This is the form-driven response letter everyone receives from the Democrat Senator of Virginia, Tim Kaine, upon our urgent plea to vote against the removal of Confederate monuments and statues from the Congress, our state of Virginia, and the renaming of military posts across the nation. Clearly the cherry-picked response is loaded with lies and was surely written by his liberal communications team. Read…
September 8, 2020
Mr. XX
Clear Brook, VA
Dear XX:
Thank you for contacting me about Confederate monuments. I appreciate hearing from you.
Debate around the removal of Confederate statues came to the forefront of the national conversation in 2017, when America and the world were confronted with sickening scenes of hatred and bigotry by white supremacists who descended upon Charlottesville in an alt-right rally and terrorized the citizens of that community. Ostensibly protesting the city government’s democratic decision to remove a monument of Robert E. Lee, the marchers chanted racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic messages having nothing to do with statues or heritage.
The recent murders of black men and women throughout the nation have sparked a national outcry. We have once again entered a period of civil unrest, which has renewed debate on Confederate symbols. According to a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Virginia’s 244 Confederate symbols are the most of any state in the nation. I believe that we can add to the American story by naming infrastructure or raising statues in honor of historical figures that embody the type of values we cherish so that our children can learn about the heroes that we look up to. When I was on Richmond City Council, we built statues for Arthur Ashe and Abraham Lincoln.
I have joined calls from leaders in Virginia and in Congress to facilitate the democratic and peaceful removal of Confederate symbols. In the Commonwealth, Governor Northam recently ordered the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue to be taken down. For many years, several statues to Confederates have been on display in Statuary Hall, with Robert E. Lee representing Virginia. I believe there are more appropriate leaders to represent our diverse nation in the U.S. Capitol in the 21st century, and I am examining ways to accomplish this. Those who took up arms against the United States in defense of slavery should not be memorialized in places of honor like the U.S. Capitol or the main city boulevard in Richmond; they should be somewhere Americans can consider them in the appropriate historical context, such as a museum exhibit or historic battlefield, as part of remembering and learning from our history.
On June 11th, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I cosponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to initiate a three-year process to rename DOD facilities currently named after Confederates. For too many, these names are not merely reminders of a painful past but symbols of a troubled present. It’s time for a change. We need to always look for new ways to fully tell our history.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Tim Kaine