Under the new policy just announced in Charlottesville, Virginia, the city will be taking down all but the non-racist war monuments and memorials in all of its public spaces.
Three monuments to the Confederate war, fought to maintain slavery — those of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and a generic Confederate soldier — will all be removed under the new guidelines.
In addition a heroic equestrian monument to George Rogers Clark is coming down, as Native American genocide has been ruled racist.
A statue of Lewis and Clark almost made the cut as not being a traditional war monument, but the figure of Sacagawea kneeling at their feet like a dog has apparently been sufficient to bump also this statue, which stands in a major Charlottesville intersection, onto the list of those to be moved to a museum.
Further, a memorial to the war that killed 3.8 million Vietnamese — although “Vietnamese” is a more polite and less commonly used term for the people killed than several others employed at the time by U.S. war makers — is going to be removed as well.
The University of Virginia has also agreed to take down its World War I monument after reviewing a display of propaganda posters from that era depicting “the Hun” as a subhuman monster, as well as four-minute-men presentations advocating for a race war against an evil race.
Remaining standing in Charlottesville as examples of monuments to non-racist wars will be . . . nothing whatsoever. But a commission…