Terrance D. Campbell 

In Richmond Virginia, there is a “Confederate Trophy Case” on the Avenue that they call Monument. There stands a series of participation trophies that commemorate the prize that Virginians awarded themselves for losing the Civil War. Among all the Monuments, there exists one and one only statue of a winner. Ironically, it is the only one not associated with the Civil War directly – instead it is Arthur Ashe, the tennis champion who would have never been, had these other Southern heroes been up to their task. Participation Trophies The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are more than 1500 symbols of the Confederacy in public spaces in the United States. There are five such symbols on Monument Ave. The names are J. E. B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, Matthew Fontaine Maury but none more revered than Robert E Lee. While all others sit on city land, Virginia, the state set aside and designated as special place for Robert E. His alone sits on state land. He, then must represent something especially worthy of honor it the eyes of those who labored to give it the pre-eminent place. So, who was Robert E. Lee. Simply put, he was the most egregious case of White Privilege ever produced in the United States of America. Robert E Lee was educated, trained and commissioned from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was housed, given progressively more positions of power and prestige within the military service, up to and including the esteemed position as Superintendent of West Point. He did all this while he owned slaves. And when push came to shove, he committed treason against the county that afforded him all these benefits for the right to continue to hold other human beings in chattel slavery. Historically, he was not honorable. That he worked to “Reconcile North to South” after the war, was no favor to any former slave. It was instead only to himself and to those like himself that again benefited to the detriment of those poor souls who came here against their will. The Robert E Lee statue is like all the other 1500 Confederate symbols across the land, they are Participation Trophies given to make losers feel better about losing. However, it and they are worse than that – they are symbols that build and perpetuate a false narrative against the descendants of the slaves and serve to keep alive the lie that the South somehow can and should rise again. The Fall of Robert E Lee and every symbol that has his name cannot come fast enough. The esteemed Mayor of Richmond got it right. Richmond is no longer the capital of the Confederacy. The Lost Cause mythology must give way to a larger truth, the Confederacy was and is nothing ever than a human horror that caused great suffering for most - except a privileged few, like everyone other than Arthur Ashe on Monument Ave.

As Georgian Clement Evans, a war veteran, put it, "If we cannot justify the South in the act of Secession, we will go down in History solely as a brave, impulsive but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union of our Country." American Myths: The Lost Cause When scholars of religion refer to myth, they do not mean to imply a falsehood. They are wrong. Mythology is society’s collective agreement on which lies to tell. When objective truth is not palatable for whatever reason, subjective fantasy substitutes to ease the aggregate shame. No better example exists that the “lost cause” mythology of post-Civil War, southern white culture. The “lost cause” mythology is a virulent variety which hardens the heart of human beings against human beings. In fact, it stands in direct opposition to what our founders said this county should be. All myths eventually need to make way for the truth. Those myths that serve the greater good should be made true. Those that distract from it need be for society’s sake destroyed and abandoned. To be clear, the “lost cause” is a lost cause, morally, factually, and even practically. The root shame is slavery. The stump is treason. The branches are lynching, voting disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, massive resistance, separate but equal, segregation, eugenics, racial profiling mass incarceration, et al. As Billie Holiday sang, this tree produces a strange fruit. The fruit is poison morally because its evil inception that whites are superior because of the color of their skin. Likewise, the fruit is poison factually with the lie such as that of Reagan’s “welfare queens” and the like. Objective observation testifies to the achievements of African Americans in all walks of life even burdened with substandard schools, healthcare and lack of opportunity. Most importantly, the fruit is poison practically. The last few days has shown that the legacy of police violence against Blacks in America does little to promote the greater good. All myths tell a lie. Some mythology not only serves to rationalize current wrongs, but also suggests to a righteous way forward. The founding documents of the Unites States are such a mythology. While himself being a slave holder, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the inalienable rights of man in our Declaration of Independence. Clearly, humans held in slavery were not participating in their own “pursuit of happiness”. But few today would hold to a belief that this right should not apply to all. The historical arc of the African in the United States has been one of slow hard-fought movement from slavery toward the fulfilled promises of the founders. From a fraction of a person, to 2nd or 3rd class citizenship to now whatever position one would say the descendants of slaves occupy now, it has been at least a slow but progressive movement towards the stated aim of the myth. Let us live long enough for this lie to become reality – this myth to become truth.