefferson Davises will always be tall, handsome and well-born. That their courage will be physical and not moral. That their leadership will be weak compliance with public opinion and never costly and unswerving revolt for justice and right. It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert Lee. . . . Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not, he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor. . . .
It's a small point, but I like how Du Bois begins by referring to Robert E. Lee and then, when he's mostly done eviscerating him, drops the middle initial. It's weird how so many of these Confederate generals insisted on being known by their full name, including either the middle name or its initial, as if this somehow conferred upon them a dignity they could not justly claim. Robert E. Lee. Nathan Bedford Forrest. I suspect Du Bois intended "Robert Lee," no middle initial, as an insult, a vote for cancelling him.
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