Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'll just offer a some angles from which I tend to view the topic:
Many, if not most of these statues, have stood for decades (or longer) absent a nationwide degree of outrage and scrutiny. As such I cannot help but wonder what the motivation suddenly was for external (non-local) parties to elevate these things to some earth-shattering consideration.
It's a local issue, and a legal one at that. If the residents and/or elected official(s) in a given locality wish to remove, relocate, or do otherwise with such symbols, then that is their right to do so.
Do blacks (or anyone else for that matter) have the right to ask that public tax dollars not be spent on the maintenance of public monuments that in some respect commemorate a dark period in American history? Absolutely.
Should people in general invest time and energy on more pressing and legitimate issues plaguing contemporary society? Without a doubt, but it is the right of American citizens, as individuals, to advocate for whatever cause(s) they deem appropriate and to whatever extent they wish to do so. At least, only up to the extent of breaking laws in the process, which is what we're now seeing. That must be universally condemned.
I invite southern whites to come to New York to start violent protests against Grant's Tomb. He was the general that humiliated Lee into surrender. Surely his being honored must be offensive. </sarcasm>
Yeah, this is honestly one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in my entire life. They are calling this the "Summer of Hell" for commuters into NYC in this region due to construction in NY Penn Station and on subways yet the MTA is worried about this X shaped tile pattern because it resembles a Confederate flag. This is what they will work on and spend money on, as trains keep derailing and they keep raising fares. I mean COME ON.
Just wait until the Native Americans get going!!! Eradicate the statues of our Founding Fathers and the faces at Mount Rushmore! Just for starters!!!
All this tells me is there's too many people with too much time on their hands!
That's very true, and I'm glad you mentioned the "Lost Cause" fairy tale. People want to say taking the statues down erases history -- which it doesn't. It helps rectify the "Lost Cause" baloney.
Sadly most people think of history as some never changing and infallible record of the past... In truth historiography is the larger and more important part of the subject.
Just wait until the Native Americans get going!!! Eradicate the statues of our Founding Fathers and the faces at Mount Rushmore! Just for starters!!!
Be careful there. Sacajawea statues and the dollar coin may offend tribes that fought with the Lemhi Shoshone. Plain numbering is all that will work. Unless that is Arabic numerals offend some Jews. Or Roman numerals may offend some Carthaginians or Barbarians. In the nature of full disclosure I am Jewish and am not offended by Arabic or Roman numerals.
All this tells me is there's too many people with too much time on their hands![/quote]Exactly what I was thinking about "time on (people's) hands."
I'm surprised no one has brought up the state flags of Georgia and Mississippi, which were adopted by the state legislatures in 2003 and 2001.
From the wiki article on Flag of Georgia: The design principle is based on the first national flag of the Confederacy, which was nicknamed the "Stars and Bars".
From the wiki article on the Flag of Mississippi:...the Mississippi flag is the only U.S. state flag to include the Confederate battle flag's saltire.
Sadly most people think of history as some never changing and infallible record of the past... In truth historiography is the larger and more important part of the subject.
Interesting point.
Another factor is the idea that the Civil War is over. Well, the war itself is over, but the ramifications of it are clearly not. Many people in the South can't "get over it". Blacks can't "get over it". The whole era of slavery and the war to end it didn't end what those two periods did to this nation. And this is why, while I respect much of what they did, I refer to our Founding Fathers as the Floudering Fathers. They kicked the slavery can down the road nearly a hundred years, they allowed masses of people to be enslaved, they planted the seeds of the Civil War. It's like most anything else -- there's the "event" and then there's the aftermath. We're still in the aftermath, and perhaps we always will be.
Don't forget that southern state legislatures kicked the can down the road another hundred years until the federal government intervened in the 1950's and 1960's. And racist attitudes are still held by millions of Americans. Cities are still divided along racial lines. About twenty years ago I drove through the streets of Brooklyn New York, through Bed Stuy and Brownsville (an area of more than 200,000 people), from downtown Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Queens border near JFK airport. For 20 minutes of driving at about 25 to 30mph on a busy commercial main street, I didn't see a single white face. I said to myself, this is incredible. I never realized how racially divided my own home town was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Interesting point.
Another factor is the idea that the Civil War is over. Well, the war itself is over, but the ramifications of it are clearly not. Many people in the South can't "get over it". Blacks can't "get over it". The whole era of slavery and the war to end it didn't end what those two periods did to this nation. And this is why, while I respect much of what they did, I refer to our Founding Fathers as the Floudering Fathers. They kicked the slavery can down the road nearly a hundred years, they allowed masses of people to be enslaved, they planted the seeds of the Civil War. It's like most anything else -- there's the "event" and then there's the aftermath. We're still in the aftermath, and perhaps we always will be.
Don't forget that southern state legislatures kicked the can down the road another hundred years until the federal government intervened in the 1950's and 1960's. And racist attitudes are still held by millions of Americans. Cities are still divided along racial lines. About twenty years ago I drove through the streets of Brooklyn New York, through Bed Stuy and Brownsville (an area of more than 200,000 people), from downtown Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Queens border near JFK airport. For 20 minutes of driving at about 25 to 30mph on a busy commercial main street, I didn't see a single white face. I said to myself, this is incredible. I never realized how racially divided my own home town was.
Yet there are many areas, especially the central business districts of both New York and Kings County where always see an assortment of every ethnic group and white people. Also, you will find black people living in many "white" suburban areas but not too many blacks, or for that matter non-Hasidic Jews in New Square, Rockland County, New York.
In the world of 'identity politics' and 'virtue signaling', we choose our heroes and choose our victims on the basis of historical perception rather than historical accuracy. Thus, Robert E. Lee offends while George Washington, also a slave owner, does not.
Much of this is to do with subordinating history to contemporary politics. It is the management of history to support a political agenda. This isn't a new phenomenon although it has tended to be the hallmark of dictators and authoritarian regimes. But what we are seeing in the democratic west - and this is far from limited to the USA - is a new authoritarianism and intolerance which is using the tools of the technological revolution to impose its norms and police the recalcitrants.
Thank you, I cannot rate you up enough for this post!
I have been something of an amateur history buff ever since I was a teenager 30+ years ago. So while I am not a Southerner and have no real skin in the take down all the statues campaign, it does bother me when people ignore, distort or take history out of context.
A recent example of this is when someone said here on City-Data that the confederate statues in New Orleans were put up by whites to protest a Supreme Court decision in 1896. That seemed strange to me because Plessy v. Ferguson was a victory for segregationists, why would Southern whites of the time put up confederate states to protest what must have been a victory for many of them?
Right off the bat, a simple 1 minute search showed that the Robert E. Lee Monument was dedicated in 1884, more then 10 years before 1896! So the theory that the Lee Monument was put to protest Plessy v. Ferguson is false. And the P. G. T. Beauregard statue was put up 20 years after the Supreme Court decision and that Beauregard was a native of Louisiana and New Orleans itself.
The point is that there is many controversial things in history we can honestly debate. But people need to realize that some of the things they read on the internet are being promoted by people not trying to have a fair debate and discussion on history but rather see it as a way to promote their agenda. That is why people should learn to do a little research themselves.
Last edited by LINative; 08-22-2017 at 11:31 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
