Richmond, Virginia, oh what will the neoliberals favorite mayor do?

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney originally came out with a plan for contextualization. But that was several weeks ago. That was before Charlottesville. Confederate monuments are coming down all over the place.

So now he sees both sides of the debate.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-richmond-confederate-monuments-08182017-story.html

Well that was two days ago in the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

"As memorials toppled across the country, the African American mayor of the former capital of the Confederacy defended his city’s own. 

Removal doesn't do “anything for telling the actual truth,” Levar Stoney said.
That was Monday. 

Two days later, the Richmond mayor said Confederate monuments had become a “rallying point for division and intolerance” and should be removed.

This is a Richmond Times-Dispatch article on Mayor Stoney, August 14, 2017 about his being committed to Confederate monument contextualization.

http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/mayor-stoney-richmond-s-confederate-monuments-should-stay-with-context/article_b8cbb743-410f-520f-9197-2a58450d128a.html

So in the end the monuments will go, but Mayor Stoney will not get credit for any vision or being like Mitch Landrieu.

Instead he will be remembered as a mayor who didn't think that the winds can shift and the weather van can suddenly turn around. That is a mayor who didn't have any convictions and guessed wrong on where this issue is headed. The wages of a centrist Democrat who triangulated wrongly.

Perhaps Mayor Stoney can be known as the great waffler.

Some more articles about Richmond and the struggle there.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/richmond-mayor-confederate-monument-debate-trump-doesnt-live/story?id=49313827

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/richmond-could-be-next-confederate-monument-battleground-n793741

At this point even the ACLU is calling for the monuments removal. Wonders never cease.
http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/aclu-calls-for-removal-of-confederate-memorials-in-virginia/article_0f80a646-52d3-5e64-aba2-5d077b3d92d5.html

Maybe Richmond won't follow the Richmond example

This was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today or yesterday.

http://www.richmond.com/opinion/your-opinion/letters-to-the-editor/cod-june-monuments-whitewash-history/article_c5249b40-45f3-5be8-982d-433395236b29.html

The title is "Monuments whitewash history," by John Winn III.

The letter to the editor is given the award "Correspondent of the Day," with a fountain pen drawing. He is listed as a resident of Richmond by the Times-Dispatch. So Levin can't ask Winn his question, "Have you ever been to Richmond?" which he asked Sarah Jones when she proposed taking down the Confederate statues. https://twitter.com/KevinLevin/status/864241228333940737

A single letter, even given the Correspondent of the Day designation, won't by itself bring down the monuments. It will be a voice to bring the Confederate monuments down and that is important.

However, the letter being given the designation Correspondent of the Day may signify that the Richmond Times-Dispatch is shifting on the monuments. They could have just published the letter, but instead decided to give it a special designation. Perhaps they want to be able to position themselves as neutrals going into what they see as an upcoming intensified struggle over the Confederate monuments.

I am sure that those involved in Richmond politics, civic affairs, cultural institutions will note that this letter was given a special designation by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I  doubt that the elites of Richmond wanted Richmond singled out as Confederate monument city before the nation. To be set up as the opposite of New Orleans.  To be seen as a new capitol of Confederate monuments as they tumble elsewhere across the nation.Yet, Levin made Richmond the capitol of Confederate monument retention in this article.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-richmond-has-gotten-right-about-interpreting-its-confederate-history-180963354/

I doubt African American Mayor Dwight C. Jones wanted to be set up as the opposite of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

The Virginia Defenders are quite aware of Levin's Smithsonian article. They took pains to explain to me that they wanted the monuments down. I am sure that Jones political opponents in the African American community have taken note of this article.

I have always said that pressing on the issue of Confederate symbols, place names, and monuments would be a lens to see who people really are.

The Smithsonian magazine article really pulled away the curtain and exposed Richmond's soul.

This maybe the first visible fracture in the defenses of the capitol of the Confederate monuments.


For those in Richmond who want to get their Confederate monuments taken down I recommend this article.

http://thegrio.com/2017/05/26/hundreds-of-confederate-statues-still-standing/#oQWeYWxF2IXyGtRl.01

Racial Politics at a Virginia Flagger event in Richmond and what the "Richmond Times-Dispatch" didn't tell you.

Recently I visited Richmond, Virginia to carry out activities including counter activities against the neo-Confederates there, in particular the Sons of Confederate Veterans 2015 National Reunion from July 15th to July 19th.

We did a lot of video recording while we were there. We plan to be putting up some videos online on Youtube which will show the thinking of neo-Confederates.

The following video is a speech of Richard T. Hines at the Virginia flagger rally on the afternoon of Saturday July 18th at the Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia. Richard T. Hines was the former managing editor of the notorious neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan for 20 years. He was also a lobbyist for dictators.

An article on who he is is online here: http://www.thenation.com/article/lobbyist-lost-cause/

The link to the following video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLQNSKfQwIE.

Click on the video to make it larger so you can see the entire video.



Watching the timing.

At 3:08 Hines makes brief reference to Gay pride flags to characterize those who are at the lowering of the Confederate flag in South Carolina and who wanted to see the flag lowered. He wants to characterize the anti-Confederate flag forces as pro-Gay.

At 3:16 Hines starts talking about what Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says about the Confederate flag.

At 3:26 Hines quotes Ann Coulter to say this about Nikki Haley:

"At least Nikki Haley should have waited for three or four generations before telling Southern Americans what symbols were allowable or not."

Nikki Haley was born in South Carolina and grew up there, but since her parents are immigrants Richard Hines and Ann Coulter don't think she really is Southern or American enough to make decisions about the place where she lives and despite the fact that she was elected by the residents of South Carolina to be the governor.

At 3:43 the politics of race comes up and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are denounce as shysters and Nikki Haley is denounced for merely being on the stage with them.  The fact that Nikki Haley is a potential Vice-Presidential candidate with Jeb Bush is bemoaned.

The crowd of flaggers is cheering Hines' speech.

So we have homophobia, the politics of race, an attach on Nikki Haley and Jeb Bush a leading presidential candidate, a clearly expressed Xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiments, and an attack on Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Did any of this get into the Richmond Times-Dispatch coverage of the event. Not at all, not even hinted at.

This was the coverage of the rally. http://www.richmond.com/news/local/article_0624e257-8be0-5d14-8f59-86e9476b1e3f.html

Even though the opening speech was by a former editor of the Southern Partisan, the reporter puts the word "neo-Confederacy" in quotes:

"We’re here to see what motivates the Virginia Flaggers, what makes them tick,” said Sebesta, who has written studies of the “neo-Confederacy” movement.

Otherwise the entire report was the uncritical repeating of the assertions of the Virginia flaggers.

I was in communication with the reporters at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and sent them considerable documentation about the Sons of Confederate Veterans none of it made it into their paper.

Generally the Richmond media is sympathetic to the Confederacy. We hope to have more videos online from the visit as time goes on.