Why the right is wrong when it comes to Robert E. Lee

When it comes to Confederate general Robert E. Lee, I put him in the same category as O.J Simpson. Whatever O.J did away from football, it doesn’t take away the fact he was a Heisman Trophy winner, became the first running back to gain 2,000 yards in a season, and pulled off some of the greatest runs in NFL history.

While many may criticize his behavior, he will always be immortalized because his accomplishments are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — not in some public space, where his critics can cherry-pick his deficiencies. 

The main reason Robert E. Lee’s accomplishments can be erased from history, as they recently were when the city of Richmond removed his towering statue, is that his defenders refuse to put these statues in museums rather than in places where the residents pay taxes for monuments that don’t represent them. 

Sports history is preserved rather than erased, because it lives in halls of fame, not out in public squares susceptible to mobs. You couldn’t talk baseball without talking about two key figures: Ty Cobb and Kenesaw Mountain Landis. All baseball fans know Ty Cobb was a virulent racist, but that doesn’t take away the fact that he had 4,191 hits and 893 stolen bases. While Kenesaw Mountain Landis barred African Americans from the Major Leagues, he also saved major league baseball from the Black Sox Scandal. 

I wish we could do American history similar to sports history. Museums allow you to look at past historical figures in perspective. When these figures are preserved, then people can do their research about people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

In sports, you can debate and argue who was better: Lebron James or Micheal Jordan? Muhammad Ali was a cruel and divisive Black separatist, but many acknowledge he was the greatest fighter of all time. Unfortunately, with Leftists everything is binary. They can’t understand you may hate Tom Brady or Lebron James, but it doesn’t take away their accomplishments and contribution to the game. While Robert E. Lee fought for the Confederacy, he was still one of America’s greatest generals. 

If we treated such history as they do it in professional sports, they would understand that generals such as Lee and even Nazi Germany’s Erwin Rommel weren’t great humans but were great generals, whose tactics are still studied in military academies. Niccolo Machiavelli and Carl von Clausewitz were hardly fans of America, but anyone who wants to succeed in life won’t have a clue about strategy if they never read their books. 

I tell my conservative friends that American figures such as George Washington and General Lee should be preserved by putting them in capitols and museums where residents can understand their legacy. 

I believe we should use professional sports as a model and have historians pick out several Halls of Fame. That way, future generations can remember those who changed the course of American history — good or bad — without Leftists trying to politicize, twist, and tear things down for the flavor of the day. 

Jeffery McNeil is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media. 

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