‘They hate America’: BLM protesters earn scorn for tearing down President Grant & national anthem lyricist statues

The latest statues to be toppled by BLM protesters are that of Ulysses S. Grant, who led Northern Union soldiers in the Civil War, and Francis Scott Key, the lyricist behind ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ puzzling and outraging many.

Hundreds showed up to tear down the statues in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery in the US.

The statues were also vandalized with spray paint with phrases like “slave owner” written on them.

While targeting statues has become a common occurrence at Black Lives Matter protests around the nation, many on social media questioned the logic in targeting past president Grant, who led the Union Army during the Civil War and helped bring an end to slavery, and Key, the man behind the country’s national anthem. 

Many pushed back against people calling Grant a slave owner, pointing out that the general freed his only slave before the war and was instrumental in bringing an end to slavery in the US.

“He was a ‘slave owner’ in that he was gifted a slave, hated the idea, and freed him within a year. Then won the Civil War, prosecuted the KKK, and appointed African Americans to prominent roles in government,”tweeted Matt Whitlock. 

“Pres. Grant was literally the opposite of a confederate rebel. This shows these mobs tearing down statues have zero to do with the cause of racial equality,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) added. 

“This is just dumb now,” another user tweeted in reaction to the news.

Besides freeing his single slave before the Civil War, Grant’s greatest known sin when it comes to slavery was marrying into a slave-owning family. These two facts were enough for liberals online to defend his statue being defaced and torn down. 

“I wonder if you all ever think about how it sounds to black people who bore and bear the brunt of racism when you say someone who owned another human being ‘was a man of his time,’” reporter Ida Bae Wells tweeted.

Key’s statue being torn down caused outrage equal to that of Grant — despite Key actually owning multiple slaves — with some media pundits even claiming protesters behind the acts “hate America.”

“They hate America—all of it.  And it will only get worse under Biden. They’ll move from statues to people,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted. 

“This. Is. Anarchy,” author Raymond Arroyo added.

Other statues targeted within the US by protesters have mainly been of Confederate soldiers, including that of General Albert Pike in DC, which was brought down on Friday. President Donald Trump called the act a “disgrace to our country” and said those involved should be “immediately” arrested. 

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