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10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 1/7

Democracy Dies in Darkness

James Comey: Take down the Confederate
statues now
By James Comey

Feb. 7, 2019 at 4:25 p.m. CST

James Comey is a former director of the FBI and a former deputy attorney

general.

White people designed blackface to keep black people down, to intimidate, mock

and stereotype. It began during the 19th century and wasn’t about white people

honoring the talent of black people by dressing up to look like them. It was about

mocking them and depicting them as lazy, stupid and less than fully human. It was

a tool of oppression. As a college kid in Virginia during the 1980s, I knew that and

so did my classmates. But a whole lot of white people seem to not know that history

or understand why blackface is so offensive, whether it’s practiced by a college

student or a new doctor. The turmoil in Virginia — where I have lived most of my

adult life, including nine years in Richmond — may do some good if it reminds

white people that a river of oppression runs through U.S. history, deep and wide,

down to today.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/ralph-northam-and-the-history-of-blackface

10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 2/7

But the reporters hurrying to the state capital to cover this important story about a

poorly understood tool of white oppression are literally rushing past much larger

and more powerful symbols of that oppression — symbols born of a similar desire

to keep black people down. There is no doubt that Virginia’s leaders need to be held

accountable for their personal history, but every Virginia leader is responsible for

the racist symbols that still loom over our lives.

The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to

honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades

before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning

in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents

Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we

are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee,

Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or

heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to

the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen

from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.

AD

Statues & Monuments

https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/richmond-monument-panel-urges-removing-jefferson-davis-statue/2018/07/02/73636904-7e17-11e8-bb6b-c1cb691f1402_story.html?utm_term=.4d128f871b7d&tid=lk_inline_manual_6

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stonewall-Jackson

https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-jim-crow

10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 3/7

If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the

“heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of

James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his

second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented

warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet

statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s

because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did

something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated

African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his

reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the

rights of newly freed black Americans.

Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He

criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down

an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War

history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The

statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a

certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.

AD

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/james-longstreet

Longstreet Monument

https://64parishes.org/entry/the-battle-of-liberty-place

10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 4/7

Blackface, and our elected leaders’ involvement with it, is an important subject, and

our country must confront that part of our racist past. Those who did it, or lied

about it, shouldn’t hold office. Past actions matter. But our present is filled with

gigantic bronze embodiments of that same racism. They loom over Virginians every

day. If Virginia’s leaders want to atone for a troubling legacy, changing state law so

Richmond’s statues no longer taunt the progress of our country would be a good

place to start. Expressing bipartisan horror at blackface photos is essential, but

removing the statues would show all of America that Virginia really has changed.

Read more:

The Post’s View: Ralph Northam must resign

Colbert I. King: Why is racism still thriving? Ask the enablers.

Megan McArdle: We need a single standard for Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax —

and all the others

Dana Milbank: The Democratic apology tour is a sorry spectacle

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ralph-northam-must-resign/2019/02/06/b1703986-2a40-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.ec48ffa77e55&tid=lk_inline_manual_13

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-racism-still-thriving-ask-the-enablers/2019/02/07/6a497666-2b04-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.22188a094e37&tid=lk_inline_manual_14

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-need-a-single-standard-for-ralph-northam-justin-fairfax–and-all-the-others/2019/02/06/8148cc1a-2a62-11e9-b2fc-721718903bfc_story.html?utm_term=.4ae39eeed9c6&tid=lk_inline_manual_15

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-democratic-apology-tour-is-a-sorry-spectacle/2019/02/06/b7f2eb36-2a5a-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.002c01eabc22&tid=lk_inline_manual_16