Alexandria seeks to rename highay and move statue (Arlington, Mount Vernon: construction, live in)

[car54]

I wish we could coax Jay Leno out of retirement to do a "Jaywalking" piece in Old Town.

Jay would ask "Who was Jefferson Davis?". I bet the responses would be hysterical...with maybe two or three out of a hundred answering correctly.

[car54]

Originally Posted by Deeman804

Exactly!

The confederacy is a part of history that needs to stay only in the history books...in the shameful section. Hitler seems to be a bad word but Jefferson Davis is not? Goebbels but not Stonewall? The confederacy nuts can be outright looney at times.

What's outright looney is to claim that Jefferson Davis is in the same league as one of the worst mass murderers in human history...

[Ffxdata]

Originally Posted by car54

What's outright looney is to claim that Jefferson Davis is in the same league as one of the worst mass murderers in human history...

Hitler isn't even close to worst mass murderer in history, sadly.

And it depends for how many people you hold Jefferson Davis responsible. Is he responsible for the Civil War deaths ( 620,000 people or roughly 2 percent of the population of the US at that time)? Perhaps not.
Is he responsible for the at least 1.2 million (but perhaps as high as 2 million enslaved people died on the journey across the Atlantic to the US. That's of a total of around 12 million people brought over between the 16th and 19th centuries who lived and died as slaves. Probably not. But it was certainly his preference that the almost 4 million men, women, and children enslaved as of the 1860 census remain in bondage until their deaths. He also intended for all of those children's children to also be enslaved.

Is it so hard to imagine that a person white or black would not want to drive on a road named to commemorate a man who called black people a "servile race" and "less intellectual."

[car54]

Originally Posted by Ffxdata

Hitler isn't even close to worst mass murderer in history, sadly.

I said "one of" the worst mass murderers. At 30 or so million dead, he was certainly in the Top Ten.

Jefferson Davis is not on any list of mass murders that I've seen. How's that for a testimonial! LOL

[JD984]

Originally Posted by dkf747

It's just a name. Just a statue in the middle of a busy road. It is not a problem that needs attention. There are for more important things that they need to deal with than this. Crime, schools, affordable housing, traffic congestion,etc... Are far more important. My point has nothing to do with race.

You minimize its significance, but it seems to get under your skin enough that you started a thread about it and keep posting that it should be left alone. It just begs the question as to why you care, if you think it's so trivial. In that case, the statue won't be missed (or hit again) and no one will care if that stretch of Route 1 is called Richmond Highway just like it is further south.

[ACWhite]

Do some of you not believe in democracy? If Alexandria residents were unhappy with the decision of their city council, their elected officials can be voted out of office. They seem to be doing their best to act based on community values. People who don't like the values of the people who live in Alexandria have plenty of other options about places to live, and shouldn't be insulting them.

If a group I am not a member of finds the statue offensive, for good reason, then I think their views should be respected. The statue serves no useful purpose such that anyone here is harmed by the actions of the council.

[car54]

Originally Posted by ACWhite

Do some of you not believe in democracy?

Yes indeed. If the Virginia General Assembly votes to remove the statue, I will accept their decision.

[leighland]

Originally Posted by Deeman804

... No room to be honoring traitors of the union. Why don't have a Hitler or Saddam or other anti-American "heroes"?

We do have memorials to horrible people

Many of them are in Europe

A perfect example is Aushwitz-Berkenau Memorial and State Museum. Not only is the Entry gate remains intact,"Arbeit macht frei", the museum has incorporated many items and witnesses to the Holocaust. It is living history to how horrible we humans can be.
We acknowledge the Holocaust here in the US with many museums.

However, the museum is in an undeveloped area, not in the smack dab middle of a very busy roadway

I think they should move it outta the middle of the road, with signs/plaques explaining the context -or- donate it to the National Museum of African American Museum to start up an outdoor statuary. I believe Franklin-Armfield Office sold people in what is now the Farmers Market plaza in front of the city building. Put the statue there with a memorial explaining all those tortured souls sold there.

[rmm0484]

Originally Posted by leighland

We do have memorials to horrible people

Many of them are in Europe

A perfect example is Aushwitz-Berkenau Memorial and State Museum. Not only is the Entry gate remains intact,"Arbeit macht frei", the museum has incorporated many items and witnesses to the Holocaust. It is living history to how horrible we humans can be.
We acknowledge the Holocaust here in the US with many museums.

However, the museum is in an undeveloped area, not in the smack dab middle of a very busy roadway

I think they should move it outta the middle of the road, with signs/plaques explaining the context -or- donate it to the National Museum of African American Museum to start up an outdoor statuary. I believe Franklin-Armfield Office sold people in what is now the Farmers Market plaza in front of the city building. Put the statue there with a memorial explaining all those tortured souls sold there.

The confederate statue does not represent a horrible person, it represents the attitude of many in the town at the time - he turned his back against the North. The statue is located on a main north-south thoroughfare (and possible gathering place) for the city. You cannot erase or downplay history because an event is not politically correct. To deny that there were lingering harsh feelings about the war and its cause is undoubtedly a contributor to current racial tensions. Leaving the statue where it is is not a de facto approval of slavery or the "War Against Northern Aggression," it is a recognition that there were people who believed in a way of life that included enslaved people as part of the society and economy, and fought valiantly to preserve this way of life. Regardless of how wrong it may seem to us now, those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it, as another CD member (and Santayana) has said.

Myself, I was always amused when I saw this statue. To me, he resembled a pouting boy who has been punished and does not want to join the rest of the family. But when I express my opinion on it, I came to realize the deep feelings that were involved in its creation and placement.

In the past, the city of Alexandria has done some horrible things to African American people, such as rezoning huge swaths of housing in traditional historic African American neighborhoods for purposes of development, allowing a known bigot (T.C. Williams) to be considered a hero, maintaining segregated schools where under-performing children from the ghetto are not equally educated, to the point that one school was in the bottom 10 for the entire state, which threatened to take it over. In response, the city built a Taj Mahal of a school, which was the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig...

My point is, if Alexandria feels guilty and wants to make reparations somewhere, they need not look very far.

[dkf747]

Originally Posted by JD984

You minimize its significance, but it seems to get under your skin enough that you started a thread about it and keep posting that it should be left alone. It just begs the question as to why you care, if you think it's so trivial. In that case, the statue won't be missed (or hit again) and no one will care if that stretch of Route 1 is called Richmond Highway just like it is further south.

No, I do not care if it is called Richmond Highway or just Route One. I car about wasting time and energy on a non-issue like this. I do think renaming and removing it is an attempt to whitewash history, but that is secondary.