Removing History Before Our Eyes

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (no relation to Stephanie "Give Them Room to Destroy" Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore) was reluctant to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from Lee Park in uptown Dallas. He decided to form a task force to see what the people wanted and the impact that it would have.

But the City Council complained, telling Rawlings the statue needed to come down immediately. Rawlings conceded to the pressure and ordered it removed, citizen opinion irrelevant.

Today a crew went out to remove the statue. They did not measure it, apparently, because they arrived on site with a crane that was too small to do the job. In the meantime, the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed an injunction to delay the removal so they can present a case for leaving the statue in place, citing First Amendment rights. (Personally, I think that's a poor argument.) That injunction was granted. The statue must remain until a court hearing on the issue has convened.

The statue is now under police supervision until the hearing. Sadly, that's probably necessary.

The mayor defended the removal before the task force got to do what they needed to do. “Removing the statue was my first inclination after Charlottesville,” Rawlings said. “It wasn’t my first instinct before. My point of view changed.”

The mayor also said “This is the beginning of the dismantling of the white supremacy that has plagued this city for years.” That's an interesting statement considering there are no real problems with white supremacy in Dallas, unless you call a white majority supremacy. There have been no white protests about the statue and no Neo-Nazis marching in the streets. There was, however, a Black Lives Matter and Antifa rally a couple of weeks ago during which they threatened the police and said they would kill anyone who disagreed with them. But that was allowed by the Mayor.

And it was just over a year ago when Black Lives Matter held a march in Dallas and one of their members murdered five police officers. What did you think of that, Mayor Rawlings? Were you on the BLM side...?

The interesting part of all this is the statue itself. There are two riders on the statue - Robert E. Lee, the defeated Confederate General who rejoined the union army, and a freed slave (according to the artist himself) who is riding with General Lee into the new United States that is once again whole and in which slavery has been abolished.

Should not a statue like that remain? If they remove General Lee, one of the North and South's best generals, then the statue of the freed slave is riding into the new United States of America alone. Would it not have more impact if he was riding side by side with a defeated Confederate general? It's common sense to anyone who is not viewing this entire problem with emotion.

The statue of General Lee should remain in place. It makes sense. I have stated before that removal of these statues should be left up to the people in the communities where they are. Hold a special vote and allow the people to decide. If the majority says remove the statues I'm good with that. If the majority says the statues should stay then the minority should not overrule the majority. But at least give the people their voice in the matter. That's what our Constitutional Republic is about... the people.