Down they go

I've been there.

I've seen them.

This is fine with me: City of Richmond Begins Taking Down Confederate Monuments

The city of Richmond, Virginia, took down a statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson on Wednesday as part of a broader push to remove roughly a dozen Confederate-era monuments on city land.

I have to concede, however, that invoking the Coronavirus is just a tiny bit troubling:

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the removal of statues on city property, bypassing the new state law’s timetable by extending emergency powers granted by the governor. The mayor framed the expedited removals as in the interest of public safety that is threatened by demonstrators gathering and potentially spreading the coronavirus, as well as injuring themselves or others toppling the monuments themselves. The 39-year-old Democratic mayor, “bucking advice from the city attorney and relying on emergency powers, dispatched a crew to take down the statue after the City Council delayed a vote on removing it along with three others owned by the city along the avenue,” the Washington Post reports. “In addition to Jackson and Davis, the other two city-owned statues on the avenue honor Confederate figures J.E.B. Stuart and Matthew Fontaine Maury.”

But I'm not there. And I'm no fan of the statues. And I can only imagine the frustration that the foot-dragging is causing. And I'd say it's, oh, at least 100 years past time.

Check that. It's 155 years past time.

So, Mayor Stoney, let's move forward.