There were heroes in the Confederacy who didn't have slaves,' Kennedy said in response to a question about the monuments
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate, expressed his "visceral reaction against" the removal of Confederate memorials and said they honoured southern figures from the Civil War. Kennedy stated on Friday that Robert E. Lee, the senior Confederate commander, possessed "extraordinary qualities of leadership" that should be honoured in an interview for the Timcast IRL, which conservative podcaster Tim Pool hosts.
'There were heroes in the Confederacy who didn't have slaves,' Kennedy said in response to a question about the monuments. 'And, you know, I just, I just have a visceral reaction to this destroying history. I don't like it. I think we should celebrate who we are. And that, you know, we should celebrate the good qualities of everybody.'
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Kennedy claimed that to celebrate only the 'perfectly virtuous' would be to erase the entirety of human history. The former Democrat, who is fighting a steep uphill struggle to become the first presidential candidate to be elected without a political party affiliation since George Washington, made another divisive statement with this comment.
Kennedy has positioned himself as a fervent supporter of free speech who isn't afraid to take controversial positions to forge a coalition of Americans fed up with both big parties. The supporters of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic and Republican nominees, respectively, are wary of Kennedy and fear he may garner enough votes to sway the outcome of the election.
Activists have pushed for years to remove monuments and rename buildings that honour leaders of the Confederacy, calling them symbols of racism. 'We need to be able to be sophisticated enough to live with, you know, our ancestors who didn't agree with us on everything and who did things that are now regarded as immoral or wrong, because they, you know, maybe they had other qualities,' Kennedy said.
(With Inputs from AP)
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