He doesn’t like answering direct questions, but even Lemons data showed 46% of blacks vs 85% white which is a significant difference between those two populations.
Ah, well. Tough day for racist troglodytes, I guess, no matter what kind of finery you dress them in.
The doesn’t sound close.
Closer than you’d think it would be, but yeah, not very close.
President Eisenhower once referred to RE Lee as “a great American”, which prompted this letter from a Dr. Scott.
August 1, 1960
Mr. Dwight D. Eisenhower
White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
At the Republication Convention I heard you mention that you have the pictures of four (4) great Americans in your office, and that included in these is a picture of Robert E. Lee.
I do not understand how any American can include Robert E. Lee as a person to be emulated, and why the President of the United States of America should do so is certainly beyond me.
The most outstanding thing that Robert E. Lee did, was to devote his best efforts to the destruction of the United States Government, and I am sure that you do not say that a person who tries to destroy our Government is worthy of being held as one of our heroes.
Will you please tell me just why you hold him in such high esteem?
Sincerely yours,
Leon W. Scott
Eisenhower responded.
August 9, 1960
Dear Dr. Scott:
Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.
General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.
From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.
Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
As a Virginian I may have the right to express an opinion about the statues… but that’s about it. I won’t presume to know what the people of LA think, nor would I tell them what to do. That is not how we do things.
It depends on how the 23% of undecideds break. And again, 68% of all respondents opposed their removal.
I’ve just never seen you answer a direct question. I’m sure it happens now and then. As a biracial woman who lives down the street from neighbor who used to fly the confederate flag and has a bumper sticker on his truck “Keeping it White”. I too have an opinion about some of those who support these Confederate symbols.
I’m interested in how other people think, and in pushing people to understand the other - whatever the other may be. Nothing drives me crazier than self righteous anger, in my view it’s usually involves a failure to understand the other side.
Now the other side may be wrong, but they probably have their reasons - and those should be understood.
When I do this, people I often assume that I’m trying to dodge responsibility for my own views. That’s not the case. I’m just trying to push people to understand the other side.
As I biracial woman who lives down the street from neighbor who used to fly the confederate flag and has a bumper sticker on his truck “Keeping it White”. I too have an opinion about some of those who support these Confederate symbols.
Are you originally from the south? And where are you now?
People who fly the flag tend to poor, white, and uneducated. They generally have a bad reputation, and in this case it sounds like it’s deserved. White supremacy is beneath contempt.
Another side you may wish to consider is how your tactics impact how others view you.
An alternative to dodging questions asked of you directly like you can’t be bothered to answer them, is to answer them and then elaborate on what you mean. Instead you come off like a politician who just won’t answer a straight question.
Are you originally from the south? And where are you now?
People who fly the flag tend to poor, white, and uneducated. They generally have a bad reputation, and in this case it sounds like it’s deserved. White supremacy is beneath contempt.
Here I will demonstrate.
No, I am not from the south. I live in the Pacific Northwest. I believe my neighbors are from the south, but understandably we don’t socialize much. And there were several people who flew the flag, all of them not likely from the south, in the area right up until some self-entitled nut shot-up a church. I don’t see the flag anywhere around here anymore.
I absolutely believe that some people feel a real tie to the white south and want to honor history. I do not believe 85% of those polled are those people. I think the same group that ran around asking people if they wanted their white daughters to breed with black men… as a reason not to support a new Star Wars movie… are in that number. And yes, I have a problem considering those opinions as worth valuing.
I frankly don’t understand what on earth Eisenhower has to do with racists in 2015. I honestly could care less what an old white guy in the 50’s thought about Robert E. Lee.
Many people think Rommel was a great general and I’m sure a German has stated he was a great German, but I’m not about to go decorate my house and truck with swastikas and Nazi paraphernalia and then wring my hands about how those self righteous jerks on the Internet just don’t understand poor me and the filial piety I hold for my racist and horribly fucked up German ancestors, like you’re constantly trying to do. I don’t do it because that would be fucking idiotic to think people will take those symbols as anything other than what they represent.
Yeah, my ancestors are German. My grandfather was an engineer in the luftwaffe, and I think he was a good man. That doesn’t make me hanging up a swastika or some other symbol any less repugnant.
I think the point was that of all the Confederates, Lee was probably the least despicable of them all. Ike does a good job pointing those things out. I’ve never been upset by people who admire Lee to some extent. Same with Rommel, though I think Rommel gets a even more benefit of the doubt in some ways since he ignored most orders to kill “undesirables”, he treated his prisoners well and in the end was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler - which is what got him killed.
Rommel is probably above Lee in my book.
Now people who love Davis? Fuck those people. There shouldn’t be anything named after him other than toilets or landfills.
Great post. My ancestors are German, too, and I collected Nazi WWII stuff when I was a kid (my grandfather was a Lt Colonel stationed at a POW camp for captured Germans, and he had a basement full of the stuff). I grew out of that phase pretty quickly, though, when I began to understand what those symbols represented.
Agreed, this statue on my street, named after him, will never come down.
To be fair, that monument is pretty cool looking.
It’s it from the actual confederacy? If that is the case, then I think it’s existence as a purely historical piece can be justified.
If it was erected AFTER the civil war? Then that’s kind of fucked up.
Looks like he’s doing a Nazi salute in that picture.
To be fair, that’s how we saluted our flag (ie the “Nazi salute”) until the Nazi’s made it a symbol of something else.
Really? I had no idea.
Erected in 1907.
Yeah, I looked it up afterwards. So it’s from the street with all the monuments on it in Richmond.
I dunno how I feel about it. It has value as an artistic piece, and the confederacy is a significant historical footnote. It’s also kind of funny to me that on the same street is a monument to Arthur Ashe.