We See Their Lies

Former Lee statue in Charlottesville.

by Phil Leigh

Confederate Heritage defenders see the truth. Statue destruction is not about a racial reckoning promoted by justice-seeking blacks and their awakened white allies among the social elite. It is all about Southern cultural genocide.

Consider the recent vote by Charlottesville City Council to donate an equestrian bronze statue of Robert E. Lee to a black group that will melt it down to create a new “racial reckoning” sculpture. By giving the statue away, the city is probably foregoing over a million dollars that it could have received by putting the statue up for auction. A similar statue in Dallas was sold for $1.4 million.

By forfeiting such funds, councilmen are deliberately trying to anger anyone who wishes to honor the memory of General Lee. Foregoing the auction opportunity is merely another form of looting taxpayers like the looting in the summer of 2020 or the flash looting more recently on the West Coast. Given the civic responsibilities of the councilors, their looting is even more immoral than that of the thugs I saw going from store-to-store on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue last year.
Charlottesville’s councilmen are a part of the awakened elite. They are each the heroes of their own movie. The dominance of Identity Victimhood has given them enough power to arrogantly believe the public cannot see the truth. But we can and we do. Jussie Smollet exemplifies the same arrogance. He felt he could use Identity Victimology to get away with lying about his two-year-old hoaxed hate crime in Chicago . . . so-called Maga Country! In his movie he is forever the victim. Even after being convicted of five felonies, he believes that racial reckoning and Identity Politics will enable him to put together an acting performance that will fool everybody. Instead, the jury saw the reality that he denies.

Similarly, White history professors and authors who originally suggested that artistic Confederate statues, like those of Lee in Richmond and Charlottesville, might remain standing but augmented with “contextual plaques” have failed to object to the melting down of Lee’s Charlottesville statue. Even though their hypocrisy is as conspicuous as cow patties on a snowbank, they don’t think we can see it. They think if their lying is not printed in The Washington Post or New York Times, nobody will see it. But we do see it.

When Washington and Lee University removes the General’s name from Lee Chapel and silences free speech within the student body, the faculty and administration don’t think that the alumni can see that the goal is to strip out the Lee name completely. But the graduates do indeed see the goal. Similarly, Virginia governor Ralph Northam doesn’t think that voters can see his attack on VMI traditions is merely an attempt to cover up his use of racist costumes at a medical school frat party. But they can. Like Smollet, the deluded Northam needs a mirror.

Virginia’s November vote replacing Northam with a Republican governor signifies that Identity Victimhood is increasingly seen as phony. I see what you see, and we see the truth. Smollet’s conviction shows that ordinary citizens are not being fooled.

This column has been republished with permission from Phil Leigh’s Civil War Chat blog.