Christopher Dickey

Not the usual statue story: Should China’s Communist Party Erase Queen Victoria? Beijing sees the monarch as a symbol of colonial occupation. But in an irony of history, many in Hong Kong see symbols of Britain as signs of, dare they say it, independence. thedailybeast.com/should-chinas-…

This was a fascinating story to report, so full of revelations and ambiguities - Nazis Took Down the Statue of The Great Black General of the French Revolution thedailybeast.com/the-nazis-took… via @thedailybeast

The Confederacy in your face. Georgia put the segregationist "battle flag" on its state flag in 1956. That came off in 2001. But the actual first flag of the Confederate States of America (top) is the model for the *current* Georgia state flag (bottom). This, too, should go.

Watch “On France 24 - Symbiosis: Putin wants to discredit US 2020 elections, if Trump loses, he will, too.” by @csdickey on #Vimeo vimeo.com/433072596

Paris, France - Some statues should be toppled. Some should be put back up. When Nazis occupied Paris they tore this one down. It’s of Gen. Alexandre Dumas. His mother was a slave. He became a top officer in the French army under Napoleon, and yes, his son was the great novelist.

Those Green-Streaked Men in the Parks are Strangers - pages from the 1975 Washington Post Guide to Washington D.C. christopherdickey.blogspot.com/2020/06/those-… @DrewBabb

Great piece by @BarrettPitner from 2016 - Trump’s Ascendance Is Creepily Like the End of Reconstruction (His GOP BTW is not "the Party of Lincoln", it's the party of Rutherford B. Hayes who betrayed blacks to benefit business.) thedailybeast.com/2016-meet-1877… via @thedailybeast

The Slave Who Stole a Rebel Warship - and then went on to be a prominent Republican leader during Reconstruction, until the betrayal of 1877 when, as they say, the South won the Civil War. Robert Smalls. Name a Navy base for him! thedailybeast.com/the-slave-who-… via @thedailybeast

From 2015: Ken Burns’s ‘Civil War’ After Dylann Roof - The PBS documentary turns 25 this year, just as the Charleston murders and the Confederate flag debate freshly exposed a nation’s racial wounds—wounds the film mostly ignores. thedailybeast.com/ken-burnss-civ… via @thedailybeast

Over the course of the last decade I wrote several essays about slavery and the Civil War. I am posting them here because in light of Trump's apparent attachment to the Confederacy—with which his only common bond is racism—some readers may find them useful.

From Dec 2015: The U.S. ‘Right’ to Own Guns Came With the ‘Right’ to Own Slaves - The grim history of gun violence in the United States goes way back, aided and abetted by the same monstrous reasoning that once defended slavery. thedailybeast.com/the-us-right-t… via @thedailybeast

From July 2015: On Confederate Memorial Day, Remembering The Madness Then and Now - A British consul witnessed the cynical process that plunged the United States into civil war in the 1860s. His observations can teach us a lot today. thedailybeast.com/confederate-ma… via @thedailybeast

From Sep 2015: Ken Burns’s ‘Civil War’ After Dylann Roof - The PBS documentary turned 25 this year, just as the Charleston murders and the Confederate flag debate freshly exposed a nation’s racial wounds—wounds the film mostly ignores. thedailybeast.com/ken-burnss-civ… via @thedailybeast

From August 2015: Cuba’s Star-Spangled Slavery - The Stars and Stripes, not the Confederate flag, once represented the sordid system of human slavery in Cuba. thedailybeast.com/cubas-star-spa… via @thedailybeast

Trump despises "losers," so what's this passion for The Lost Cause?

My 96 year old mother in law, who's intellectually very active, watches @NBCNightlyNews on her iPad each morning here in Paris, and frequently comments on appalling events. Or did. "I used to talk to the screen," she said the other day. "Now I am speechless."