Weekend Read: Frank Earnest is the chief of 鈥榟eritage defense.鈥� The question is, whose heritage?
Even before neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder, no one disputed he drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the deadly 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally in August 2017.
And neither the prosecution nor the defense disputed that Heather Heyer died on impact. Watching video of that moment听, one juror clapped his hand over his mouth 鈥� but Fields showed no emotion.
Fields was among the white supremacists who were in Charlottesville to听听of Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas 鈥淪tonewall鈥� Jackson from its parks.
By the time the听, a lawsuit with the same goal had already been winding its way through court for months.
罢丑别听听and other plaintiffs filed the suit in March 2017 to stop Charlottesville from听. Among the suit鈥檚 architects:听鈥� for the Virginia Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Just weeks after the Charlottesville rally,听The听Washington Post鈥檚 Paul Duggan found Earnest in his customary seat in the courtroom鈥檚 front row, wearing an array of Confederacy-themed lapel pins and whiskers 鈥渟traight from a daguerreotype.鈥�
But Earnest made it clear to Duggan that even if their lawsuit might share common cause with the extremists who鈥檇 come to 鈥淯nite the Right,鈥� Earnest himself was 鈥渄isgusted鈥� by the rally.听:
In the courtroom, as if on cue, a stocky fellow in a Confederate T-shirt walked up to him and gushed, 鈥淚 just want to shake your hand!鈥� Frank replied, 鈥淪ir, I鈥檇 prefer not to,鈥� and the man, unfazed, shrugged and went back to his seat. 鈥淜now why I did that?鈥� Frank said quietly. 鈥淗e鈥檚 Klan. I won鈥檛 tolerate that nonsense.鈥�
Like others in the Sons, Earnest insists that he is not racist, that the Civil War wasn鈥檛 about slavery, and that Confederate imagery symbolizes Southern heritage, not white supremacy.
The problem, of course, is not only that those beliefs are听听but that it takes very little for them to trip perilously over into听听during the same rally Earnest took pains to distance himself from.
What Earnest, as Duggan describes, seems not to understand is that the move to take down Confederate monuments isn鈥檛 motivated by what he calls 鈥渁 bunch of liberal crap about how evil my ancestors were.鈥�
Instead, it鈥檚 motivated by an urgent need to correct the record, to shatter the narrative that generations of Southerners have learned, in part, through the glorification of all things Confederate.
Our public entities have long played a role in keeping alive the myth that the Civil War was fought over something other than slavery and white supremacy. They should no longer. It鈥檚 well past time to dismantle what Duggan calls, 鈥渢he gauzy fiction of the Lost Cause, which soft-pedals the atrocities of slavery.鈥�
If Confederate monuments simply honor Southern heritage,听why is it that the Confederacy is the particular part of the region鈥檚 history that many white people want to remember so fondly?
That鈥檚 a question Earnest would do well to ponder.
The Editors
P.S. Here are some other pieces that we think are valuable this week:
- by Kim Barker, Nicholas Kulish and Rebecca Ruiz for The New York Times
- by Lawrence B. Glickman for Boston Review
- By Tom Robbins for The Marshall Project
- by Hadar Harris and Mary Beth Tinker for The Washington Post
Photo REUTERS / Joshua Roberts
蜜桃传媒's Weekend Reads are a weekly summary of the most important reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequity, and hate and extremism.听Sign up to receive Weekend Reads every Saturday morning.
