Who Can Answer This?

Can someone explain this one to me?  

Why do citizen of the United States, citizens who call themselves patriots, care so much about statues of Civil War "heroes" and the Confederate flag?  If you love your country, why are you so passionate about the glorification of such a violent act of treason against our beloved nation?  Why do you care so much about a "country" that was only in existence for five years before it was defeated and became part of the United States again?  

Before you say, "Because it's history," tell me this: How many Confederate memorials have you encountered in your life?  Up until I was eighteen years old, I never ventured south of Washington DC.  I never saw a Confederate memorial.  I don't even think I saw a Confederate memorial in any of my travels in the south (or if I saw one, I didn't pay much attention to it).  Would you believe I knew all about the Civil War?  I knew about Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard.  I didn't need to look at memorials to know the major players in the Civil War.

Here in the north we have these places called "schools" where children are educated on relevant cultural topics like history and literature as well as practical topics like science and math.  These schools taught me the Civil War was important.  We read about it in these books called "textbooks" and watched a rather dry form of entertainment called "documentaries".  

Would you believe I occasionally sought out non-educational entertainment that was Civil-War themed?  For example, I saw this movie called Gone with the Wind and even read the book it was based on (racially problematic, but a depiction of the Civil War with some true historical events included).  That was story all about the south and held a sympathetic view of white southerners.  There were some racist bits that I hated.  I was sickened by Frank Kennedy's KKK raid on the shantytown in particular.  On the other hand, as a teen, I was willing to buy into the idealized depiction of slavery presented in the book (the book ended with Scarlett longing to be back in Mammy's arms after all).  I assumed that while families like the O'Hara's might have existed, their kindness to the slaves was an exception and not the rule, but the book reminded me white people suffered in their own way during that war.  They took a risk by creating their cause and were willing to fight for it.  They paid a high price for the effort.  

I keep hearing that I can't erase history.  I know that.  I can't unread all the books I read or unwatch the documentaries and movies.  I can't unsee all the posts by my black friends who explain why glorifying the parts of history that harmed them is a cruel thing to do.  Everything I learned about the Civil War is imprinted on my brain and will stay there until I either die or am stricken with dementia.

But is it true we can't erase history?  Why was I an adult before I ever heard about Juneteenth?  Why did I only find out about the Tulsa Massacre this year?  How is it I learned in school the basics of Jim Crow laws like segregated water fountains, but I never learned about lynching picnics?  I never knew about the Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner murders until I saw the movie Mississippi Burning in college. In school nobody ever told me the quote from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and moral condition."  There seems to be history that was nearly erased everywhere I look.  Even though I was educated in the north, in the supposedly liberal state of New York, so many aspects of slavery and white supremacy as well as postwar civil rights, were glossed over.  

So let's say I can still learn from a statue.  What am I learning?  Some people tell me I am remembering the sacrifice those brave and dedicated soldiers made.  They died for something they believed in and I should honor that.  They were part of the history of the Civil War even if they were on the wrong side.  I understand the point, but there are many Civil War memorials honoring all the dead.  Those statues in the town square aren't honoring the sacrifices made by soldiers.  Most of them were of generals and other figureheads.  Robert E. Lee didn't die in battle.  He survived the war and went on to a prestigious college position.  P.G.T. . Beauregard survived the war, remained active in politics, worked as an engineer, and lived a long life for a man of his time.  Nathan Bedford Forrest worked in both business and farming after the war.  Many of these men suffered setbacks and losses of property, but none of them were scrounging for radishes in the O'Hara's vegetable patch.  Confederate monuments aren't honoring the men who made sacrifices.  They are glorifying the people who survived. 

Who are the Americans trying to erase history?  Do you know who had most of the Confederate statues erected in the public square?  It was the United Daughters of the Confederacy.  The group's goal was not to preserve the memory of the Civil War as it was.  It was to glorify the South in a way that never existed.  They wanted to preserve a vision of the South as a place of cultural superiority and white supremacy.  They were behind the preservation of the myth of happy slaves. Most Civil War statues were erected at the height of the Jim Crow period as a grim reminder that elite whites fought hard to keep blacks beneath them.  The UDC fought to have their version of southern supremacy in school textbooks.  They perpetuated other myths such as the southern belle. They made the most of the effort to portray the Old South as the natural order of things. 

We are the United States of America.  We won the war.  We are happy we have a united country.  We don't like traitors. We are supposedly enlightened enough to not like slavery or racism.  Why do we so passionately defend the glorification of those who turned against this great country.  Why do support them when they work to make the history of their failed country look and feel superior to the one they are now a part of?  What does a US citizen, particularly a northern one, get out of that?