Feds v Con Feds
by Jaime Morris
The recent imbroglio(s) over “monumental” take downs of Confederate statues elicits thoughts in me that anti- statue proponents are being either hypocritical, short-sighted, or otherwise disingenuous. What is it about the statues that offends them?
What’s the Real Deal?
Do the monuments represent the antebellum South and slavery, the War itself, or Jim Crow? How do the Confederate generals, many of whom did not even own slaves, differ from the slave-owning founding fathers? Perhaps this reality contributed to Trump’s indignation prompting him to ask whether Washington and Jefferson statues were next.
Slavery was not a strictly “Southern” thing. The Confederacy fought to uphold an institution upon which the “nation” was founded. This is the fact we either choose to overlook or only discuss in hushed tones. One pundit, while registering outrage over Trump’s response to recent violence and confronted by the talkshow hostess’ observation that General Washington and his compatriots owned slaves, argued vehemently that they were “different, they established a republic.” He left out the part about it being a republic for land-owning white men – only. Further evidence of slavery’s institutional foundation is the fact that it took a Constitutional amendment to extinguish its practice.
Don’t Forget
So why the partial protest? Why not clear out all reminders of America’s past? Throw in the Custer Memorial while you’re at it. Let us all remember that this republic was founded with slavery and genocide as pillars.
What we find hard to understand in the modern context is the position of the neo-Nazi, nostalgic Dixie-ist, alt rightist. Some people recognize that their ideology is not based upon a complete view of reality. They protest not only monuments’ removal but also the removal of Euro-American culture. Yet they simultaneously ignore the fact that their ancestors also committed cultural and physical genocide while establishing a country here in North America. A further, more nuanced irony, is that their ancestors established the right to protest in the first place.
White Rights
How are the white right’s cultural traditions being impinged upon by statue removal, and, by contrast, if left in place, how do they effect traditions of those offended by the monuments? My conclusion is that both sides need to more fully explore exactly all that should be comprised in their respective positions. I think there is something or some things that both sides are not articulating.
A burning question of mine is, why protest now? What made both sides notice those hundred-year-old statues in the first place? Is this the genesis of an open discussion on race and equality – or the opening salvo of a new, and physically violent civil war?
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
I think a race war is starting. Black and Mexican versus whites! Get ready.
Leave the monuments alone and you can live in peace
We waiting in the gap. Come on and see what happens.
Aint scared
Been prepping for this