Originally published at: Charlottesville to remove Confederate statues | Boing Boing
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From the beginning, it was pretty odd to have statues of traitors who waged war on their own country and lost, but I guess that’s how white victimhood fantasies work, huh.
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Racist insurrectionists losers don’t deserve to be honoured. Buh-bye…
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But but, that’s a beautiful glorious history you’re destroying!
Edit: That was Preznit Tromp who bleated in 2017 about comparability.
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Most, maybe none, even existed then. Like the “Confederate” flag, they’re a relatively new reactionary phenomenon.
An overwhelming majority of Confederate memorials weren’t erected in the years directly following the Civil War. Instead, most were put up decades later. Nor were they built just to commemorate fallen generals and soldiers; they were installed as symbols of white supremacy during periods of U.S. history when Black Americans’ civil rights were aggressively under attack.
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i was going to say the same thing. there were a tiny few statues erected in the 1870s. there was a push to erect statues during the period 1890-1920 during a period of repression stemming from “separate but equal” and 50th anniversary celebrations of the civil war. the greatest period of statue building came during the period 1950-1965 as a reaction against the civil rights movement.
frankly i wouldn’t be bothered if every statue erected before 1875 remained in place and the rest removed. that would still eliminate 95+% of all of them.
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They may need a serious paperweight one day. Or they’re waiting for the price of metal to rise a bit before selling it for scrap.
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Is there no septic tank or waste processing plant whose pit they could not lie in? Channeling raw sewage seems an appropriate way to honor these traitors.
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Good riddance. At best, these were nostalgia-trips for turn-of-the-century people looking back with rose-colored glasses at a past that never really was (as all nostalgia is); at worst they were monuments to an ugly, indefensible, extant racism. Now, they’re clearly only rallying points for racist mobs, and painful reminders of enslavement for others.
Most of these monuments should be destroyed, though some need to be placed in museum settings. Not to educate about the Civil War (as the Right would mistakenly have it), but to educate about how we remember the past. The Lee statue was erected in 1924, when the KKK was at its height, and when the last of the Civil War vets were dying off, and white people were getting all misty-eyed about “Lost Cause.” This is the dark history a statue like this illuminates.
Now Charlottesville needs to do something about this troublesome Lewis and Clark statue:
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Even worse than monuments, they were intended to intimidate POC during segregation. What does it say to a Black child to walk to “Jefferson Davis” Elementary School past statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson every day?
Nothing good.
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An AP story says, “[The statues] will be taken down and stored in a secure location until the City Council makes a final decision about what should be done with them. Under state law, the city was required to solicit parties interested in taking the statues during an offer period that ended Thursday. It received 10 responses to its solicitation.” (My emphasis)
It’s not too farfetched to imagine the statues will end up in some kind of revisionist-history “museum” where visitors learn what a fine lad Robert E. was and how slaves loved being enslaved.
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What does it say to a Black child to walk to “Jefferson Davis” Elementary School past statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson every day?
I think many lovers of the statues would say that what they say to black Americans in general is, “You too should care about states’ rights! Don’t you agree that southern states should be free from the imposition of northern carpet baggers?!”
(And just never mind that the particular right in question that provoked the Great Wuh was the right to impose slavery on your ancestors.)
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Thank you, Zyahna Bryant. Gratitude and respect to all the Black women who are saving the country from itself.
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Good riddance.
Also:
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But how can we learn about history without statues?
Next they’ll be tearing down the Bin Laden statue at ground zero!
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No doubt!
A great piece by her:
Excerpt:
Since writing the petition, I have read book after book and watched countless documentaries about the political implications of the fall of these monuments. Too many of them never mention the names of the Black women who were essential in making it all happen. It is morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest to tell a story that leaves Black women like myself out of the narrative, which is often rewarded under systems that uphold patriarchy and misogyny as the normative and that is the most unfortunate part of it all.
I find myself honored to stand on the shoulders of true giants, Black women who have created much of the contemporary political theory that serves as the context and background for a lot of my work. They built a great deal of the organizing infrastructure and praxis that has produced wins in the racial justice movement, even as their work has been co-opted at times. I honor women like Claudette Colvin, who was also a 15-year-old Black girl when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955.
I also reflect on those we’ve lost due to burnout or direct violence, those who did the dangerous work that made them a target. My plea is this: Do not wait until we have passed or reached our breaking point to honor us or to give us our well-deserved flowers. Honor us while we are well. Honor us as we are doing the work that others choose not to do. Honor us in the rooms where we are not present.
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Melt the bitch down! They can turn it into 100’s of participation trophies to hand out at the next CPAC, or miniature copies of the golden Trump Buddha statue they featured last year.
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“Virgil, quick, come see, There goes the Robert E. Lee!”
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