Confederate Symbolism; Time to Stop Nursing Grievances and Relitigating Past (Reagan, Brown)
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It will teach that the snowflakes melt at zero provocation.
Can I ask you a question OP? Are you personally attached to these statues or are you just against tearing them down just because a subset of people want them tore down?
I actually can see why some people who live in former confederate states are passionate about this issue but there are a lot of people involved now on both sides of this debate who probably didn't know that so many of these monuments existed and would otherwise not care who now put themselves into the fray because they want to fight the other side.
The majority of these confederate monuments and statues were built around two respective periods.
1900-1925 which was ironically the Antebellum south period and the establishment of Jim Crow laws
and the 1950's and 60's during the Civil rights movement.
I really don't have strong feelings for or against these monuments so I'm not going to lose sleep if they get tore down or not. That also means that I don't believe tearing them down eradicates history as some of these knee jerk reactions suggests.
This is some Historical context on one of time periods, the centennial:
Quote:
...This approach effectively spotlights the main story of the centennial, the resonance of the sectional conflict over slavery amid the quickening of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. The casualties in the commemoration were the participants who failed to recognize the importance of connecting interpretation of the past to vital issues of the present.
...The pivotal event in their downfall was the contretemps over the CWCC national assembly of 1961, held in Charleston, South Carolina, on the centennial of the firing on Fort Sumter. When the segregated Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston refused to accommodate an African-American member of the New Jersey commission, several northern delegations pledged to boycott the gathering. ...
...Throughout the segregated South of 1961-1965, local commemoration groups used the event to galvanize white resistance to desegregation. Throughout the segregated South of 1961-1965, local commemoration groups used the event to galvanize white resistance to desegregation. That was never truer than in this state, where the General Assembly raised the Confederate flag atop the Statehouse dome in 1961. Legislators said at the time that it was part of the Civil War commemoration. But that commemoration ended in 1965, and the flag remained. It did not come down until 2000, and then only after a bitter dispute within the state that drew nationwide ridicule and brought out the worst elements among us. In 2000, the passions and symbols of the Civil War still had the power to divide.
That was even truer in 1961. In April of that year, the Civil War Centennial Commission held its national meeting at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston. A member of the New Jersey delegation was a black woman who had been appointed to the job for the specific purpose of catching the Holy City at its worst behavior. Her presence caught the town and the conference off guard.
As expected, the hotel refused to accommodate the black delegate. The NAACP and the media jumped in and an obscure commission meeting became a national incident.
The issue was kicked all the way up to the White House, where President John F. Kennedy's staff engineered a compromise, moving the meeting from the Francis Marion Hotel to the desegregated Charleston Navy Yard. In another predictable turn, a rump of Southern delegates seceded from the commission and held their own meeting a few blocks down King Street at the Fort Sumter Hotel.
Now here we are ...
What has S.C. learned since the Civil War centennial?
Personally, I'm alright with changing the subway tiles ~ as a NYer, & as a person who's traveled on the subways for decades, I never noticed them. They've made many changes to the subway in the decades, it's ok with me.
Why a need to relitigate a statue placement from 1924? Is that statue really holding anyone back from work, achievement and not impregnating people who should be in school?
You could actually ask the same question about those who perform Civil War enactments. Why keep relitigating the past. Hell in fact these statues were built because they were an attempt to relitigate past grievances in defiance of progress.
Why a need to relitigate a statue placement from 1924? Is that statue really holding anyone back from work, achievement and not impregnating people who should be in school?
Your gratuitous comment is a logical fallacy designed to derail the topic.
You know why statues are important?
They are symbols. Symbols are a powerful means to communicate a message. Like Sarah Palin holding a Bible at the podium without speaking. Like Charlton Heston holding a flintlock gun at an NRA convention challenging those to take that from his cold dead hands.
It's actually very significant to note that the statue dates from 1924. Because that was an era of the height of the Ku Klux Klan, and when many lynchings of blacks occurred, in the Jim Crow era. That strongly suggests that the statue of Lee was erected with the intention not so much as to "honor his heritage and valor" but with the idea to intimidate black residents on "who was in charge".
And if symbols like that statue isn't important, why then did white supremacists use that to rally themselves around it?
which rather begs the question as to why anyone would want to take it down.
Because they are monuments to the disgusting practices of slave-holding.
As for George Washington being "OK" and Robert E. Lee not - NEITHER of them are people I would want any child of mine to emulate today. GW was an elitist even when compared to other elitists of his time. They all were, to one level or another, elitists.
Somehow they nevertheless managed to cobble together the legal documents that have allowed us to be better people than they were - such as by abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote, and extending the privilege of marriage to gay couples, among many other social progress milestones.
Slavery was a hot topic when the Declaration and other documents were written. It very nearly broke the 13 colonies apart. It was allowed to remain solely because without the support of the slaveholders, the Revolution could not have succeeded. It was an example of having to give in to the evil among us in order to preserve an opportunity to get rid of it later. We would all have been far far better off had it not been allowed to take root and flourish for as long as it did. Never, actually, would have been better.
Your gratuitous comment is a logical fallacy designed to derail the topic.
You know why statues are important?
They are symbols. Symbols are a powerful means to communicate a message. Like Sarah Palin holding a Bible at the podium without speaking. Like Charlton Heston holding a flintlock gun at an NRA convention challenging those to take that from his cold dead hands.
It's actually very significant to note that the statue dates from 1924. Because that was an era of the height of the Ku Klux Klan, and when many lynchings of blacks occurred, in the Jim Crow era. That strongly suggests that the statue of Lee was erected with the intention not so much as to "honor his heritage and valor" but with the idea to intimidate black residents on "who was in charge".
And if symbols like that statue isn't important, why then did white supremacists use that to rally themselves around it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyewackette
Because they are monuments to the disgusting practices of slave-holding.
As for George Washington being "OK" and Robert E. Lee not - NEITHER of them are people I would want any child of mine to emulate today. GW was an elitist even when compared to other elitists of his time. They all were, to one level or another, elitists.
Somehow they nevertheless managed to cobble together the legal documents that have allowed us to be better people than they were - such as by abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote, and extending the privilege of marriage to gay couples, among many other social progress milestones.
Slavery was a hot topic when the Declaration and other documents were written. It very nearly broke the 13 colonies apart. It was allowed to remain solely because without the support of the slaveholders, the Revolution could not have succeeded. It was an example of having to give in to the evil among us in order to preserve an opportunity to get rid of it later. We would all have been far far better off had it not been allowed to take root and flourish for as long as it did. Never, actually, would have been better.
What I can't understand is the desire to erase our history, great, terrible or in between. I would rather leave the statues and educate people on what good and bad traits these people showed. On a drive to my son's summer camp in New Hampshire I stopped at Franklin Pierce's old house, looked around, and even bought a CD of period music. Trust me, in modern terms there is nothing to emulate about Mr. Pierce. He was a drunk and a terrible President. But that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about him.
black people who was never slaves are fighting white people who was never nazis over a
confederate statues erected by democratic, because democratic can not stand there own history
and somehow its trump fault.
What I can't understand is the desire to erase our history, great, terrible or in between. I would rather leave the statues and educate people on what good and bad traits these people showed. On a drive to my son's summer camp in New Hampshire I stopped at Franklin Pierce's old house, looked around, and even bought a CD of period music. Trust me, in modern terms there is nothing to emulate about Mr. Pierce. He was a drunk and a terrible President. But that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about him.
Just putting someone in front of statue without context isn't going to teach them anything about history. Especially distant history where many younger people wouldn't know. Most people learn history from books, documentaries and the internet. These monuments could be used as tools to teach history but they are but one ofmany tools.
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