Ty Lee Quotes

Racism is the virus in the American dirt, infecting everything and everyone. To combat racism, we must do more than acknowledge the long history of white supremacy. Policies must change. Yet, an understanding of history remains the foundation. The only way to prevent a racist future is to first understand our racist past.

During the bloodiest war in American history, Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever. And they did it for the worst reason possible: to create a nation dedicated to exploit enslaved men, women, and children, forever.

Zuko: For so long I thought that if my dad accepted me, I'd be happy. I'm back home now, my dad talks to me. Ha! He even thinks I'm a hero. Everything should be perfect, right? I should be happy now, but I'm not. I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why! Azula: There's a simple question you need to answer, then. Who are you angry at? Zuko: No one. I'm just angry. Mai: Yeah, who are you angry at, Zuko? Zuko: Everyone. I don't know. Azula: Is it Dad? Zuko: No, no. Ty Lee: Your uncle? Azula: Me? Zuko: No, no, n-no, no! Mai: Then who? Who are you angry at? Azula: Answer the question, Zuko. Ty Lee: Talk to us. Mai: Come on, answer the question. Azula: Come on, answer it. Zuko: I'm angry at myself!

The only way to argue for slavery, then or now, is to believe that the enslaved weren’t real human beings.

When we identify our history, we can change the narrative.

In the aftermath of the war, Virginia led the South in creating and maintaining a police state based on racial control.

Racism is not only morally wrong, but fiscally stupid.9

It bears repeating. Georgia was a racial police state, not a democracy.

The only way to prevent our racist future is to understand our racist past.

History is always changing. We link the past to our conception of the present and we always have.

When people have no political outlet nor means of changing a racist society, rioting is their only voice.

History is dangerous. It forms our identity, our shared story. If someone challenges a sacred myth, the reaction can be ferocious.

Nothing I could say would refute his upbringing, his feelings, and his history. Then I realized evidence didn't matter; he had chosen his own facts based on his culture.

Racism isn’t just morally wrong; it’s economically stupid.

I grew up with a series of lies that helped further white supremacy. That's uncomfortable. To see real agony, think about the millions of people who lived their entire lives enslaved, knowing that enslavement would be the future of their children and their children's children. Think of living with the violence of the Jim Crow era as an African American.

Whenever Lee made a decision regarding enslaved people he chose profit over human decency.

It is no coincidence that most Confederate monuments went up between 1890 and 1920, the same period that lynching peaked in the South.

Few choices are more fraught for people than who decides which stories are told to children—or to college students.

Officers like Braxton Bragg and Jefferson Davis left the army to seek their fortunes with enslaved labor farms, but Lee was the only senior officer who was actually in charge of hundreds of enslaved workers and in the U.S. Army in 1861. By the time he chose succession, Lee identified far more with the southern slaveholding class than he did with his fellow officers. He certainly spent more time managing enslaved workers than he did leading soldiers.

My job is not to tell communities if they should remove memorials to Lee, but they should study the circumstances that led to their creation. Everyone must understand what those monuments represent. A monument tells historians more about who emplaced it than it does the figure memorialized.

With the number of accusations of harassment and assault leveled at Washington College men, Lee used a light disciplinary touch around racial intimidation, attacks, and sexual violence, even though he was known for a heavy hand in less serious incidents. Lee did not consider African Americans worthy of protection.

To those who say I am trying to change history, they should realize that the history of Confederate monuments represents a racist legacy all people should abhor. Moreover, many people did protest their construction. In 1900, Georgia's population was 46.7 percent African American and Virginia's was 35.6 percent, but Black people had been purged form the voting rolls and had no voice on the use of public land or money.

Eleven southern states seceded to protect and expand an African American slave labor system. Unwilling to accept the results of a fair, democratic election, they illegally seized U.S. territory, violently. Together, they formed a new 'Confederacy,' in contravention of the U.S. Constitution. Then West Point graduates like Robert E. Lee resigned their commissions, abrogating an oath sworn to God to defend the United States. During the bloodiest war in American history, Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever. And they did it for the worst reason possible; to create a nation dedicated to exploit enslaved men, women, and children, forever.

While Lee believed in slavery, he also profited from it far more than other army colonels. At the age of twenty-four, two years after graduating from West Point, Lee married Mary Custis, the only child of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington. Custis earned his money through inheritance, and that inherited wealth derived from the work of enslaved labor. Enslaved labor created much of his wealth including the prestigious, Doric-columned Arlington House with its commanding view of the capital. Custis owned two other enslaved labor farms—Romancoke and White House. A year after marrying Mary Custis, Lee inherited enslaved workers from his mother’s estate. During his many years in the army, Lee hired out those enslaved workers and pocketed the profit, creating wealth. By the time he wrote his only will as a U.S. Army officer in 1846 as he headed to fight in Mexico, he estimated his net worth at $40,000 in stocks, bonds, and property, including enslaved workers, or more than $1.3 million today.

They say death aims only once and never misses, but I doubt Ty Yorkshire thought it would strike with a scrubbing brush. Now his face wears the mask of surprise that sometimes accompanies death: his eyes bulge, carp-like, and his mouth curves around a profanity. Does killing a man who tried to rape me count as murder? For me, it probably does. The law in Missouri in this year of our Lord 1849 does not sympathize with a Chinaman's daughter.

The late Tony Horwitz, the author of the brilliant book Confederates in the Attic, called Lexington “the second city of Confederate remembrance: Medina to Richmond’s Mecca.

lieutenant colonel.

The statue serves as an act of defiance. The sculptor knew exactly what he was doing. Ezekiel wanted to portray an “accurate” history of the loyal, happy slave, not the “lies” told through books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which showed the brutality of slavery. Instead, the artist said the monument represents the South, which fought “for a constitutional right, and not to uphold slavery.”54 Ezekiel created a monument to white supremacy at the final resting place for soldiers who fought and died to create a more just society, including African American soldiers. Inscribed on the monument is the Latin phrase “Victrix causa diis placuit sed victa Catoni,” by the Roman poet Lucan. The English translation reads, “The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the conquered cause pleased Cato.” My Roman history is weak, but the historian Jamie Malanowski broke down the meaning: You have to know your Latin history to know they’re talking about the Roman Civil War, that the dictator Julius Caesar won, and that Cato was pleased with the republicans’ sacrifice. With that background in mind the inscription is a ‘fuck you’ to the Union. It’s that sneaky little Latin phrase essentially saying ‘we were right and you were wrong, and we’ll always be right and you’ll always be wrong.’55

All officers learn that if they obey an unlawful order, an order in contravention of the Constitution or against the laws of war, they will go to jail.

The Lost Cause created a flawed memory of the Civil War, a lie that formed the ideological foundation for white supremacy and Jim Crow laws, which used violent terror and de jure segregation to enforce racial control.

In every place I lived, I find institutional racism and Confederate worship, but I also find people who turn the Declaration of Independence's soaring words of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into reality. Jefferson, the brilliant writer and slaver, wrote those words but didn't live them. Ted DeLaney, the descendent of enslaved people, made them a reality.

Now that we can acknowledge the facts, our conversation can be grounded in reality, not myth and not ideology. An important point to remember is that we don't own the actions of people who lived in the 1860s or the 1930s. But we do have a responsibility to acknowledge the past, to acknowledge the facts. The past does not have to control us, especially if we understand it.

Because despite how Ty looks and acts, he isn't as tough as people think. Deep down he is a romantic, looking for his one true love. If you were to die in these stupid, stupid trials, he'd be heartbroken. And don't even get me started on what a mess Lee would be.

As it’d turned out, despite Lee's total incompetence in drinking games, Ty and Zan had more than made up for him and seriously drank me under the table. Bastards.