The battle to erase history moves to New Orleans

Posted at 8:31 am on August 15, 2015 by Jazz Shaw

Did you really think they were going to stop with the Confederate Battle Flag?

Forget flags, kids. Now we’re going to tear down statues. And we’re not talking about statues which popped up during the civil rights movement in the sixties here… these are more than a century old. There are four statues at the St. Charles Avenue circle in New Orleans which are now going to be torn down if activists have their way. (I was stationed there in the early 70s and have been by the circle many times. It’s a beautiful display.) But Bobby Jindal is trying to figure out if there’s a way to stop it.

As a committee of city government called Thursday for taking down four controversial statues that celebrate Confederate officials and a white supremacist group’s violent fight against a biracial state government during Reconstruction, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office said it is looking into whether he can use the power of his office to keep the monuments in place.

The monuments, including the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee atop the column at a St. Charles Avenue traffic circle, should be taken down under an ordinance that allows the City Council to remove public statues that celebrate racist ideologies or are likely to be sites of violent protest, the Historic District Landmarks Commission decided after about an hour of sometimes heated testimony.

The HDLC’s recommendation, approved by an 11-1 vote, now heads to the City Council. Later Thursday, the Human Relations Commission held a similar hearing on the fate of the monuments and was expected to issue its own recommendation.

New Orleans apparently has a law on the books which allows the Historic District Landmarks Commission to ban landmarks and displays which, “celebrate racist ideologies or are likely to be sites of violent protest.” That’s a pretty convenient way to design a law if you happen to be in the Social Justice business because all you need to do is stage one or two violent protests and pretty much anything you choose can meet the criteria. The removal of the monuments is expected to cost more than a million dollars. Can Jindal step in and stop the process? That seems to be a big question mark since it’s a matter of local jurisdiction. Don’t be terribly surprised if the activists are successful and hand the bill for the deconstruction to the taxpayers, though.

CNN was interviewing some folks on both sides of the question this morning and found several who were also calling for the removal of the fleur de lis from flags and public displays as well. This was has been knocking around ever since the Confederate Battle Flag question was raised and the Daily Caller covered it over a month ago.

“As an African I find it painful, and I think people whose ancestors were enslaved here may feel it even harder than I do as an African,” said slave historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck to WWLTV.

He connects the usage of the fleur de lis, to “code noir,” or black code, which was adopted in Louisiana in 1724, and used to govern to state’s slave population.

So now the fleur is racist? (Apparently everything from the 1860s and before is racist, so… yes.) That’s going to be an interesting battle for the SJW to take up, since the fleur was specific to the previously French held territories and had nothing to do with the civil war in any measurable fashion. It also shows up all over the state and would have to be removed from the helmets of the New Orleans Saints, among many, many other places.

People seeking attention and having too much time on their hands can get up to all manner of mischief and that seems to be the case here. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to work. It’s the Social Justice Warriors’ world now and you’re just living in it.