SC Senators Still Want Monument to ‘Black Confederates,’ Facts and Experts Be Damned

The Civil War has long been over, but the long, slow, idiotic march of white nonsense presses on.

Two South Carolina state representatives are continuing with their plans to memorialize, on the Statehouse lawn, black soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. They say they’ve accrued even more support from their fellow revisionist idiots colleagues in the Statehouse, according to WHNS-TV.

Rep. Josiah Magnuson told the news outlet that he supports the bill to erect the new monument and may even consider co-sponsoring it.

“I believe that our history brings us together when it’s presented properly,” said Magnuson, who is currently supporting a bill that whitewashes the Confederacy behind enslaved black soldiers.

“I believe that our heritage of defending our state can tell us where we need to go in the future,” he continued.

Huh. Josiah, if I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you’re advocating secession. Flashback Friday, indeed.

The problem, of course, with memorializing black Confederate soldiers is that they were literally forced into supporting the Confederate cause … because slavery.

But since it’s 2017 and we need history professors to explain the most basic of concepts to us, let’s hear from a South Carolinian history professor who spoke to WHNS (because none of these grits-for-brains lawmakers seem to be listening).

“When you talk about serving the Confederacy, I think it’s important to make a distinction between those who shouldered arms, which is almost nobody, because it was illegal, and those maybe around the battle sites who were acting as laborers or teamsters, or serving as assistants or servants,” Dr. Stephen O’Neill, who teaches history at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., told Fox.

This, of course, has been well-covered by Civil War historians. African-American-studies professor John Stauffer pointed out in his explainer for The Root in 2015 that some enslaved black soldiers were forced to fight—at risk of death.

“Confederates impressed slaves as laborers and at times forced them to fight. In effect, they put guns to their heads, forcing them to fire on Yankees,” Stauffer wrote.

As Civil War historian Kevin Levin told Newsweek, the focus on black Confederates isn’t new and is part of a clear attempt to whitewash the Confederacy’s defense of slavery. Levin called the proposed South Carolina monuments “part of a larger attempt to reinterpret the Confederacy to separate it from slavery and white supremacy.”

Or, as O’Neill told Fox, the proposed monument implies that black Americans were “satisfied enough with the institution of slavery” or were fighting for their “homeland”—two dangerous lies that these South Carolina lawmakers think could heal their state.

Among them is Rep. Mike Burns, who told WHNS that he hopes that his bullshit, ahistorical monument could serve as an example in the clashes over Confederate monuments nationwide.

“It could be a good thing for our state and be a model for other states who are suffering through these same issues,” Burns said.

Read more at WHNS-TV.