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# My Body is a Confederate Monument
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-body-is-a-confederate-monument/
- Published: 2020-07-07T01:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-07-07T01:30:00.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: Links, #Import 2023-06-01 22:41, #Import 2025-03-29 19:29

[Opinion | You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/confederate-monuments-racism.html?ref=birchtree.me)

> I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.  
> If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.

And:

> I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.

Wow, this is a tough read, but worth your time.