John Oliver wants to talk about Confederate memorials

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver dove into an especially thorny topic: the Confederacy and the American Civil War.

Before we dive in, indulge John Oliver with a bit of a digression. Oliver opened by talking about “a beloved icon of my childhood” — Jimmy Savile. He remembered that Savile was once a “national hero” in the U.K., beloved for his TV and radio presence, along with his fundraising drives. Savile had a show called Jim’ll Fix It, where he granted children’s wishes. He was even knighted by the Queen.

However, after Savile’s death in 2011, it became all too clear that he was something far worse. Investigators found that Savile had sexually abused hundreds of children and women throughout his career.

“Once we found out that he was a monster”, Oliver said, everyone pretty much agreed that they shouldn’t memorialize him. Savile’s massive gravestone was taken down after only 19 days and destroyed according to his relatives’ wishes.

This all, however uncomfortably, ties into the theme for the latest Last Week Tonight: the Confederacy. Memorials to Confederate officers and historic events are scattered throughout the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center found that there are currently over 900 Confederate memorials, including 10 U.S. military bases named for Confederate officers.

They’ve also led to lots of debate about the significance of history and who gets memorialized. What, exactly, constitutes history? And how do you remember the dark parts of your country’s past without glorifying it?

The Civil War is also weirdly memorialized in other ways, like in Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, “a musical extravaganza of sight and sound centered around a friendly North-South rivalry”. And that word — “friendly” — gets at the heart of some of the weirdness. The war is sometimes transformed into a “friendly rivalry” instead of a bloody conflict.

Here’s the full clip. (Warning: It’s HBO. Some NSFW language may be in here.)

The Civil War and slavery

But none of this can erase the bare facts of the Civil War. Namely, that the Confederacy was fighting to preserve the institution of slavery. Yes, you can go on about the matter of states’ rights, but the true, wicked heart of the war centered on whether or not it was okay to own black people.

Slavery is mentioned in multiple declarations of secession. Mississippi’s stated that “our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery”. Alexander Stephens gave an 1861 speech in which he said that the basic principles of the Confederacy included a basic truth: “that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal position”.

Yet, many people think the Civil War was really about states’ rights, rather than mainly about slavery. Yes, it’s true many of the Southern states were pro-states’ rights. Well, except for when it conflicted with their pro-slavery views. Then, it was all fine and dandy for pro-slavery people to ask for federal laws that overrode anti-slavery laws enacted by other states. “They just wanted to own black people, and they didn’t much care how,” said Oliver.

This can be especially difficult to accept if you have Southern roots. Still, you can’t rightfully pretend that your country has a comfortable history just to make your family feel comfortable. Also, what about enslaved African-Americans and their descendants? Don’t they have an essential right to see their history acknowledged, no matter how uncomfortable it makes someone else? Should they see their family’s oppressors respected?

Coming to grips

That denial can look different in various settings, whether it’s dramatic, mundane, or even strange. During the research and filming of Finding Your Roots, a PBS show hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ben Affleck encountered that awkward history. He didn’t want the show to reference his slave-owning ancestors and tried to suppress a segment that mentioned it.

Others, however, had a different take on their slave-owning family. Anderson Cooper learned that one of his ancestors was beaten to death by a rebellious slave. Gates asked, “Do you think he deserved it?” Cooper responded: “Yeah”.

Oliver urged people of today to think about how their descendants might think about them. If they might cheer your likely painful death with “that’s amazing” and praising the person who killed you — perhaps rethink your path.

“You’ve got to actively, painfully come to grips with slavery,” said Oliver, “in ways that, frankly, we haven’t yet”. Confederate monuments “symbolize our reluctance to have that conversation”.

For example, look at Stone Mountain, Georgia. This city near Atlanta includes Stone Mountain Park, itself home to the Stone Mountain rock relief featuring Confederate officers.

It was also the site for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. William J. Simmons and other klansmen met at Stone Mountain to resurrect the white supremacist group in 1915. The memorial itself was completed in 1972.

Other memorials were constructed more recently, including some on private land. Take a 1998 statute that portrays Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. It is astonishingly ugly. It is so hideous, in fact, that it takes your breath away with the sheer terror of Forrest’s misshapen metal visage.

John Oliver was equally horrified. “That is just objectively terrifying, regard of context. He looks like if a nickel did cocaine”.

Why do we defend these statues?

Despite all of this history, people can’t seem to stop defending these monuments. Donald Trump himself has said that “they’re trying to take away our culture; they’re trying to take away our history” in response to the recent debate over Confederate monuments.

But would taking these monuments down “obliterate history”? If we tear down statues of 19th-century rebels that were erected by Klansmen, do we forget entirely about the Civil War? Of course, not. The slippery slope argument doesn’t fully encompass the complexity of history. Neither does it allow for a level of basic human decency required here.

The truth is almost always complicated. History, with its depth of time and wide scope, is perhaps even more so. All throughout the history of our species, imperfect people did good things. They may have been memorialized by communities in the past that had different standards of right and wrong. Our own standards of morality may have changed so much that it makes navigating these conversations even more difficult.

However, many Confederate monuments valorize a period of time and a way of thinking that is now so offensive to many that this shouldn’t be difficult. Yes, history can often be complicated. This doesn’t mean that we should hem and haw over “pride” and “history” when it concerns memorials to slave owners.

Need a bigger name than John Oliver to step into the argument? In 1869, former general of the Confederacy Robert E. Lee, said: “I think it wiser… not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered”.

What to do now?

What are we to do with all of this? Doing nothing won’t work. Neither does tokenism, like Richmond, Virginia’s tactic of adding a statue of Arthur Ashe to a line of Confederate figures, as if having a black friend washes away all sins. Maybe, offered Oliver, people could add these monuments to museums. At least people go there with the expectation that they will learn about history without always being forced to celebrate it.

Meanwhile, don’t think about all those empty plinths as sad icons. “It’s actually a real opportunity,” said Oliver. Buford County, South Carolina could make a statue of Robert Smalls, who sailed to freedom and eventually served in Congress.

Atlanta, Texas could have an amazing statue of Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to hold a pilot’s license.

Next: John Oliver on unreliable forensic science

Charleston, South Carolina might even be able to swing a monument featuring “your favorite son, the actual Stephen Colbert”. He’ll even stand up there, telling everyone fun facts about Charleston. Well, at least he will when he’s not filming his show.

For instance, did you know that Charleston had the first free public library in the United States? Now, isn’t that better than that awful statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest and harmful systemic racism?