No doubt.
Yep. They are on the front lines of this battle. Good people changing the world for the better.
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I haven’t lived in the South for 20 years, but I visit often and I live in a very non-diverse part of extreme NorCal (2 hrs from the Oregon border) where you will often find folks flying Confederate flags etc… I can’t tell you what these people are thinking beyond the usual suspects of racism. They see prosperity as a zero sum game, and perhaps think that by extending more rights to others, they somehow lose their own. They were raised by people who can swallow the cognitive dissonance of lynchings on Saturday and then church on Sunday. They’re entire world view is one that has always propped up their own sense of superiority based on race. Imagine you are never taught implicitly that people who look or love or worship differently than you are actually people too? It’s not just the South. It’s not just America. The entire world needs to reckon with the legacies of colonialism, slavery, caste systems and violence against indigenous communities.
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This isn’t a statue though. It’s akin to sandblasting off Mount Rushmore, albeit on a smaller scale. I would personally be fine with them just letting the natural vegetation grow in to obscure the carving until a legal pathway and funding for removal can be achieved.
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Why wait for a legal means when the people holding the power to legally remove it are white supremacists? Same thing as with Silent Sam. Students at UNC had been pushing for it’s removal for decades. Dozens of votes by the student government requested and then demanded it’s removal. As soon as the university started to take it seriously, the NC legislature stepped in and prevented the removal. So students finally just tore it down. It was illegal, and absolutely the right thing to do.
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Thing is this community is majority Black and upper middle class. Most of my parents friends and neighbors drive luxury vehicles and spend weekends maintaining their beautiful lawns and homes. It’s such a jarring disconnect from my last recent visit in which we visited the Park and saw people of all backgrounds enjoying the weather, exercising, having picnics etc. Atlanta area is progressive in so many ways that it’s easy to forget about how it’s a blue bubble inside the red.
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Who’s has the resources and ability to enter a private park to illegally sandblast the side of a 1600 foot granite edifice?
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Seriously, though, while it wouldn’t be that much of a technical challenge once you introduce explosives I would like to see the same thing l’d like to see with all those statues. Pull them down and then put them into a museum, with interpretation panels that give them their proper context. Since this obviously isn’t possible here the solution would be to build an interpretation centre on site, that puts everything visitors see in context. That’s how Nazi sites such as concentration camps or the rally grounds in Nuremberg are usually dealt with in Germany.
But ultimately that isn’t my decision of course. It’s very much that of those that are still the victims of the confederacy and the slave trade. If they want to blow it up or let it grow over or whatever that’s their prerogative.
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There are anti-racist demolition experts.
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Thanks for such a thoughtful response.
Yep.
[ETA] I want to expand a bit on @kityglitr’s core point about ATL and GA politics as I see it (from my perspective having lived in this area for the past 20 years). It used to be that the blue area was pretty much just inside the perimeter, and the surrounding metro area where people commuted into the city from, was relatively red. This suburban counties are really transforming. The district just north of me (I’m in the 4th), the 7th, is just about to flip blue, in part due to the changing demographics from white majority to minority majority. This is in part a byproduct of a couple of things - first, the large number of immigrants since we have a refugee center over in Clarkston. People who were refugees have settled down and moved out to the suburban counties out east here. Second is the gentrification of the city of ATL itself, which has pushed more working class Atlantans out to the suburbs, where housing is a bit more affordable. So those two things, coupled with the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and out and out racism of the GOP has meant that the blue bubble that kityglitr noted has expanded out to encompass a larger part of the region. I suspect that you might be seeing something similar in other cities in the state, but I’m not entirely sure.
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This is what I really appreciated about the National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island, and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. There were dedicated exhibits to the influence of racism and oppression at both places.
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Ruby jackboots?
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I can understand that. My GIFs were meant purely as an illustration of the technical process, the Bamyian Buddhas being especially suited because they are a similar kind of huge relief structure in the side of a mountain. In fact my original comment only had that one gif, I added the second one when I thought I should add an illustration of the type of monument that we are talking about as well as of the process itself. I totally understand, however, that there is no way for anyone to follow that train of thought from the two images alone.
I suppose I have come to the Acceptance stage of the grieving process for the Bamyian Buddhas. I was genuinely distraught for days when it happened. But then I’m not a Buddhist, just someone who cares deeply about World Heritage.
Do you want me to remove the second GIF?
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If you like ricochets…
But given a lot of the people I run across (unfortunately) at ranges, it may not be that much of a loss. I give the idea a solid A-OK.
It was just a feeling arising from seeing stone mountain and a swastika and the Buddhas together in that way. It’s not a rational thing. I know you didn’t mean that, which is why I said it isn’t directed at you, personally.
Do as you feel is best. It was something I felt an uncomfortable need to express, and I did, though I kind of feel silly for doing so now.
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No worries. I removed the gif. You’re definitely right that it creates a juxtaposition that was neither intended nor one I’d like to project.
Definitely no reason to feel silly.
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That’s why they’re still alive.
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