Confederate symbols’ white-supremacist function grows with distance from the cemetery.

Evidence

The historical witness is clear: as Confederate symbols migrated from cemeteries and veterans’ parades, they became less about honoring the past and more about upholding white supremacy in the present. In fact, the relationship is inversely proportional. The further the distance from the cemetery and the past, the more nakedly obvious their role in asserting white supremacy becomes. As Landrieu concluded in his assessment of Confederate monuments in the civic spaces of New Orleans, these symbols were premeditatively designed and deployed as “political weapons” in the service of preserving white supremacy. A corollary conclusion also extends to the realm of religion. As Confederate symbols were intentionally installed in prominent sacred spaces, where they were enmeshed with Christian symbols and justified by white Christian theology, they became religious weapons in the service of baptizing white supremacy. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 449

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The UDC shifted monuments from honoring the dead to marking living civic space. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 343; Proximity to a cemetery shifts people toward preferring their own cultural goods — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 154

Broader Connections

• Proximity to a cemetery shifts people toward preferring their own cultural goods #corroborates (0.75) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 154