I think it's important to remember that Robert E Lee himself wasn't too keen on civil war monuments:

“I think it wiser,” [Robert E Lee] wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

(Source)

The thing was made 60 years after the war ended. The guy fought against the United States. Never should have been made in the first place. It's a shame that it took so long to correct this mistake.

Anonymous Lemmy user butthurt that other people don't want to honor symbols of racism

historical artifact

From 1924. Also it's just a fucking statue. Grow up.

I mean, it wasn't put up during the war itself or anything, but quite awhile later as a symbolic gesture. Doing this is just a symbolic gesture with the reverse message.

I could see your point if they were like, tearing down a preserved civil war era fort or something like that which might actually hold some sort of insight into the war itself or how people at the time lived, but this statue doesn't have that value.

A statue less than a hundred years old built to commemorate a traitor who fought against this country for an unrecognized rebel movement formed out of the desire to own people as property. You're not gonna see Germans erect statues celebrating Hitler, Russians Ukrainians celebrating Stalin, or Cambodians praising Pol Pot. Why should Americans celebrate an enemy of the state?

Well, they are transforming it. The new art will probably recognize the old art and pictures exist.

Christ, cry about it more