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I'm a 7th generation Texan, still live here and was educated in the system. My dad, my grandfather, uncles all talked alot about Robert E. Lee. "A brilliant b

I'm a 7th generation Texan, still live here and was educated in the system. My dad, my grandfather, uncles all talked alot about Robert E. Lee. "A brilliant battlefield tactician and leader of the confederate army". It's absolutely awful why we seceded, I don't agree with it now. Would I have agreed 150 years ago? I think it's easy to look back and measure him up as a bad man when you use a 2019 yardstick. Little is mentioned about his post-war efforts to encourage pacification of white on black violence, encouraging of all African American kids getting an education, and his denouncement of his own military education. The history books should be accurate, and accurate all the way around. I ask you, what is the value of painting him a bad man if you don't also highlight his own public repentance for so many of those deeds. My city has renamed several confederate parks, always highlighting that "Robert E. Lee fought for slavery" and "didn't want blacks to vote". Both are true statements, but you miss a huge educational opportunity and I believe a chance to teach a powerful lesson: Apologizing, rebuilding, unity, freedom - all of these things require an open and honest conversation about what happened. Lee had extremely complicated views on slavery. His words: '''In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.''' In summary, I don't condone him. I don't think statues are appropriate. But erasing his full life with his post-war works and efforts is losing an opportunity to heal.

trowawee 7y ago
Actually, a lot of people at the time had issues with slavery! At an absolute bare minimum, 3.9 million enslaved people in the United States probably had some strong critiques to level against the existing system of slavery and Lee's decision to commit treason in defense of that system. Of course, Robert Lee didn't consider those people to be humans, with full human rights. And similarly, when you ignore their humanity, and you ignore the historical record of abolitionists from the United States and all over the rest of the world, it becomes a lot easier to pretend that anger at the continued celebration of someone who committed treason in defense of slavery is somehow based on shifting modern mores. The post-war stuff isn't being ignored; it just doesn't matter. The value of "painting him as a bad man" is that he was a bad man, who did horrible things, for horrible reasons, and people like your family still think he was actually a great hero. Even in the language you use, you imply that you don't actually think he was that bad, and you definitely are suggesting that opening a school later in life somehow mitigates leading the military arm of a rebellion in defense of slavery. It really, really doesn't!
- heyflyguy 7y ago
  I think you've missed some of my points, but I appreciate your passion.

trowawee 7y ago

Actually, a lot of people at the time had issues with slavery! At an absolute bare minimum, 3.9 million enslaved people in the United States probably had some strong critiques to level against the existing system of slavery and Lee's decision to commit treason in defense of that system. Of course, Robert Lee didn't consider those people to be humans, with full human rights. And similarly, when you ignore their humanity, and you ignore the historical record of abolitionists from the United States and all over the rest of the world, it becomes a lot easier to pretend that anger at the continued celebration of someone who committed treason in defense of slavery is somehow based on shifting modern mores. The post-war stuff isn't being ignored; it just doesn't matter. The value of "painting him as a bad man" is that he was a bad man, who did horrible things, for horrible reasons, and people like your family still think he was actually a great hero. Even in the language you use, you imply that you don't actually think he was that bad, and you definitely are suggesting that opening a school later in life somehow mitigates leading the military arm of a rebellion in defense of slavery. It really, really doesn't!

heyflyguy 7y ago
I think you've missed some of my points, but I appreciate your passion.