Should Georgia Celebrate Lee’s Birthday?

Via Carl

 The Fire Eater

VERBATIM

An article this morning, popped up on the AJC website, written by Ms. Kristina Torres, questions if Georgians should celebrate the birthday of Robert E. Lee. While I do agree with Ms. Torres that the observance of R.E. Lee’s birthday in late November is a bit peculiar, the overtones of the article are apparent.

While I have no connection to Ms. Torres and certainly have nothing against her, the bias of the article is obvious. First of all Ms. Torres is a Colorado native and a graduate of the University of Colorado. It should be noted that among major universities, the University of Colorado is decidedly to the left. I also believe any state should be able to educate it’s student’s however it sees fit, even at the level of higher education. After all students do have the choice not to attend a university they don’t agree with. 

None the less, it’s likely Ms. Torres heritage reflects in some way her opinions now. She writes:

While no one questions the state’s prominence in the Confederacy and the Civil War’s impact within its borders, there are those who wonder whether it is time for Georgia to leave that narrative to historians amid a growing generational divide.

The insinuation here is that we should forget our history, be passive in it’s observance and leave it to the “experts”.

She goes on to write:

“I wasn’t even aware there was a Robert E. Lee holiday. That’s funny,” said state Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, a 12-year legislator, chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus and native Atlantan. “Is it time to move past it? I think we already have. I don’t know of anyone who celebrates Robert E. Lee’s birthday.”

As I’ve stated many times, when writing articles like these, I have nothing against Mr. Jones. I’ve never met the man personally, and couldn’t tell you a thing about his politics. It is interesting in my mind however that when the reporter looks for some perspective on the holiday she turns to a Democratic state congressman from Georgia, who as the article states is the Chairman of Georgia’s Legislative Black Caucus. From appearances, it seems as if the author was simply looking for someone who could care less about the holiday.

Mr. Jones says nothing derogatory but his insinuation was that we should look past the holiday, as if R.E. Lee was not an important part of southern history, or he wasn’t a person who’s birthday we should celebrate.
 
The author then links the general’s birthday to race:

……And so it went, through Jim Crow and segregation, the Civil Rights Movement and after President Ronald Reagan signed the Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law in 1983. Community celebrations faded, however, with one minor exception: In 2007, a Confederate honor guard marched into the Capitol to commemorate the general’s 200th birthday……..Yet the state continues to grow more diverse, according to the U.S. Census, with demographic shifts that show an increase in African-American, Latino and Asian-American residents in areas especially in metro Atlanta.

Is she trying to make the point that only white people should celebrate the general? Was he fighting for the white race only? I don’t believe he was. I contend that a Union win in the war was simply a win for big government and subjugation, rather than a the right of the people to decide their future for themselves.

One of the last points the author makes in the article is that the Yankee influence on education has thoroughly won in the south.

“Most of the students who come in today don’t identify very strongly with the confederacy and don’t revere and respect it the way their grandparents did,” said Bohannon, whose students mostly come from Atlanta suburbs and rural counties in the western part of the state.

Those same students, he said, are “willing to look at this most destructive episode in American history with an open mind.” The Lee holiday, Bohannon said, likely resonates only “among a diminishing percentage of the population.”

As Patrick Cleburne said, “….It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision….”

We are in a struggle over our future, and over ideas. This is a fight that can be won, but it has to be won in our homes, our families and our communities. State run education will not win this for us.