We love the Civil War so much that when we are presented with the truth of what those monuments mean, we refuse to accept that what we love was actually a violent struggle in which the inhumanity of Black Americans was at the center. Facing the real history of these monuments means confronting the fact that loving Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson means loving white supremacy — that’s why those conversations with our friends and family members become bizarrely personal and painful. We don’t want to give up what we love. We do not want to admit that in some sense, those of us who love this war are complicit...