West Point To Remove Robert E. Lee Portrait and Other Confederate Artifacts
“Lee served as West Point superintendent for several years prior to the Civil War.”
So this stuff has been fine for decades and decades but just now it’s a problem? The erasure of history is so offensive.
The College Fix reports:
West Point begins removal of Robert E. Lee, Confederate paraphernalia
Over these December holidays, the United States Military Academy at West Point is starting the process of removing aspects of the Confederate States of America in the name of altering its “racist-past references.”
Congress’ Naming Commission, comprised of four U.S. military veterans and four civilians, made its final recommendations this past summer.
Among them were renaming “seven different Department of Defense ‘assets’ dedicated to Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard, and William Hardee,” and the removal of Lee’s portrait from the library in Jefferson Hall.
Lee served as West Point superintendent for several years prior to the Civil War.
In a December 26 statement, current superintendent Lieutenant General Steve Gilland said that over the holiday break, West Point will “begin a multi-phased process […] to remove, rename or modify assets and real property […] that commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy or those who voluntarily served with the Confederacy,” the Daily News reports.
Gilland said the Point “will conduct these actions with dignity and respect.”
Along with the removal of Lee’s portrait, a stone bust of the general and his quote about honor also will be yanked from the campus’s Reconciliation and Honor Plazas respectively by next spring.
Also on the way out are a triptych of bronze panels 11 feet tall by 5 feet wide that depict Lee among several historical figures, along with an image of a hooded, armed man, captioned “Ku Klux Klan.”
They too will be stashed in storage “until a more suitable location is determined.” In addition, various streets, buildings and other areas throughout West Point that are named after Lee and others who served in the Confederacy will be renamed.
Stone markers in the academy’s Reconciliation Plaza that commemorate the Confederacy will be modified “with appropriate language and images that comply with the Commission’s recommendations” …
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Comments
Can anyone say “Memory Hole”?
As a retired military officer, these trembling PC quislings piss me off.
I’m jus a mere enlisted man (fired for being fat), and I think the same.
Their actions bring new meaning to the word reconciliation… more like eradicate and erase… “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
The next logical step is to memory hole the Democratic Party. I believe its members started the Civil War and the KKK.
at a military academy, the memory and honor of one of the most distinguished generals america has ever produced is “offensive / upsetting” to the pc students ? do they realize why they are there ? what sort of “officers” can be expected from an institution attempting to erase / discredit / remove the honor / memory of a man such as lee because his past “offends” a few (certainly not all) students ? grow up
your efforts to villify/dishonor/erase a man like lee is offensive to ME
All competent dictators know that:
“It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.”
― Joseph Stalin
By altering history, the woke military will turn heroes into racists and cowards into heroes.
Contrary to the left and Joe Biden’s anti-American mindset, simply removing reminders of history, does NOT remove history.
Up until the advent of Obama/Biden as gods worthy to be praised and emulated, the South and the era of Abraham Lincoln’s war against a sovereign nation [see Putin invading Ukraine] was not cast negatively and the North was not afforded the nobility to which they now lay claim.
Also, their attempt at rewriting history will NEVER erase that history, as the facts of that history have been recorded for 167 years now, and fill many public, and private libraries and museums.
All their efforts will fail,and the true history will remain, no matter how many monuments they destroy, how many names they erase, how many memorials to try place in “context” or how many military installations they rename.
Former army enlisted myself.
I have no problem with removing anything glorifying the confederacy – or racism – like that mentioned KKK portrait.
But erasing history because past historical figures aren’t up to snuff compared to present standards – is like passing a law that everyone violates. In a century every current famous person who manages to be remembered will violate SOME then current standard.
Every Founding Father either practiced slavery or fell short of the John Brown standard of opposition. Just as every dead ancestor of a living American fails to meet some current standard of societal behavior. Heck, every living person fails that test if you listen to the Mother Theresa critics.
It’s the French Revolution Or Maos or Stalins Purges in essence. No one is safe, no one is immune, the mob can come for you at any time. I remember when it was just statues of confederates we were assured were to be removed. Since then historically illiterate purge mobs have gone after statues of black abolitionists, Lincoln, Washington.
If someone from a century past did something bad by current standards erasing them from public consciousness also erases any good they also did from there, but erases the chance of learning from past mistakes.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to history.
A grave insult to a man that fought for his people, right or wrong. West Point is weaker for this.
Mike LaChance: “So this stuff has been fine for decades and decades.” Actually, it has not been “fine”. We are just getting around to the final battle of the disloyalty of the slave holders. About time. Lee and the rest soiled their pants and legacies by supporting secession. It has just taken us this long to recognize what was the true reason for the Civil War.
tbonesays: “A grave insult to a man that fought for his people, right or wrong.” Hitler, Tojo, Goering, the rest fought for “their people”. You ready for some of their statues to be placed in locations of honor in the US? Several tens of thousands of Union soldiers died at the hands of the Cracker Army. Honor those dead, not the slave holding Crackers,
A little knowledge of history might be helpful here.
At the time Lee attended West Point, it was accepted, and even taught, that a state had an absolute right to withdraw from the Union, That was what his professors taught him as being the law.
Lee was asked to command Union forces and possibly fight against the people of his home state of Virginia for doing what his professors told him was legal. He said he would not fight against his home state.
Ultimately, he resigned from the Army and did what to him was the honorable thing as a citizen of Virginia. After the war was over he served as President of what is now Washington and Lee University.
Seems like an honorable man, worthy of respect.
How can anyone who attends or has attended West Point have any respect for the institution … when what the institution stands for is subject to the flighty opinions of leadership and the popular culture?