by James A. Bacon
So, the Lee statue on Richmond’s Monument Avenue is coming down, and, most likely, so will the rest of the other statues honoring Confederate generals and leaders. Governor Ralph Northam will announce today plans to remove the equestrian statue of Lee, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Mayor Levar Stoney has said he wants the other four Confederate statues gone. The General Assembly undoubtedly will enact whatever enabling legislation is required. There is no organized force to oppose the removals.
The politics of symbolism has won. Taking down the statues will expunge reminders of Virginia’s racist past, but it will do nothing to change the tenor of race relations in Virginia or America today. Protesters will simply move on to the next target. Surely, statues of Thomas Jefferson and other slave holders are next. There is no limit to the demands of those seeking a radical Leftist version of racial justice because Leftists see America and all of its institutions as systemically racist, conceived in the original sin of slavery.
The wellsprings of anger and frustration are bottomless. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger has articulated why that is so.
Since the 1960 essentially little has changed in the neighborhoods at the center of those long-ago urban riots. By current telling, they are about as poor, as crime-ridden as under-educated and in poor health as they were when LBJ said he would change them. That means five decades of stasis and stagnation in America’s most marginalized places, virtually all of it under Democratic — now “progressive’ — political control.
The failure of the liberal model is by now so embarrassing that the current owners of that model have created an alternative universe of explanation, such as blaming it on American settlers in the early 18th century or the non-existence of “justice.”
The Great Society welfare state is a well-intentioned failure. Liberal social engineering is a well-intentioned failure. Of course, the architects of that system cannot admit their complicity, so they have doubled down on an explanation that exonerates them and shifts the blame to others. The problem, they now say, is systemic structural racism. The establishment media has reinforced that message by cherry picking horrific but isolated events such as the George Floyd killing and the Ahmaud Arbery slaying and representing them as the norm in a country of 330 million people, thereby bringing emotions to a boil. I could repeat the statistics debunking that narrative, as I have in previous posts, but it would be pointless to do so. Antiseptic data don’t matter, I have been scolded. Peoples’ feelings matter.
I am not a Pollyanna. I know that racism still exists (although by any measure it is less prevalent than ever). I know that some of our institutions are flawed. But I reject the idea that America is an irredeemably racist nation. I believe we can make America more equitable and more just by enacting carefully considered reforms of our institutions. But undertaking that effort starts with understanding what the real problems are — understanding why our inner-city schools are failing, why higher-ed is so unaffordable and inaccessible, why healthcare is unaffordable and inaccessible to so many, and why housing is so unaffordable and inaccessible. In each and every case, government failure is the root of the problem. Solving those problems requires new solutions, not more of the same.
Building a more just and equitable American also requires that we acknowledge that there are limits to what government can do (even when government gets it right). There is an inextricable connection between family breakdown, social dysfunction, and the perpetuation of poverty. At some point, people need to feel empowered to take control of their own destinies. Telling people that they are helpless victims of ubiquitous racism is not the way to instill hope and the motivation to overcome adversity and improve one’s condition in life.
Confederate statues don’t create single-parent households. Confederate statues don’t get inner-city mothers hooked on crack. Confederate statues don’t kill people in drive-by shootings. Confederate statues don’t create leaky roofs and leave rat feces in inner-city schools. Confederate statues don’t kill children in drive-by shootings. Confederate statues don’t create unlivable, crime-ridden public housing projects. Confederate statues don’t create housing scarcity and evict renters from their homes. Confederate statues don’t create obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
So, Governor Northam and Mayor Stoney, by all means appease the Leftist mob. Take the statues down. Just don’t pretend you’re making Virginia any more equitable and just.
