I think it was easier there, because it was done immediately after WWII. Same with toppling Communist symbols and statues in Eastern Europe, or traces of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq. It's much easier when a huge part of the population feels like that, and there is a form of revolution.
It's harder when, to some people, that confederate flag or statue means cultural identity and traditions, to others it's just a symbol of slavery and racism. To many Southerners the Civil War the North fought was about money and power, not human rights. I assume to some of them, banning the confederate flag (including from state flags) is like saying Americans are not allowed to fly the Stars And Stripes because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the many other atrocities we have committed around the world. It's not as easy as with Nazi symbols, which where there for like 10 years, and had no traditional meaning for the German nation.
And people are complex and imperfect. Just because Wagner was an antisemite, he was still a great composer. Just because Jefferson owned slaves (like most people in the South at that time), he was still a great mind and one of our Founding Fathers. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, so this kind of cultural cleansing should be done by the entire community with a cold head, and trying to hurt as few people as possible.
We shouldn't judge past actions based on modern standards. It's like punishing them for thinking the Earth was flat. That's how they were raised and educated, that's what seemed normal (let's not mention the HUGE role of social pressure and need for conformity).
I think African Americans would gain tremendous points with Southern whites if they tolerated those confederate flags and other similar symbols, and saw them mostly as signs of cultural pride, not racism. Same for the heroes the Southerners worship for fighting for those lands (or at least those who haven't been horrible people). People don't like other people messing with their traditions, history and legends, even if delusional or morally wrong.
Whether or not it's easier or when it's done temporally has nothing to do with the underlying ethical or moral argument associated with celebrating atrocity, right? Are you saying if Germany decided to ban swastikas now because say they didn't do it earlier then all of a sudden their choice would be wrong today? No- that would be ridiculous, and thus better late than never becomes the prevailing logic.
Also, the narrative that the Civil War was about solely about money and power and not related to slavery, or that the modern people who love Confederate flags and statues only do so because of its association with sweet tea and cornbread and all things Southern is a bunch of
pseudo-historical bull**** invented by the
United Daughters of the Confederacy and other racists.
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During the period 1880–1910, the UDC was one of many groups that celebrated
Lost Cause mythology and presented "a romanticized view of the slavery era" in the United States.
[3] The UDC promoted white Southern solidarity, allowing white Southerners to refer to a mythical past in order to legitimize
racial segregation and white supremacy.
[44] The UDC worked to "define southern identity around images from an Old South that portrayed slavery as benign and slaves as happy and a Reconstruction that portrayed blacks as savage and immoral.".
[45] Their lost cause narrative was codified in their “Measuring Rod to Test Text Books and Reference Books,”
[46] which UDC chapters unanimously endorsed and used to infect their false, white supremacist views in school curriculum across the South.
[47] Historian
James M. McPherson has said that the present-day UDC promotes a
white supremacist and
neo-Confederate agenda,
[48] saying
I think I agree a hundred percent with Ed Sebesta, though, about the motives or the hidden agenda not too deeply hidden I think of such groups as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the
Sons of the Confederate Veterans. They are dedicated to celebrating the Confederacy and rather thinly veiled support for white supremacy. And I think that also is the again not very deeply hidden agenda of the Confederate flag issue in several Southern states.
[49]
The
Southern Poverty Law Center considers the UDC as part of the
Neo-Confederate movement that began in the early 1980s, which the Center states is "a reactionary conservative ideology that has made inroads into the Republican Party from the political right, and overlaps with the views of white nationalists and other more radical extremist groups."
[50][51] In August 2018 their website still stated that ""Slaves, for the most part, were faithful and devoted. Most slaves were usually ready and willing to serve their masters."
[52]
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