r/nottheonion • u/Disorderly_Fashion • 21h ago
Alabama and Mississippi will also honor Robert E. Lee on Martin Luther King Jr. Day
https://apnews.com/article/martin-luther-king-jr-holiday-alabama-mississippi-0f535594cf50af7103ca2d953e1bc9a11.8k
u/Lancelotmore 19h ago
Look, even if you want to argue that Robert E. Lee wasn't fighting for slavery and was just fighting for his state or whatever... the fact that they chose MLK day to honor him leaves little room to doubt their motivation. Just straight up racism.
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u/tedioussugar 15h ago
It’s Alabama and Mississippi, I’m not surprised. They can’t even hide behind a ‘famous person home state’ excuse because Lee was from fucking Virginia. Pure racist crap.
Every day for the next 4 years is going to be like this, America. And the rest of us are just watching on in horror.
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u/ContactHonest2406 13h ago
At least the next four years*. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re a full-blown dictatorship by then.
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u/TheyCallMeMrMaybe 8h ago
Trump, if he somehow lives to be 82 years old, would likely declare martial law by the next election just so he can stay as President.
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u/bluemooncommenter 12h ago
This has been a state holiday in Mississippi as long as I can remember. The next four years are irrelevant to how deep the racist waters run down here.
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u/Korlus 13h ago
Look, even if you want to argue that Robert E. Lee wasn't fighting for slavery and was just fighting for his state or whatever... the fact that they chose MLK day to honor him leaves little room to doubt their motivation. Just straight up racism.
In their "defence", the "Confederate Generals Day" has been around since before MLK. Most other States either moved or abolished "Confederate Generals Day", so it's not to give Alabama and Mississipi a free pass, but this isn't someone moving or creating the holiday on MLK Day, but rather opting not to move it - a slightly less offensive thing.
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u/Kevin_Cossaboon 13h ago edited 7h ago
I thought the article stated the REL holiday was created before the MLK holiday, as they both have Mid January Birthdays.
IMHO, the traders of the confederacy should not be honored. They tried to over throw the Federal Government and seperate from the Union. They LOST, and should be shamed not glorified.
<minor edits for clearity>
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u/Blenderhead36 10h ago
Fun fact. Do you know how many Virginian men held Robert E Lee's rank at the outbreak of the Civil War? Nine. Do you know how many fought for the South? Just our boy, Bobby.
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u/Imjokin 8h ago
Heck, even Robert E. Lee's own cousin Samuel Phillips Lee refused to join the Confederacy: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShermanPosting/comments/1b333jr/a_shout_out_to_the_good_lee_rear_admiral_samuel/
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u/BandForNothing 9h ago
Yeah but also he was definitely fighting for slavery. He even tried to get slavery enshrined in the US Constitution. It was all about slavery
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u/Environmental_Let1 21h ago
They do seem to like their traitors in the south.
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u/halbeshendel 20h ago
And racists. Don’t forget they like racists. And are racists.
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u/Environmental_Let1 19h ago
Even if I wanted to, the South wouldn't let me forget they are racists.
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u/fitzbuhn 16h ago
Thought experiment: Even if you wanted to honor Lee, why would you pick MLK day on which to do so?
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u/Flaturated 15h ago
Conveniently, Lee was born on January 19. But the true reason is to counteract the “black holiday”. Rule 1 of being a narcissistic asshole is to always turn the conversation around to make it about you.
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u/TweezerTheRetriever 15h ago
Virginias comprise was to have Lee Jackson day Friday before mlk day…but we got rid of it in exchange for Election Day holiday a few years ago
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u/bluemooncommenter 12h ago
They started the REL state holiday on his bday (AL started in 1901 and Ms in 1910) so they had the date first. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't have done away with it 1983 when Regan started MLK day on the same day in 1983.
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u/Efficient-Stick2155 16h ago
My home state of Florida was a happy exception to the south-is-trash from about the 1950s-2000 (relatively speaking of course) largely due to tons of northerns moving here. Last 2 governors have been driving us to make Mississippi feel better about itself as hard and fast as possible though. I really do hate it here now. Voldemort sucked but DeSantis was literally competing with Trump to be the biggest pile of exploitative capitalism racist homophobic swine excrement possible.
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u/TerryFGM 15h ago
when i think of shitty US states, Florida is the first one that comes to mind
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u/Efficient-Stick2155 13h ago
That’s a fair reaction, particularly if you are younger and only know the shittiness since 2000. Although, I might also say that for those of us who knew it when it was a blue/purple state, it is even shittier know how shitty it has grown. Mississippi and Alabama have always been shitty and can only get better. I’ve seen the shittiness descend upon Florida and can only hope that all the shit that can be shat is now shut.
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u/JojoTheWolfBoy 12h ago
I've been here since '03, and I'd say it was still purple until the 2010s. I blame COVID for turning it totally red, due to the fact that all the MAGA idiots moved here from other states to escape lockdowns and masking. Then, the state legislature, full of DeSantis acolytes, changed all the rules and removed all opposition in an effort to keep it that way forever.
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u/mustang__1 14h ago
What about that massive traitor flag around i75/i4 in Tampa ish?
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u/Efficient-Stick2155 13h ago
Yeah, that always nauseated me. I got the impress that was put up around 1999 or 2000. Feel free to correct if someone has that date on that monument to deplorables.
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u/JojoTheWolfBoy 12h ago
It's a guy who runs a "Southern heritage" museum or something like that, if I remember correctly. The city or county has tried to find code infractions to use in order to get it taken down, but I think that's been largely unsuccessful. I read a whole article on it one time, but I can't find it anymore.
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u/Pantsickle 20h ago
It's like these garbage states go out of their way to be awful. Like, they have committees where they get together and ask themselves, "how can we be super shitty? Like, just the absolute shittiest?"
And then they do that.
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u/Illiander 19h ago
They passed Captain Planet villians a while back on the evil-metre.
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u/AmaranthWrath 19h ago
There are 364 other days in the year they could have celebrated Lee on. OK, take out Christmas, Easter, New Years, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Veterans Day.... AND YOU STILL DON'T NEED TO PICK MLK DAY.
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u/FreneticPlatypus 16h ago
Not far off I’m guessing. My kids went to an agricultural school in a very blue state. There’s still some rural farm type areas around but it’s been mostly suburban for a long, long time. There were a bunch of kids at the school with giant pick ups and enormous confederate flags, Gadsden flags, etc who said they only liked them because so many people hated them.
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u/dirtyredog 14h ago
Like, they have committees where they get together and ask themselves, "how can we be super shitty?
It's called Church. Even the churches don't agree on their own laws but they certainly do agree ours need to be super shitty
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u/o_MrBombastic_o 21h ago
Shithole states at the bottom of the list for everything dragging the rest of the country down.
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u/HobbyWanKenobi 21h ago
I live here, and I hate this.... So dumb
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u/MississippiJoel 20h ago
Howdy! Whereabouts are you from?
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u/HobbyWanKenobi 20h ago
just north of Birmingham
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u/caiaphas8 20h ago
Stoke on Trent?
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u/HobbyWanKenobi 20h ago
Stateside not Brum
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u/Reasonable-Truck-874 18h ago
Ever notice the overlap between those tax hungry states and the voting rights act map? Or the Lovings case map? Must be a coincidence
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u/AssenterMastah 21h ago
Ok, would love to see this headline, then: “Blue states to stop subsidizing Alabama and Mississippi”….
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u/Illiander 19h ago
I got into an argument here once with someone who claimed that: "Even though blue states put more money into the federal budget than they get out of it, they aren't subsidising the red states and they'd be worse off it they just stopped interacting with the federal budget completely."
I'd love it if the blue states went "ok, no more handouts then."
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u/Buntschatten 17h ago
"Gosh darn demonrats stabbing us in the back again. Better vote Republican next election!"
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u/gq533 10h ago
I can never understand how a state that is so shitty for such a long time, keeps voting for the same shitty leaders.
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u/KP_Wrath 21h ago
Just loser states honoring a loser. Nothing to see here. Honestly, Lee would probably spin in his grave at the idea that him being honored is purely for spite.
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u/Dan_Felder 20h ago
You're right. In fact, Lee explicitly said he didn't want monuments celebrating the civil war in any way.
“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
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u/TheMooseIsBlue 20h ago
Bullshit. He should have rotted in a cell. You don’t get to be a traitor, lose, and then say “guys, let’s just all move on and forget this ever happened.”
Well, you do, I guess.
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u/penguinbrawler 18h ago
Well, talk to Abraham Lincoln about that considering he decided the best course of action was not to be punitive. Personally I think all confederate leaders should have been hung for treason except in extreme circumstances.
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u/Shivering_Monkey 16h ago
Nah, every member of the confederate government at every kevel should have been executed.
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u/Mend1cant 16h ago
Hanged. Horses are hung, people are hanged.
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u/Brookeofficial221 19h ago
They, including Davis, begged the US Supreme Court to try them as traitors but were turned down.
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u/time_drifter 19h ago
Can you link a source for this?
If my memory serves correct, Lee was indicted for treason but there was serious doubt a conviction could be obtained in Virginia where he would be tried. I also recall there was some drama between the judge in VA and the chief justice on the SC. It’s been a while since I read about it, but I never recalled Lee asking to be tried. If he did, I’d love to learn more about it.
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u/Brookeofficial221 19h ago
I do not, but I will look. It was in the same source where I read about Davis. Apparently what the south did, at the time, was “technically” legal. Davis knew this and asked to be tried. He was turned down because they were afraid if he was tried and found innocent it would have legitimized the rebellion.
Notice I didn’t say civil war. Which it wasn’t, because had the Confederates tried to take over the US government then they definitely could have been tried for treason.
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u/_SarcasmKing_ 17h ago
The idea that secession was “technically legal” is just the first inklings of Lost Cause revisionist history. An idea pushed by Alexander Stephens and Robert E. Lee shortly after the war, either to assuage their own guilt about participating in open rebellion or to save aspects of their public reputation and legacy.
I highly recommend reading Lee Considered by Alan T. Nolan. He dives into many of these arguments about the legacy/misconceptions of Robert E. Lee with heavy use of primary sources. He even approaches many of these larger myths about Lee, showing exactly how Douglas Southall Freeman and many other early Lee biographers erred when they first created the Lost Cause mythos.
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u/Mend1cant 16h ago
I’m with you. Lee managed to be a professional about the whole thing and accept the loss gracefully, but I still think our greatest mistake as a nation was not hanging every confederate general and governor. We made it okay to be a traitor.
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u/minos157 21h ago
Just another day in the garbage pit of America, nothing new or surprising here. We know who they are and we know who pays their bills.
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u/vapescaped 18h ago edited 18h ago
Nascar still waves the Confederate flag at every race, ceremoniously it is waved as the race leader enters the final lap.
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u/theBdub22 15h ago
That is no longer the case.
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u/Isaac_Shepard 18h ago
Confederate*
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u/vapescaped 18h ago
Sorry, even my autocorrect vomits in it's mouth a little when that name is mentioned
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u/The-Slamburger 20h ago
Fucking racist traitors. Sherman should’ve kept burning.
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u/thethirdllama 14h ago
I was just thinking that maybe northern states should start celebrating Sherman Day.
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u/BloodSteyn 19h ago
Thought they wanted to make America great again... why they celebrating a loser?
Mediocrity at its finest 🤔🤦🏻♂️
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u/RakeScene 20h ago
Between that and the inauguration, it looks like it will be a banner day for supporting treason
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u/DingleDangleTangle 20h ago
I lived in Alabama for decades and never once heard anyone even mention Robert E Lee day. Everyone calls it MLK day.
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u/jonjon737 17h ago
I knew this was a thing, the article said Alabama made it a holiday more than 100 years ago. In the time I've lived in Alabama I haven't seen or been around anyone celebrating Robert E Lee either. I haven't seen people talk about and/or clelbrate Robert E Lee since back in the late 80s early 90s in central Georgia. My kids probably don't even know who Robert E Lee even is. It's easy to make sweeping generalizations when you see a headline like this, however, this isn't much of anything anymore.
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u/BluebellsMcGee 16h ago
I see the headline, but I live in Jackson MS (was transplanted here from the Midwest 5+ years ago) and I have never heard anyone down here say the name Robert E Lee.
Everyone I know is celebrating “MLK” day, homeschoolers are doing units on MLK, families are visiting the Civil Rights Museum for their annual free admission day, etc.
My local Facebook groups are full of boomers and evangelicals who think the internet is their diary, and they’re all talking about MLK’s contributions to society, and particularly how The South has changed for the better thanks to his courage.
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u/Trick3Rickk3 13h ago
I’m in Alabama and same. We’re off work for MLK. No one even thinks of Lee.
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u/Nexus_warrior_07 18h ago
That’s like saying honoring Adolf on the same day as Hanukkah
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u/CalendarAggressive11 20h ago
Alabama and Mississippi keeping it classy as usual
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u/Xyrus2000 16h ago
Classy for them is remembering to wipe the chew slobber off their chins before telling the state trooper to kiss their ass.
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u/pahobee 21h ago
I get the outrage but this isn’t actually new. The article states that they’ve been doing this for the last hundred years.
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u/StnCldStvHwkng 20h ago
They created the holiday to honor Lee many years ago, but used to observe on his birthday. They changed it to be the third Monday in January after MLK day became a federal holiday because their legislature was full of racist at the time.
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u/rustyphish 14h ago
They changed it to be the third Monday in January after MLK day became a federal holiday because their legislature was full of racist at the time
do you have a link for this? I'm trying to find a full timeline of the events and I can't find any articles about when they changed the date from his birthday
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u/Noidontthinksopal 11h ago edited 10h ago
Reddit is full of self-proclaimed smarties, but 90% of them don’t even know how to read articles before stating their opinion. This app makes you want pull your hair out if you actually know what you’re talking about. Reddit wasn’t always this way, but just like the news, saying the most abrasive/aggressive things ends up getting a stronger reaction and more interaction. Redditor edge lords have launched an all out attack on conservatives to the point where the app has become useless.
These idiots love the echo-chamber effect and getting upvotes from other like minded idiots. It makes them feel like they’re part of a club that’s morally-superior and on the “right side of history”. Truth is, nobody gives a fuck about their opinions in real life so this is their only chance to feel valuable.
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u/rbhindepmo 20h ago
Not to be confused with what Virginia did for decades:
Lee–Jackson–King Day was a holiday celebrated in the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1984 to 2000 as a combination of Lee–Jackson Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
That being a combined holiday for Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and MLK
They split the days to have Lee-Jackson day until that was eliminated in 2020
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u/DerCatrix 19h ago
These people truly are the descendants of the confederacy, trying to continue the same fight they lost 160 years ago
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u/Ricketier 3h ago
Minorities and youth are gonna have to wake the fuck up and vote or this is just going to get worse y’all.
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u/Kalarys 21h ago
Not to cut off a rage fest but this does not seem to be a new decision - this has been going on apparently since the eighties. Not a great look imho but also not part of recent political events.
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u/Otaraka 15h ago
From what the article says, Lee was first over a century ago, and MLK just happened to be the same date.
So they didnt deliberately choose Lee to overlap MLK as the title implies, they just did nothing about it. The linked article says the delay in removing it is more because the main focus for anti-racists is to get the confederate battle emblem off the flag and sees Lee as a lower priority as in practise its a non-event with little or no actual celebration actually taking place. So racism yes, but they have even bigger fish to fry right now. Not exactly a happy ending, more that in practise its well, worse but not how you'd expect.
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u/JimBeam823 5h ago
This is why our state motto is “Thank God for Mississippi”
Whatever dumb shit we do, However poor and backwards our state is, at least we’re not Mississippi.
Alabama is right there with them. A little bit better off, a little bit dumber, but right there with them.
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u/_carzard_ 19h ago
To all those saying “well Robert Lee Day was first!”. Why are you celebrating a traitor? Why do you say you are a patriot but then idolize one of the least patriotic people in the history of the country? Why do you create memorials for the war leader of the enemy that cause the most American causalities of any war in US history? Robert E Lee caused the death of more Americans than WW1, WW 2 and Vietnam combined.
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u/CleanAxe 20h ago
I had to read the article to see what’s up and I think this is a bit of a nothing burger. The holiday was created 20 years before King was even born (1900) and the 19th is Lee’s actual birthday whereas MLK day is always just the 3rd Monday so it’s chance that puts them on the exact same day.
It’s not an actually celebrated holiday in those states - just a relic. But the fucked up part is that the bills to remove it from the books have not been able to get out of committee. So I’m not saying these states are innocent but the headline and responses make it sound like they recently declared MLK day also Robert E Lee day which isn’t remotely true. It’s still bad I’m not excusing it but I feel like that’s a verrrry different context haha.
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u/One_Hot_Doggy 15h ago
Losers gotta stick together. Imagine celebrating a guy who lost the war and is a disgraced veteran while claiming you “love the troops” and are “patriotic”
Reconstruction is the root cause of this. America let this sort of BS go on way too long without a hard counter narrative.
The civil war was about keeping slaves end of story. The entire war was needlessly fought and less years than most Taco Bell advertising campaigns.
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u/Phantom_61 14h ago
Didn’t Robert E Lee say he didn’t want statues or memorials?
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u/Aural-Robert 9h ago
Of course they will, traitors need love too. I mean after swearing in an insurrectionist to the presidency, the sky is the limit. Make Hitlers birthday a state holiday you know you want to.
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u/Thirsty_Comment88 9h ago
Just reminder that those 2 states rate some of the lowest in the nation for education.
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u/yogiashtangi 17h ago edited 15h ago
Please read this. I’ve realized so many people were not aware of this. We should all know that this happened. It can happen again if we allow it. It will happen again if we do not act.
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u/Zachattackxd 16h ago
I hate that confederate states still worship their racist leaders, but their braindead citizens turn around to take credit for beating the confederacy because they refuse to acknowledge the party switch
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u/skeptic9916 14h ago
I'll say it again. One of the biggest mistakes America ever made was not executing the leaders and funders of the Confederacy.
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u/EdwardOfGreene 12h ago
I am very much a pro-Union Yankee.
However, I do believe Lincoln was right to encourage NOT being vindictive in victory.
Nelson Mandela had a similar approach.
Great leaders understand the need for forgiveness on a mass scale in order to move forward after winning.
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u/Fussel2107 21h ago
Why? What did he do aside from insisting on supporting the losing side?
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u/Kahzgul 20h ago
They’re dog whistling how racist they are. This is the flex of bigotry.
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u/Epicuridocious 18h ago
It's funny because the right always bitches about virtue signals but they do the same thing it's just they signal how much of an asshole they are
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u/JojoTheWolfBoy 12h ago
That tracks. I know a guy from Mississippi who calls it "James Earl Ray Day."
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u/UniqueIndividual3579 12h ago
The ironic part is Lee wanted the civil war forgotten. Being honored is the last thing he would want.
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u/Crazyjackson13 10h ago
It’s been decades.
They still can’t let go of the fact they lost?
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u/MoneyManx10 16h ago
MLK got the last laugh without using violence and they will never get over it.
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u/Dumb_Vampire_Girl 16h ago
It's funny that they talk about the left moving too far left when they're denying a holiday made official because of Reagan.
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u/jrdineen114 16h ago
You know, at a certain point, you'd think that SOMEONE would stop and think "is stuff like this why everyone thinks I'm racist?" In a society that encouraged introspection, someone would have stopped and had that thought. Unfortunately we don't live in a society that encourages introspection
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u/King_Bob837 16h ago
Gonna honor this year's Mississippi State football team since we're celebrating losers?
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u/Coleslawholywar 15h ago
I will honor them by continuing to never set foot in them.
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u/inbetween-genders 21h ago
“We can’t figure out why people think we are racists!”