The Universal Notebook: Conflicts over Columbus, the Confederacy

There is a reason for this recent surge in people getting mad about monuments and things like that. The answer is Donald Trump. The Confederate flag is seen as a racist symbol now and Christopher Columbus is seen as someone that did bad things. The election of Donald Trump made the country a lot more sensitive in certain areas.

Key Takeaways:

• The South has never really stopped fighting the Civil War, seeing it as a key element of Southern heritage, though not as a defense of slavery.
• Columbus Day is increasingly being seen as a celebration of the European invasion of North America and the destruction of the indigenous cultures that already existed here.
• The reason all this is happening now is that the election of Trump and his apparent support for white nationalism have legitimized and embolden racists and forced the majority of Americans to oppose Trump and his troglodytes by rubbing their noses in the sins of our fathers.

“We don’t expect the African-American community to get over slavery, so I guess we need to cut Southerners a little slack, too. Trauma is a generational thing.”