What to do with Confederate statues?

I’m keeping a copy of that. I have commented about the Paradox of Tolerance before and I expect to again.

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I’ve had some many opportunities to post these recently.


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Keep marching.

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Beat me to it.

He also failed to mention that the statue was spray painted black last month so it looks even worse after the fire.

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…So long as we live in a nation that glorifies Confederate generals, it will be tempting for (white) patriots to believe that those men fought for something more noble than the Southern elite’s right to enslave dark-skinned human beings; and that subsequent generations built memorials to those generals to celebrate a cause more noble than white supremacy; and that the ongoing presence of such statues in our cities and parks reflects something more noble about our society than its ongoing failure to accept the full humanity of African-Americans.

Unless, of course, such “patriots” march with tiki torches while chanting “blood and soil.”

Which is to say: We can either accept that monuments to Robert E. Lee are an affront to our nation’s highest values or that those neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were right about what those values truly are.

Or else we can keep changing our history to suit the needs of reactionary, rich white fools — and leave that statue of a traitor in Emancipation Park, and that plaque honoring the brave soldiers who drowned in the River of Blood, a few hundred feet from hole 15, at the Trump National Club.

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Wait, don’t tell me you’re…politicizing old statuary?? :wink:

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I’ve removed a bunch of posts in this topic. I’ll be taking actions elsewhere as well as a result of this discussion. Whether or not the statues should be removed, what should be kept and where, etc., are valid points of conversation.

I am not an American, however, AFAICT suggesting that there is an “ulterior motive” in tearing down these statues, however, flies in the face of what the push to remove these statues has been about, and in my mind is indirect victim blaming. Regardless of the intent of many of these (which, frankly, reading the evidence in this topic makes pretty clear), even this non-USian can understand that they are now a symbol of bigotry.

The same thing has been happening as folks learn more about the voyages of Columbus. No one wants to erase the facts, but heck, in school I sang in a play glorifying a whitewashed version of events during his voyages, and only in the last decade learned otherwise. I would gladly support the removal of statues of Columbus while also supporting museums that continue to tell his story so that future generations continue to learn the truth.

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Oh FFS. Slavery is as American as genocide and Elmer Gantry.

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He can’t hear you.

General Moderation Topic - #223 by orenwolf

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A walk-on part in a war, but really a lead role in a cage?

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I just came across some pretty shit-hot hiphop recently…

I have a feeling that’s a response to this infamous cartoon:

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Can I just say, I love photography, because it’s the past looking back at you, makes it feel more tangible and real. And I’ve always loved that picture.

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Although there was a huge black population there are no (if any) statues of Nat Turner, or any other other African Americans - it is obviously about pointing out who was in power and romanticising the “lost cause” etc. Things obviously didn’t change with the end of the Civil war, ie. bringing in an essentially feudal sharecropping system, jim crow etc… well into recent times.

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There is one (1) Union monument in Baltimore. Until this week there were four Confederacy monuments. Baltimore, of course, is south of the Mason-Dixon line, and MD had segregation laws, but was never part of the Confederacy, which I think makes the real intent of these monuments (not just in B’more) even more obvious.

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Actually, here is a great example of what can be done with confederate memorials… the Atlanta Cyclorama!

http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/explore/destinations/atlanta-cyclorama

It was moved from it’s location in Grant Park (next to the Zoo near downtown) up the where the Atlanta History Center is in buckhead. It’s getting the full restoration treatment and be more effectively historicized by the historians and archivists who work at the AHC.

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The Washington post has an article on who supplied the statues in the first place…

Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier’s belt buckle, the “U.S.” is replaced by a “C.S.” for “Confederate States.”
It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.

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Sylvester McMonkey Mcbean would be proud…

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Yes, precisely. If it’s a St. Gaudens, then keep it in a museum somewhere. The rest of em are junk. Grind em up into scrap.

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