Zinke: Taking Down Confederate Statues Will Upset ‘Native Indians’

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks on the Trump Administration's energy policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks on the Trump Administration's energy policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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Vowing to not remove any monuments from federal lands, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke defended the Trump administration’s stance about not taking down Confederate statues and said it would upset “native Indians.”

“Where do you start and where do you stop? … If you’re a native Indian, I can tell you, you’re not very happy about the history of General Sherman or perhaps President Grant,” Zinke said during an interview with Breitbart Sunday, referencing the Union generals’ monuments around the U.S. despite their roles in creating federal policy that caused great harm to native Americans.

While Zinke has maintained this opinion about Confederate monuments since at least July, tensions over memorials for Confederate soldiers has risen significantly since August when a counter protester was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The white supremacists gathered to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee in the city.

Zinke said removing the statues will inhibit the U.S. from being able to “learn” from history.

“I think we should never hide from our history or erase our history. I think we should embrace the history and understand the faults and learn from it. But when you try to erase history, what happens is you also erase how it happened and why it happened and the ability to learn from it,” Zinke said.

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  1. "But when you try to erase history, what happens is you also erase how it happened and why it happened and the ability to learn from it,” Zinke said.

    Books? Could we try books? Personally I can't recall the last time I felt like learning about some aspect of U.S. history I trekked to a monument in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota.
  2. This rapacious idiot is from Montana!
    Common clay of the West, indeed.
    How big a dufus does he have to be to have never heard the term “Native Americans”.
    Why, when I was in the Delhi picking up a sandwich for lunch the Indians were buzzing about the monuments. And of course baseball, too.

  3. I admit, this culture change is making things awkward all over the place. I have always wondered, long before the current turmoil if this school would be renamed. I did not realize they would do it so badly.

  4. Zinke: The Blacks are still upset that they are no longer slaves of The Whites.

  5. Zinke; Are you tying to corner the market on dumbfuckery?
    Win the award for the stupidest fuck of the week?
    There is currently a lot of competition for that prize, but you’re definitely in the running

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