Boston Harbor, I guess?
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Exactly. And when people start with the premise “I’m on the side of right,” they don’t stop to figure out right from wrong. And if only people would stop with just paint. They don’t.
That was where I was going in my original post. Where is the line? There might be universal agreement that we shouldn’t harm people, or at least minimize harm. It’s sometimes hard to reach consensus when there’s a disagreement on who counts as a person or what counts as minimizing harm (think of the trolley dilemma).
I put the line at destructive protest. It might need to be crossed sometimes. It might even be too optimistic. But it at least steers away from physical persuasion towards communication persuasion. Persuading a community by argument to decide together get rid of a statue is democratic. Destructive protest is demanding that you voice be heard above others. “Screw civil discourse, I’m going do damage stuff so that you listen to me.”
Sometimes that is the solution. But for a statue that’s over 100 years old and there’s a growing movement to get rid of that sort of thing? How about a petition? That fails? Well, democracy kinda sucks that way. But I’m not going to trade it for following whoever is the most destructive.
And look where that got us! 
Rather than continue this discussion here, I’ll send you a PM.
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Can’t get much whiter than it already was 
Yes, by all means, let’s never do anything that might make the racists angry. That’s how we’ll finally get rid of them and their noxious ideology. Just ignore it until it goes away.
Their symbols are worthless garbage calling back to a glorious time when black people were kidnapped, enslaved, beaten, raped, and murdered. There is no “recontextualization” that is worth continuing to inflict the pain and suffering of that legacy on the descendants of its horrors. There is no “but actually” plaque you can add that could possibly justify the continued existence of statues that were erected around the country, even in many places the Civil War never touched, to be explicit demonstrations of white supremacy and intimidation against African Americans at the first possible signs that they might begin to become equal co-owners of the (extremely white) ideal that is America. Memorials to the Confederate military are symbols of brutally racist white supremacist violence and oppression, and they have no business existing at all.
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I feel the same way about Nazi-punching: not an act I condone at the moment but one that I completely understand. In this case, since the cities and towns in question don’t seem willing to either pull the statues down or install new plaques making it clear that these are monuments to racist traitors, I’m not going to wring my hands when they get vandalised.
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Obviously, I disagree. Mainly because these statues have been causing harm for generations. They continue to do harm. They send the message every fucking day to African Americans: “you are lesser.”
People are more important than fucking bronze.
This one’s in a public park. The one at UNC-Chapel Hill was on a public university campus. How do you think that goes, walking past a statue of a Confederate soldier on the way to class, every day?
This is what happened. Good for these students.
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Jeebers, I hope I did not jinx it by calling it out 
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Your argument supposes the possibility that these statues have any reason to remain. They do not. But gold star for telling people who are upset by the glorification of men who fought to keep their ancestors as property that they can run for office and push to put up a sign saying “actually this is really racist” next to it just because actually taking the statue down might hurt the feelings of a handful of white people with an unhealthy attachment to a demented ideology.
Talk about infantilizing…
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In the context of the post you were replying to, I’m afraid I completely fail to understand what you mean by
I hope it’s clear I am genuinely confused and want to understand. I promise I’m not trying to set up a “gotcha” moment here.
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Which would still be vandalizing.
In this case the vandal said “They were racists”, not “Tear down this statue.”
Until he/she/they are caught and can explain their motive, we are just guessing.
I was reading the Twitter comments and they seem to be mostly supportive of the act. It’s interesting that the first one I read that condemned the act wanted to find whoever did it and beat the shit out of them.
In our downtown area there’s a statue of the city’s founder astride a horse in the middle of an intersection. On one corner of the intersection is the high school named after him. For years the senior prank was to paint his horse’s balls blue. I think it was more of a challenge, and not so much a protest. Either way, it pissed off the city council every year.
Re: Confederate symbology, I feel like that ship has already sailed without coordinated attempts to suppress them.
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I’m not bothered by the vandalism, whether it’s paint, a rave, or a vigilante tearing it down at night. It’s a statue, not a human being or animal. It isn’t going to experience pain or be robbed of future potential. For all I care, someone can epoxy a giant dildo to its forehead.
As for the vandal’s motive, it’s pretty clear. He or she wanted to draw attention to the fact that the Civil War was a stupid, racist conflict and that none of its leaders were heroes worth veneration.
The Confederate symbology ship sailed already, sure, but more due to marketing from special interest groups meeting in sordid klaverns than anything else. Given the de-education of conservatives prevalent right now, I don’t see how playing into the meme of the thoughtcrime-policing lefty helps anyone make progress.
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Another example where your false equivalence falls apart. Forced Birthers started with bombs and bullets. The people who are protesting, then vandalizing, then tearing down these monuments (in that order) will naturally stop when they are gone.
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Yes, good for these students. It needed to go. But with possible long term consequences. It sets a precedent of “Don’t like a statue? Pulling it down is ok.”
I just hope some jackass skinhead doesn’t do the same to a statue of Frederic Douglas. You think he’s going to make the distinction between right and wrong?
I would have preferred the students use democratic channels to get rid of the statue (in the 1960’s if I’m granting wishes). Less legal jeopardy for them and unlikely some asshat neo-nazi is going to be able to do the same.
Is pulling down the statue going to be the end of civilization? No. But normalizing it can end up backfiring.
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I’ll take the 0.0004 degree slippery slope in order to eliminate actual harm, being done right now on an ongoing basis.
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Yes, because a plaque that can only be seen up close will completely negate the giant person that can be seen at a distance.
Statues by their very nature indicate something for veneration. Across cultures, the figure immortalized by the statue is one to be admired. That is the implicit message of a statue. This isn’t hyperbole, nor is the fact that these statues were put up generations later as a reminder by white supremacists that black people better not get too demanding of their “rights”.¹ Those are documented facts.
A little plaque isn’t going to change that.
Leave them up and the racists will always seize upon any criticism of them as “censorship”. But without visual cues, people’s memories are short. Within a couple of years of them being replaced by something else and most people won’t even think twice. Sure, there will be a few diehards clinging to the idea of those men as heroes, but it won’t be reinforced upon the general public so regularly.
How about we stop being so worried about the feelings of racists and start caring more about the real damages done by racism?
¹ In quotes because those who put the statues up didn’t believe black people had any rights, so and the statues were part of reminding black people that “we can always make it worse for you.”.
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Obviously I’m not being clear. The people protesting, defacing, pulling down statues are not my worry. It’s:
A) The normalization of destruction to achieve your goals
and
B) What violent assholes who are less restrained and don’t have legitimate complaints will do in that environment.
When we create space for people we agree with to do damage, we inadvertently move the threshold of acceptability for some truly bad people.
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That threshold is already far out of sight. As your own example highlights, the “bad people” went straight for violence. Bombs. Bullets. Your slippery slope is an optical illusion.
ETA: Correcting for actual, real-world harm still takes priority over hypotheticals.
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Yeah, when one side is simply pulling down inanimate objects and the other is shooting up synagogues, I think we’re well past the point of “well, they might copy you, and then where will you be?”
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