Saturday, June 11, 2016

IF ROBERT E. LEE HAD WON, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE VOTED

(Ed.'s Note: Theresa Marie Boston is an African-American woman married to our friend Antonio Castillo. They have been our companions at the barricades in trying to get our city commissioners to remove the monument erected in honor of the Confederate States of America president Jefferson Davis from Washington Park and to place it in a museum.We would rather it be heaved in the dustbin of history where all vestiges of slavery and racial superiority belong. If Davis and Robert E. Lee had won, Theresa and her babies probably would not have gotten the opportunity to be free, much less to vote. This is not a politically correct deviancy from us. It is a recognition that we do not support the slave-owner mentality, no matter how sweet and nostalgic some neo-Confederates might cherish the memory. If you were in her shoes, what would you think? )

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what she wasn't taught in school. This renaming needs to stop. So many closet racists in our history. I have a solution: name buildings Building #1, Building #2, etc.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist, incapable of rising above the thought of his time and place, and willing to profit from slave labor.

Of the nine presidents who owned slaves, only George Washington freed his. He resisted efforts to make him a king and established the precedent that no one should serve more than two terms as president. He voluntarily yielded power.

George Washington was a slaveholder. In New Orleans, in the late 1990s, George Washington Elementary School was renamed Charles Richard Drew Elementary School, after the developer of blood-banking. How we can take down the name of the man whose leadership brought this nation through the Revolutionary War and who turned down a real chance to be the first king of the nation.

SO, no. Leave the name up and find a better reason to take the name down.

Anonymous said...

Change the building's name, Robert E. Lee, himself, was against honoring the losing Confederacy. He worried that Southerners would be punished by the victorious North if they went about acting like they had won. Robert E. Lee! Change the name to some Hispanic, like the medal of honor winner Lopez.

Anonymous said...

Oh, here's the Robert E. Lee article on why he said no monuments to the Confederacy was in order:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/11/opinions/confederate-symbols-opinion-horn/index.html

Anonymous said...

Whether her surname is Burton or Boston or Castillo -- no one gives a sh*t - including real black people living in Brownsville.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you got to vote, Theresa. With buildings brandishing names like that, and monuments like the one disgracing Washington Park, the struggle continues.

Harambe, The Bullet Lobotomized Gorilla said...

I wish I could have voted today. #blackliesmatter

Anonymous said...

The young lady apparently doesn't know much about Lee, who freed all his slaves and joined the Confederacy only after turning down command of the Union forces, because he could not raise his sword against his native state of Virginia.

Anonymous said...

Hey Robert E. Lee was American! The Confederacy was American! And if you don't like America, then you can giiit out!!!

R Leal said...

I love how those saying to keep the name and that Theres doesn't know history leave their idiotic and hateful comments under "Anonymous". Not only are you a stupid racist, you're also a coward. The Confederacy was not American, if it was, it wouldn't have tried to break off and keep people enslaved. No one who fought for, supported or is nostalgic for the Confederacy deserves to be memorialized. They are a part of history, but they don't deserve to be honored. There is no honor in what they fought for and thank God they lost. Losers don't get statues erected or buildings named after them.

rita