If something is worth doing in America, it’s worth overdoing.
ESPN proved this truth anew this week when it announced that, in response to the violence in Charlottesville, it was removing announcer Robert Lee from broadcasting the University of Virginia football game — because he has the same name as the Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. ESPN’s Lee is Asian-American.
Similar caution just led the University of Houston to change the name of its Calhoun Lofts dorm because it shares a name with the 19th-century vice president and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, even though, a university spokeswoman told the Houston Chronicle, “the residence hall was not named in recognition of John C. Calhoun” but a nearby street.
In Atlanta, likewise, protesters last week attempted to tear down that city’s Peace Monument, apparently mistaking it for a Confederate shrine. The sculpture was erected to honor those who worked for reunification during Reconstruction.
The movement to remove Confederate monuments can be a healthy one, if done legally, according to the wishes of local citizens, and in such a way that preserves this history without glorifying it. But from across this great land come reminders that nothing in America succeeds like excess.