Analytical essay
all the instructions are provided below
10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 1/7
Democracy Dies in Darkness
James Comey: Take down the Confederate
statues now
By James Comey
Feb. 7, 2019 at 4:25 p.m. CST
James Comey is a former director of the FBI and a former deputy attorney
general.
White people designed blackface to keep black people down, to intimidate, mock
and stereotype. It began during the 19th century and wasn’t about white people
honoring the talent of black people by dressing up to look like them. It was about
mocking them and depicting them as lazy, stupid and less than fully human. It was
a tool of oppression. As a college kid in Virginia during the 1980s, I knew that and
so did my classmates. But a whole lot of white people seem to not know that history
or understand why blackface is so offensive, whether it’s practiced by a college
student or a new doctor. The turmoil in Virginia — where I have lived most of my
adult life, including nine years in Richmond — may do some good if it reminds
white people that a river of oppression runs through U.S. history, deep and wide,
down to today.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/ralph-northam-and-the-history-of-blackface
10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 2/7
But the reporters hurrying to the state capital to cover this important story about a
poorly understood tool of white oppression are literally rushing past much larger
and more powerful symbols of that oppression — symbols born of a similar desire
to keep black people down. There is no doubt that Virginia’s leaders need to be held
accountable for their personal history, but every Virginia leader is responsible for
the racist symbols that still loom over our lives.
The Confederate statues of Richmond’s Monument Avenue weren’t erected to
honor the service of brave warriors. Those soldiers had been dead for decades
before the statues went up. No, the statues were put up by white people, beginning
in the 1890s, to remind black people that, despite all that nonsense of Presidents
Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as the so-called Reconstruction, we
are back, and you are back down. The towering likenesses of Robert E. Lee,
Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson weren’t put up to celebrate history or
heritage; they were put up as a message: The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to
the Constitution aren’t going to help you black folks because the South has risen
from that humiliation. Jim Crow — a name rooted in blackface mockery — is king.
AD
https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/richmond-monument-panel-urges-removing-jefferson-davis-statue/2018/07/02/73636904-7e17-11e8-bb6b-c1cb691f1402_story.html?utm_term=.4d128f871b7d&tid=lk_inline_manual_6
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stonewall-Jackson
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-jim-crow
10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 3/7
If you doubt that well-documented history — if you are tempted to buy the
“heritage, not hate” rhetoric — ask yourself this question: “Where are the statues of
James Longstreet?” Remember: Longstreet was Lee’s most trusted general, his
second-in-command, his “Old War Horse.” Longstreet was a brave and talented
warrior for the Confederacy from beginning to end. But there aren’t any Longstreet
statues in Richmond — and there weren’t any at all until 1998, at Gettysburg. That’s
because his service to the United States continued after the Civil War, and he did
something inconsistent with the purpose of the statues, and of blackface: He treated
African Americans as citizens of the United States. Longstreet agreed to serve his
reunified country, joined Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped Grant protect the
rights of newly freed black Americans.
Longstreet committed two unforgivable sins in the eyes of white supremacists: He
criticized Lee’s war leadership, and he led an African American militia to put down
an 1874 white rebellion in Louisiana. That’s why this central figure in Civil War
history is not depicted among the other Confederate statues in Richmond. The
statues were about only a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a
certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.
AD
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/james-longstreet
https://64parishes.org/entry/the-battle-of-liberty-place
10/3/2019 James Comey: Take down the Confederate statues now – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/blackface-is-a-tool-of-white-oppression-there-are-many-moer-towering-over-us/2019/02/07/4ea303b6-2b11-… 4/7
Blackface, and our elected leaders’ involvement with it, is an important subject, and
our country must confront that part of our racist past. Those who did it, or lied
about it, shouldn’t hold office. Past actions matter. But our present is filled with
gigantic bronze embodiments of that same racism. They loom over Virginians every
day. If Virginia’s leaders want to atone for a troubling legacy, changing state law so
Richmond’s statues no longer taunt the progress of our country would be a good
place to start. Expressing bipartisan horror at blackface photos is essential, but
removing the statues would show all of America that Virginia really has changed.
Read more:
The Post’s View: Ralph Northam must resign
Colbert I. King: Why is racism still thriving? Ask the enablers.
Megan McArdle: We need a single standard for Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax —
and all the others
Dana Milbank: The Democratic apology tour is a sorry spectacle
AD
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ralph-northam-must-resign/2019/02/06/b1703986-2a40-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.ec48ffa77e55&tid=lk_inline_manual_13
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-racism-still-thriving-ask-the-enablers/2019/02/07/6a497666-2b04-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.22188a094e37&tid=lk_inline_manual_14
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-need-a-single-standard-for-ralph-northam-justin-fairfax–and-all-the-others/2019/02/06/8148cc1a-2a62-11e9-b2fc-721718903bfc_story.html?utm_term=.4ae39eeed9c6&tid=lk_inline_manual_15
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-democratic-apology-tour-is-a-sorry-spectacle/2019/02/06/b7f2eb36-2a5a-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.002c01eabc22&tid=lk_inline_manual_16