On Tuesday evening, according to Yahoo News, historian Ken Burns said on CNN that he supports the removal of Confederate monuments.
“I think we’re in the middle of an enormous reckoning right now in which the anxieties and the pains and the torments of injustice are bubbling up to the surface,” said Burns. “It’s very important for people like me, of my complexion, to it be as quiet as possible and to listen. What I know from my reading of history is that the confederate monuments have to go.”
Burns proceeded to debunk the idea that taking down the Confederate monuments would be an attempt to rewrite history. On the contrary, he argued, putting up the statues in the first place was.
“They’re an attempt to rewrite history and to essentially celebrate a false narrative about what happened during the Civil War and to send the wink-winks, the dog whistles, as we’re fond of saying today, across the generations of what the Civil War was about,” said Burns. “It’s so interesting we’re having this having this argument because the people that we people who responsible for the deaths of — yes. These are people responsible for the deaths of the loyal American citizens. They are not about heritage. This is about the reimposition of white supremacy in the South at various periods.”
Burns comments come as President Donald Trump is publicly defending Confederate monuments and other statues glorifying slave-owning American individuals, threatening federal prosecution of any protesters who try to vandalize or take down the displays. He has even stated that he won't even "consider" renaming U.S. military bases bearing the names of Confederate officers.
