I was in Virginia last summer, with a little time to wander. I couldn’t help noticing that the two central memorial parks in the town I was walking through were both named for Confederate generals. Both parks featured big equestrian statues, installed in the early 1920s. What can I do with that kind of history? The days of reveling in (imagined) Confederate glory should be well over – but the monuments still stand, unyielding.
Pinhole Obscura 
It always leaves me scratching my head when I see Confederate statues, and especially the flag. I mean, they failed. There is no glory there. It also occurs to me that it has to be the most un-
American thing ever.
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You could say the exact same thing about the Alamo (you failed!), also in parts of the south they refer the Civil War as The War of Northern Aggression.
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Good point- actually when I was typing that I thought of the Alamo
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it’s a weighty subject. that happened – history doesn’t just disappear. i wasn’t just a tourist – i’m from the south, and my distant grandfather fought on the losing side. all the same, i don’t think the past was ever really reckoned with. a lot was pushed under the rug in the name of getting back to business, perhaps. statues erected, in the name of what? i’m afraid that a lot of the time they commemorated the continuation of a system of thought that was supposedly defeated, but which instead just took a few steps sideways and continued on.
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