Confederate Monuments

New Orleans, Louisiana (my home state) is removing monuments to the Confederacy from within the city. The type of people who continue to fly Confederate flags and scream “heritage, not hate” are upset.

The outrage is so intense that the monuments are being removed late at night under police protection. The company hired to remove the statues are even putting tape over their logos on their vehicles out of safety and concern over loss of business.

The first of four monuments, the Battle of Liberty Place, was removed early Monday morning. The battle being memorialized by that particular monument isn’t even from the Confederacy. It was an insurrection by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction state government in 1874, nearly ten years after the Civil War ended. The monument was erected in 1891 in praise of the racist insurrection as the city and state at that time was in the process of disenfranchising blacks. Nice memorial you’re fighting for there, Whities.

The other three monuments, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee, and P.G.T. Beauregard will be removed in the near future on unspecified dates. You know the current White League will be conducting surveillance on each of those so they’ll know when they’re coming down.

Speaking of old monuments named “Beauregard,” one old codgy monument that needs to be removed but is firmly in place is our current Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. You would think a Southerner from with a name like “Jefferson Beauregard” would be a little more cautious on matters with race. Not our Jefferson Beauregard.

Sessions has called the ACLU and NAACP “un-American” and that they were teaching “un-American” values. He has stated that the NAACP was “forcing Civil Rights down the throats of people.” He also said “You know the NAACP hates white people; they are out to get them. That is why they bring these lawsuits, and they are a commie group and a pinko organization as well.” Regarding the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions stated “I thought those guys were OK until I learned they smoked pot.” He’s also been accused of saying to a black colleaugue “You ought to be careful as to what you say to white folks.” The list goes on and on.

When Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship in 1986, Coretta Scott King wrote a letter to Congress asking them to block his nomination. She wrote that allowing him to join the bench would “irreparably damage the work of my husband.” That is some serious stuff there.

And just last week Sessions, who loves the ideas of a border wall and kicking out brown people was upset that a judge in Hawaii (another state I lived and worked in) knocked down Trump’s travel ban on Muslims. Sessions “amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.” Sessions ate a lot of crap for that and tried to defend his comments afterward. I don’t understand why a judge in Hawaii isn’t as legitimate as a judge in any other state, unless he’s upset that that “island in the Pacific” isn’t majority white.

These old Confederate dudes have a hard time letting go. Those people in New Orleans are upset over a statue coming down of Robert E. Lee and they cite history….yet disregard the fact that Lee never set foot in New Orleans.

They can’t let go of the Civil War which means that in two hundred years they’ll still be calling former South Carolina governor, and current ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley a traitor for removing the Confederate Battle Flag from her state’s Capitol grounds.

Here in Virginia a Republican running for governor had comments on the removal of the monuments in New Orleans. Corey Stewart, who’s actually from Minnesota, tweeted “It appears ISIS has won. They are tearing down historical monuments in New Orleans now too. It must end. Despicable!” If Mr. Stewart, and other Rebel flag waving freaks, lived in Germany, would they insist on monuments to Nazis and Hitler?

The Civil War is a complicated issue. Those who defend the flag and monuments argue that the war wasn’t fought over slavery. They’re half right. The North did not fight to end slavery. The South’s only reason was to fight for slavery. It was explicitly stated in many of the states’ Declarations of Secession.

If you want to continue to be an advocate for racism, that’s fine by me. Just don’t glorify it on government or public land. Put that sticker on your bumper. There is a place for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and P.G.T. Beauregard. That place is a museum.

A museum is where we should also put Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.

Creative note: I’ve been itching to draw elfish Jeff Sessions sitting on a stack of books. After my last cartoon of him, where I placed him in a high chair, I’ve been afraid someone would steal it from me and use the stack-of-books idea before I could. I was the first cartoonist in the nation to give Trump an extra long tie and I was the first to put scotch tape on it. Yes, I’m standing by those two claims. So just remember I’m the first to have Sessions sitting on stuff. Next, he’ll be sitting on Trump’s lap….or Putin’s.

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