Following yesterday’s big news that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam will be moving to order the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue from Richmond’s “Monument Avenue,” there have been a variety of reactions. Many have been positive (see here and here), but there have also been the sadly predictable reactions by right-wing Republicans, such as 2018 VA GOP U.S. Senate nominee “neo-Confederate Corey” Stewart, who heaped praise on Robert E. Lee as a “great man,” ranted about “Antifa” (which has nothing to do with this), etc.
For more far-right lunacy, see below for video, as Virginia State Sen. Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) – also a declared 2021 gubernatorial candidate – speaks “advocately [sic] against erasing Virginia’s history,” declaring:
“Let’s be honest here, there is an overt effort here to erase all white history. I mean, that’s what they’re looking at doing. Listen, our grandfathers were guilty of slavery, and that is wrong, and I denounce that…we should never own another human being. But that’s not the only thing that Lee and others were known for…There is not one human being that has not committed a sin…We need to be respectful of everybody’s culture…this is a First Amendment issue…the socialist Democrats [said] pushed back and said that was free speech, that we should allow porn in our public schools and teach it as education…But it just gets me that they think somehow it’s ok for them to revise history and eliminate the parts of our history that they don’t like, that they don’t appreciate…I think it’s very racially insensitive and racism itself not to respect the history of all Americans…It’s very disturbing to me that, once again, that this Democrat [sic] new majority…they want the First Amendment for them, but not they’re not going to allow any differences of opinion; it’s all about shoving this down people’s throats and erasing the history of the white people, and I think that’s wrong…”‘
Racist much? And what the heck is “white history,” anyway? So much for French history, German history, Italian history, Swedish history, Polish history, British history, etc.? According to AmanDUH, it’s all lumped together in “white history?” (also, of course, the Civil War was mostly fought by white people against other white people, such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant vs. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee) Just crazy, ignorant, stupid, racist shit. But it’s typical, sad to say, of Chase – the same person who said “It’s those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped” and “The ERA Amendment is nothing more than a ploy by the left to eliminate gender altogether,” among many other bats***-crazy things. Finally, it’s VERY telling that she’s a leading 2021 Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate, that she has a huge Facebook following, and also that her fellow Virginia Republicans don’t denounce her. Of course, they don’t denounce Trump either, including when he said that there were “very fine people” on “both sides” in Charlottesville. Ugh.
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