Blake Hughes' prepared remarks to the Calloway County Fiscal Court on June 17, 2020

My name is Blake Hughes and I'm a resident of Murray Kentucky.

The Armenian Genocide Museum defines cultural genocide as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations’ or ethnic groups’ culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction."

I'm here today to oppose the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue on the court square of Murray on the grounds that removal of cultural monuments Is cultural genocide and people who seek the destruction of our culture should neither be given the time of day nor the opportunity to do so. Further, no one who has spent only a small fraction of their lives in our community should dictate the ways in which we remember our ancestors' history or how we remember historical figures important to us. There is no situation in which I would ever move to another place and then demand that that place conform to my wishes or modify their historical remembrances—and even to imagine such a scenario is frankly absurd.

This is not about racism, or it might have come up some time in the over 100 years since the statue was erected. The timing is not just late, it's far too convenient, coinciding with the illegal and despicable destruction, burning, and looting of businesses, government buildings, and historical artifacts across this country, as well with as the countless acts of senseless violence against innocent bystanders and law enforcement.

This also isn't about the civil war, as most participants on both sides of the war would be considered by modern-day society's standards as unacceptable and certainly not politically correct. Rather, this is about gaining power and control over a people and using that to oppress them—the very thing which many people calling for the removal of this statue and those like it claim to be against. Furthermore, this is about Marxists intent on destroying our history and our way of life doing so in the false name of "equality" and "progress" because, truly, they hate us, our nation, and our God. Many thought it would never get to small town Murray, but here it is. To be fair, it has been creeping in for a while, but when it comes to removing or uprooting artifacts relating to the ancestors of people who still live in this community, that's where I draw the line—and where you should as well.

This won't stop with confederate monuments though, as even Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus—neither of whom served in the Confederacy—have fallen victim. Cultural genocide includes the destruction of a peoples' cultural artifacts such as books, artworks, and structures, and that's exactly what's happening today across the US, and what is being proposed here in Murray. But make no mistake, this is not just an attack on the Robert E. Lee statue, this is an attack on you and on me, and it won't stop before our country is wholly unrecognizable to us, and that's why we must fight. Thank you.

Editor's note: This is not a transcript of what Hughes said during the June 17, 2020 Calloway County Fiscal Court meeting; rather, it is the speech he wrote prior to that meeting.

The foregoing is part of a collection of correspondence to various Calloway County government officials as well as remarks made before the Calloway County Fiscal Court in 2020, which the Sentinel obtained from County Judge-Executive Kenny Imes' office.