Open Letter & Report: Diamone & White Folk Guilt - Sylva City Council
Dear Ms. Lunelle,
What am I supposed to tell young Diamone Mays, a black baby girl - now a college student - who, at the tender age of 10, was inducted into the Texas Order of St. George for her gallant effort to get the City of Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Commissioners to honor their commitment and charge to maintain the integrity of the Confederate soldier Cenotaphs, and the area around them on the Courthouse and Public Square grounds?
Should I tell her that Southern politicians are now listening to the chatter of Yankees who now fill our Councils, Commissions, and Boards, all the while using unsuspecting black citizens as their excuse and justification for cultural genocide? Even offering up the lie of reparations in Asheville if the black citizens would co-sign their removal of the Vance Cenotaph knowing full well they had no resources for this charge. Now turning to the idea of the cost to destroy Vance - the heck with reparations!
Should I tell her to turn her gaze down the road to Sylva, North Carolina where the "white folk guilt City Council" just offered an obscene proposal that they likened to a “compromise”... destroying the integrity of the Confederate soldier’s Cenotaph by removing the granite image of the Southern Cross from the base of the Cenotaph?
Sylva, NC Confederate Cenotaph with Southern Cross
My sister had already asked me just what would I say to the Sylva City Council, and the black man who spoke about erecting a new monument for black achievement - ignoring the fact that meanwhile a monument commemorating Emancipation was just taken down in Boston.
I told her that what the white folk guilt Sylva Council and the self-ordained speaker for the black citizens don't understand is .... according to the North Carolina Monument protection Bill, they have no legal right to change it.
They want to continue to make this an issue about race.
But it is a well-known fact in the South that these Memorials are representative of all the citizen-soldiers of Lee who served in his integrated arm forces, unlike the segregated Union forces. And, there is no compromise here that involves changing the composition of the Cenotaph. Put up a plaque of truth-telling that this Cenotaph is for all who served in the integrated Confederate arm forces. End of conversation.
In this day of technology, tunnel vision will soon have to take a back seat, and the truth will surface. the day of vindication for the people of the South who made a glorious stand against tyranny, an illegal invasion of their homeland, and the rule of law found in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This is what I shall tell Diamone today. God bless you!
Your brother,
HK
Chairman of the Board of Advisors Emeritus of the Southern Legal Resource Center
Member of Save Southern Heritage
Honorary Life Member of the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
Honorary Life Member of the Kentucky Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
Confederate Legion of the Judah P. Benjamin Camp 2640 Sons of Confederate Veterans
Honorary Life Member of the Forest Orphans Camp 1744 Sons of Confederate Veterans
Honorary Life Member of the Longstreet Zollicoffer Camp 87 Sons of Confederate Veterans
Recipient of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis Medal
Honorary Associate Member of the Abner Baker Chapter 14 United Daughters of the ConfederacyHonorary Life member of the North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia Orders of the Confederate Rose
President of Southern Heritage 411