"There is an overt effort here to erase White history."
Sen. Amanda Chase said this week, prompting the Senate GOP caucus to call her words "idiotic, inappropriate and inflammatory."
A Republican state senator in Virginia known for courting controversy and who is running for governor in 2021 is facing backlash from members of her own party after she said that the removal of Confederate statues is an "overt effort to erase all white history."
Sen. Amanda Chase, whose majority-white district is just west of the capital, Richmond, made related comments in a fundraising email and a video shared Wednesday on Facebook live — a day before Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced that statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and four other Confederate leaders along Richmond's Monument Avenue will be dismantled.
His decision came amid a longstanding debate about whether Confederate symbols should be taken down because they represent a racist legacy and a divided nation or if they have historical and cultural significance worth preserving. Following national unrest related to the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, cities like Birmingham and Mobile in Alabama moved swiftly to remove such statues.
During a five-minute video on Facebook, Chase said Virginia's "Socialist Democrats" were making a mistake if they did something similar.
"There is an overt effort here to erase white history. That's what they're looking on doing," Chase said. "Listen, our grandfathers were guilty of slavery, and that is wrong. And I denounce that. I feel like slavery is wrong, it is evil. We should never own another human being. But that's not the only thing that Lee and others are known for. They did other things."
She went on to say that the removal of monuments is a First Amendment issue and represent artistic expression, and that she is forced to stand by while Democrats allow art that she believes is pornographic to be taught in public schools. She was accused last summer of going on a "censorship crusade."
"I think it's racially insensitive and racist in itself not to respect the history of all Americans," Chase said, adding: "It's all about shoving this down people's throats and erasing the history of the white people. And I think it's wrong. I would never do that to another person, another culture."
She also shared a petition on Facebook to save the monument, writing that "removing the Robert E. Lee statue is a cowardly capitulation to the looters and domestic terrorists."
Virginia Senate GOP leaders, including Minority Leader Thomas Norment Jr., denounced Chase's comments in a statement Thursday while also supporting her larger message that the monuments must remain.
