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I'd be in favor of an Army post named after Benavidez, but not Ft Hood...at least not until someone gets Ft Hood fixed. As long as it's the cesspool that it is (and it's been that way since at least the 60s, according to the Army careerists who were my father and uncles), I'd rather it stay named for Hood.
Give the name Benavidez to a good post.
I'd say call it Ft. Killeen, for the city it's near. Give the name of Ft. Benavidez to Fort Bliss.
No one is destroying history. You can teach history without commemorating traitors.
That is the point though. Some people want to commemorate traitors. Actually, it is the individuals who fought to preserve slavery that some people want to commemorate. Slavery is over, Jim Crow is over, the military is integrated, and in many cases the military has spawned some interracial marriages (especially in places like Manhattan and Junction City, Kansas, which are close to Ft. Riley). Having Confederate statues up and having some military bases named for Confederate soldiers is treasured by some. For some people, it is the last link to the Old South cause they have. Some people wish slavery and Jim Crow existed. This is as close to that as some people will get to that.
We can learn about Confederate generals and such, without paying homage or honoring them. However, some people want them to be honored publicly, which should never happen. Based on what those Confederate generals were fighting for, they do not deserve to be honored. Period.
*I said SOME, just in case those that I'm not talking about feel I'm talking about them personally.
Stop destroying history soon our kids won’t know who the first President was. You have to learn from history so it doesn’t get repeated but you can’t distort it or wash it away.
How is changing the name of a military base "destroying history", especially when the person it was named for doesn't deserve to be honored in the first place?
Why should any Confederate general have a statue or any kind of accolade bestowed up them?
The reason these forts were named as they were was very clear. The Civil War was viewed as a war between brothers. In many cases that was true. Mary Todd Lincoln (President Lincoln's wife for those who don't know) had 5 brothers/brother-in-laws fighting for the Union and 5 fighting for the Confederacy. When one of the Confederate brother-in-laws was killed, Lincoln invited the widow to stay in the White House and mourned with her.
The forts were named in pairs, one for a Union general and one for a Confederate general. It was to bring the country back together. Even after all the bitterness and loss of life, they realized we were all Americans. People today aren't as wise as people back then.
I call that coddling. The U.S. government was wrong for trying to coddle the former Confederate states. This is the message that needed to be sent: THE WAR IS OVER. YOU LOST. YOU'RE LUCKY YOU WERE LET BACK IN WITH OPEN ARMS. GET OVER IT. WE'RE NOT NAMING MILITARY BASES FOR CONFEDERATE GENERALS. THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTED OR IMPRISONED FOR BEING TRAITORS.
I personally don't care how angry many people in the South were over losing the war. Too bad. The Confederates started the war. The former Confederate states are not the aggrieved party in my book. I would not have been as accommodating. If it were up to me, Lee, Hood, and other Confederate generals would have been tried and punished as traitors. Anyone who wanted to start a guerrilla war over this, this is how I see it. The former Confederate states were outmatched in terms of population, most of the weapons were made in the northern states, and alot of Black Americans (most Black Americans who did fight in the Civil War, fought for the Union) would have been willing fight against any terrorists like the KKK.
Some of the biggest mistakes made were:
1) Ending Reconstruction and withdrawing troops out of the South.
2) Coddling the former Confederate states by letter Confederate generals get off easy.
I take a hardline stance for this reason: My ancestors were slaves in the Deep South, and it was slavery the Confederates wanted to preserve. The Confederates were willing to fight to preserve the enslavement of my ancestors. For that reason, my stance will remain.
I’m not so sure if it’ll happen, but I like the name change and Ray Benavidez’s military legacy. He’s certainly a worthy man to name a Texas fort after...seeing as how he’s also a native Texan.
Hood was a Confederate, not from Texas at all (he did serve in Pre-Civil War Texas however), and served in rebellion against the United States. So it just doesn’t make sense to name an installation after him.
Moreover, I like the idea of naming a Post after an enlisted man, being a former NCO myself.
In any case, I’m not sure what the hurdles will be in renaming a Post. Obvious it’ll have to be after Trump leaves, but that’ll be soon enough.
Consider that Fort Hood was given that name in 1942. Jim Crow era Texas. It was popular to name things after Confederate generals between the late 1870s through the mid 1960s. I know Hood's from Kentucky, and his ties to Texas are only through military service. He swore an oath to the U.S. military, and then turned his back on that oath. Why? His home state of Kentucky chose to be neutral. He wanted secession. He wrote a letter expressing his views on Blacks, and on how he felt about the Union.
This is a passage from a letter Hood wrote to Sherman:
"You came into our country with your Army, avowedly for the purpose of subjugating free white men, women, and children, and not only intend to rule over them, but you make negroes your allies, and desire to place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race, in any country in all time."
Considering that Hood was firmly aligned with slavery and white supremacy, and was waging war against America to preserve it, Fort Hood's name should be changed. However, considering when it was named Fort Hood, and where Fort Hood is located, it's easy to see why. Renaming it to someone with no ties to the Confederacy is a good idea.
The healing was done due to wise people in the 1800s.
The harm was allowing slavery to spread in the first place.
Just because the North didn't have Jim Crow laws didn't mean Blacks weren't "kept down" in northern states too. The northerners didn't need laws to discriminate against and mistreat the Black population.
What healing? & what wise people in the 1800s? You were brainwashed/taught the Lost Cause mythologies & propaganda.
Quote:
In 1891, as the Democratic-controlled legislature passed laws that disenfranchised most black Americans,[2] the government of the City of New Orleans erected the Liberty Monument to "commemorate the uprising" of 1874, in the city. The monument was prominently placed in the neutral ground (median) near the foot of Canal Street. In 1932, inscriptions were added to the monument which attested to the battle's role in establishing white supremacy.[3]
By the late 20th century, after civil rights achievements, many residents, especially in the black and Italian American communities, objected to the monument as a symbol of racism. (During the 1891 Hennessy affair, a New Orleans mob had lynched eleven Italian men; the lynching had helped revive the stalled fundraising campaign for the Liberty Place Monument.)[3][4]
The following inscription was added to the Liberty Place Monument in 1932:
Quote:
McEnery and Penn having been elected governor and lieutenant-governor by the white people, were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine (colored).
United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.
You have a warped idea of the meaning of the word 'wise'.
The thing is, some people view the Confederates as heroes. And for bad reasons. It isn't that people don't know history. It's that some people don't want to know better. Knowing better requires doing better. And doing better, in this case, translates into not honoring Confederate generals. It translates into not holding on to a bigoted, plantation-like social order. However, in the post-Reconstruction South, alot of people weren't interested in that.
The Lost Cause myth was perpetuated as a way of saying "the South was right". The thing is, history, real history, shows different. The truth is out there, and there are no excuses for not knowing better. The fact is, some people don't want to know better.
Loyalty to our ancestors does not extend to their mistakes. In this case, some people will deny any mistakes were made. Rather than admit that John Bell Hood was a traitor who wanted to see slavery preserved, the Confederate Lost Cause myth gets perpetuated. Hood did very reprehensible things. He did much more harm than good. However, perpetuators of the Lost Cause often look at slavery as a good thing.
Those who erected statues of Confederate generals knew what they were doing. Said persons wished the South had won. The CSA was gone, but the desire to keep the plantation/slave owning way of life never really went away. Black people were free, but many people did not want Blacks voting or having a say in how things operate. One of the reasons Jim Crow was implemented. It was meant to ensure Blacks didn't have a say. Erecting Confederate statues was an outgrowth of the Jim Crow way of life in the South. People knew what they were doing, hence, the Lost Cause myth. Saying "we wish to honor those who fought for the slave-owner's cause" outright, it's not as palatable as saying "we want to honor those who fought for the South", and downplaying the role of slavery.
It isn't that people don't know. It is that some people don't want to do better. Doing better requires sacrifices some people refuse to make. Consider this. The U.S. military is integrated. And in some cases, military towns are better integrated than society at large (this is what sons/daughters of military personnel have told me). Geary County, Kansas has one of the largest Black populations in Kansas, as a result of Fort Riley close by. Geary County also has a relatively high number of interracial couples involving Black/White couples. Of course Fort Riley isn't named for a Confederate general.
In fact, the counties in the USA with the highest rates of Black/White interracial couples have a military base, including Bell County, TX (where Fort Hood is located).
It is ironic to see U.S. military bases named for Confederate generals. But when you consider when they were given those names, it's easy to understand why. I think for some people, things named for Confederate generals, and flying the Confederate flag, it is one of the last vestiges of the old South. It is also something many people unhappy with the changes in society will use.
At the end of the day, some people don't want to know better.
Aye, I get you.
I think it was British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli or perhaps someone else? who said 'you cannot teach a person something it is in his best interests not to know.' That covers a lot of ground re: the denialists.
Said differently, as the Navajo proverb goes, "You cannot wake up someone who is only pretending to be asleep."
How is changing the name of a military base "destroying history", especially when the person it was named for doesn't deserve to be honored in the first place?
Why should any Confederate general have a statue or any kind of accolade bestowed up them?
Appeasement when it comes to the Confederacy is/was a failure.
Thank the Gods we no longer have as many political assassinations as we did. Why the heck were they tolerated for as long as they were is beyond my understanding.
I'd be very surprised if more than ten people who currently exist want slavery re-instated...and I don't think you, or a single other black person, or anyone else, care about slavery either.
This is not about slavery. Nobody cares about slavery. Nobody has any reason to care about slavery. Everyone who existed back then was an alien, more or less, and nobody has any emotional ties to anyone who lived back then that they can't easily ignore if anything related to that long ago bothers them.
This is about segregation, and much more modern ways black people have been screwed. This is about people wanting verification that modern society is on their side. That is reasonable to me. Having hard feelings about slavery is not...but nobody feels that way about slavery anyway, even if they don't know their true motivations.
This is all about black people being screwed over NOW and in more recent contexts, I think. This is about how, when I walk through St. Louis City, the only people who go dumpster-diving are black...among other issues, and that makes sense to me. That is a reason to be opposed to those Confederate statues. I didn't used to sympathize with the opposition to those statues as much as I do now because I didn't realize that.
Just the same, Confederate monuments and any named after Confederate generals are still the last vestiges of a long-gone way of life. The pre-1970 way of doing things is no longer valid. While economic segregation still looms, legalized segregation, i.e. Jim Crow, is over.
I agree that many people want verification that modern society is on their side. Validation is what some people are looking for. Said persons want modern society to say "the South was right".
Whenever I bring up that a majority of African-Americans are southerners and do not consider the Confederate flag part of their southern heritage, I get these reactions:
1) Silence.
2) "Blacks are brainwashed and their into victimhood".
3) Photos of the very few Black people who would fly the Confederate flag.
4) "Who cares what they think"?
And this video should shed light on what me and you could agree on.
I think about what you saw in St. Louis. I've seen similar in the Atlanta area (and not just the city). Most of the homeless people I've seen are Black. The fact that flying a symbol of the Confederate cause and white supremacy is considered normal. Where I went to high school in Georgia, the Confederate flag was popular among many students. I hated it, but I had to put up with it because I knew some people would never change.
The video I watched, a woman said that the Confederate flag does not represent Mississippi's Black population. By the way, Blacks are 38% of the population, the highest of any U.S. state. That was point. When Mississippi's Confederate-based flag was adopted, it was meant to be a middle finger to Black people.
Those who insist on holding on to Confederate flags and Confederate monuments want validation. Some people would like to see segregation coming back. However, since the era of Jim Crow laws ended back in the late 1960s, all that is left is the memory. For some, the Confederate flag is all that is left. That Blacks don't identify with it is something some people know. There are those that know it's offensive to Black people and why it is. Some people don't care. Some people fly it explicitly because they don't like Blacks. Some people want validation from modern society, and many are saying "Confederates have no place in modern American society".
Appeasement when it comes to the Confederacy is/was a failure.
Thank the Gods we no longer have as many political assassinations as we did. Why the heck were they tolerated for as long as they were is beyond my understanding.
Appeasement was wrong. It should not have happened. All that happened is the emboldening of Neo-Confederate types. I think one of the reasons we tolerated it was to keep the peace. Sometimes you have to say no.
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