White Too Long by Robert P. Jones

Author:Robert P. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2020-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The historical witness is clear: as Confederate symbols migrated from cemeteries and veterans’ parades, they became less about honoring the past and more about upholding white supremacy in the present. In fact, the relationship is inversely proportional. The further the distance from the cemetery and the past, the more nakedly obvious their role in asserting white supremacy becomes. As Landrieu concluded in his assessment of Confederate monuments in the civic spaces of New Orleans, these symbols were premeditatively designed and deployed as “political weapons” in the service of preserving white supremacy.91 A corollary conclusion also extends to the realm of religion. As Confederate symbols were intentionally installed in prominent sacred spaces, where they were enmeshed with Christian symbols and justified by white Christian theology, they became religious weapons in the service of baptizing white supremacy.

The murders at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston surely haven’t changed everything; but they do seem to have changed something. This awful violence—committed in the name of white supremacy within the walls of a black church—has begun to wake at least some well-intentioned whites from their moral slumber, depriving them of a familiar, comfortable complacency. For a critical mass of whites, the once-unassailable naïveté of appeals to “heritage” are finally losing their power. Like the aging granite pedestals, the edifice of southern vindication and innocence has finally begun to crack under the weight of its own duplicity.

But the examples in this chapter are best understood as initial tremors, which are only beginning to disturb the stubborn footings of 150 years of post–Civil War white supremacy. Ultimately, the construction of a new foundation will require white Americans to do something we have never been willing to do: reanimate our own histories and confront a violent and unflattering past.

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