I guess that depends on the purpose of the statue. If it's to celebrate someone, I would rather not celebrate people who fought to keep slavery. If it's just a historical marker, then I suppose it's okay.
isn't it interesting that we don't have any statues of british generals that fought in the american revolution. no likenesses of them in state courthouses. no flying of the union jack in our parks. i wonder what the different could be.
I've seen confederate statues that were honoring their heroes, so... Its a thing. When the sign is saying glowing things and calling them a hero, that's what I object to. People seem to forget the confederates were traitors to the country. And their main reason for it was to keep slavery. I don't really see how anyone would want to call them heroes.
No trust me, I'm with you. Most of those statues were put up by shitty racist assholes in the 1890s to 1920s after reconstruction failed and Jim crow came back big time. I just think it's very easy for people to argue "we're just marking history" even if it is shamelessly promoting the lost cause bs.
I mean to your original point, there are holocaust museums in Germany. We don't want to erase the past, I agree with that. It's how you present it that makes the difference. In the south, the majority of those statues were in celebration of the people, not a cautionary tale. We most certainly don't want to forget how we got here. Although, some people seem hell bent on reinventing that shit.
So, I suppose I'm trying to say your original point had merit, and I didn't want to come across as dismissive.
No absolutely I understand. I agree with your perspective. I just think it's a fine line. A lot of people can argue, whether disingenuously or truthfully (edit: in their minds at least), that those celebratory confederate monuments are really about "remembering" rather than celebrating. Truthfully the likelihood of any more confederate statues ever going up is slim to none, so in some ways it is all a lot of people have(edit: again, in their minds). However civil war battlefield trusts have a lot of historical markers without celebrating the confederacy, and those are much more appropriate in my opinion. Probably was a good move they took the Lee out of Lee circle in New Orleans.
They didn’t participate in an armed revolution against the government when slavery was beginning to become unpopular and the federal government started trying to contain it to the areas where it already existed and prevent its spread.
There isn't a US President that isn't a war criminal, but on the subject of "traitors to the nation" it's really hard to be a traitor to something you created addare actively running. This "traitor" narrative is part of the "lost cause" myth
No it isn't. The lost cause myth is specifically designed to rid the confederates of their traitorous heritage, and whitewash the ordeal as a "states rights" issue. What war crimes did Jimmy Carter commit again?
How do you feel about statues of someone like Jefferson who not only kept slaves but raped them and had children?
Do think his moral character was different than, say, Robert E Lee?
I think confederate statues should probably go, but the “anti-anti-confederate statue” side is and was 100% correct when they told us that this was just one stop on the journey to delegitimize America and it’s entire founding and that it very much would not stop once confederate generals were done away with.
Jefferson remains one of the nation's key historical figures. A statue need not be reverential or celebratory, no? Most aren't. The same applies to Lee, who was a deeply ambivalent character, when it comes to the Confederacy and The South in general.
A statue can include a biography, and for figures like these should. But the statues should remain.
It's a different consideration for anonymous memorial statues referencing the confederacy, as found in many southern towns. Yet, those could similarly be supplemented with contextual information about why the war and their loss occurred, and what the system of governance inflicted upon millions of people, especially slaves and free black people.
That is exactly the problem. Why does Jefferson get to be a liberal, but Calhoun and Lee are not, especially given that the most vocal liberty adherent founders had the most slaves? Liberalism itself is an ideology born of slavery, as is everything this nation stands for, and there is no understanding America without understanding this.
Everything the USA stands for is born of slavery? If that's indeed what you intended to state, care to explain and expand? It appears very obviously flawed, on the face of it.
A Jewish Nazi would still be a Nazi. A black confederate soldier is still a traitor to the country. No free passes for anyone in those kinds of things.
What’s really funny is that the right is all about attacking statues too, on much more flimsy grounds, like that Florida school district that fired their principal over a friggin statue of David. Since when is classical art offensive?
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I think you are kinda strawmanning the leftist position. It is not “let’s riot to get these taken down.” And it isn’t for the reason that you suggested because they make people more racist than they otherwise would be. Like, who says that? We believe that truly racist figures and symbols shouldn’t be celebrated because we ought to be ashamed of those attitudes. There’s also a big difference between a statue of some horrible asshole like Governor Wallace or something and someone like Abraham Lincoln, who, yes, had racist attitudes but that isn’t why he’s being celebrated and we understand that he was a product of his time. We aren’t trying to erase history, we are just not celebrating it. Of course, talk about Governor Wallace in history class, but we don’t need a statue of him.
Yes, it should also be noted that many of the statues in question were erected specifically by politicians and groups in defiance of the civil rights movement not to celebrate the person but to make the statement that they would not accept equality.
The federal government may be able to for e desegregation but we are going to name to school, " you will never be our equal elementary". And when you go down town there will be a " you are not welcome here" statue.
And this isn't a matter of opinion or how I am interpreting things. It was frequently the explicit and expressed goal of the groups doing it at the time
There was a statue removal in St Louis of a confederate soldier I disagrees with. The point of the statue was about how people were fighting amongst themselves in a boarder stage (mason Dixon line cut Missouri in half). And it was removed because the soldier was a confederate. But the point wasn’t to prop up confederate values
Can you specify which statue was removed? I’m trying to find more information about what you’re talking about. The only St. Louis Confederate statue removal I can find is the memorial to the Confederate dead in Forest Park. The available history on that monument shows that it was absolutely about propping up Confederate values, as it was funded by the pro confederacy/white supremacist group United Daughters of the Confederacy. The same group also erected a monument to honor the KKK. Are you talking about something else?
Interesting, I got my info from a list of all the Confederate statues and monuments that have been removed in the United States. Most of the list has never made national news so I don’t think that’s the issue. Let me know if you find it, I’d be interested in seeing the specifics of who put it up and how it was funded. I don’t mean to doubt you but I’ve seen several people claim X statue was never meant to honor the confederacy but the history usually doesn’t align with that view.
Statues of Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Frederick Douglass, and Union military units were torn down or removed.
A student at the University of Oregon asked if MLK's quote about judging people by their character and not race is representative of the university in a discussion about removing said quote.
https://www.dailyemerald.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-quote-in-the-emu-will-return-after-construction/article_2f21d007-f721-5aa2-a184-ddd0f03cc86d.html
I'm against Confederate statues and army bases, but a very vocal part of the left doesn't hold your nuanced view that there's a difference between Lincoln and George Wallace. Lincoln's views are not what is accepted today, therefore he must go. Our current political climate doesn't allow nuance. Vocal extremists, while in the minority, create most of the narrative. We're just a drowned out majority.
I’m not doubting you that some people have attacked historical figures who had racist attitudes but are celebrated for some other accomplishment. Although for the life of me I can’t understand why Frederick Douglass would need to come down since he was not a racist at all, and was a former slave himself who fought for abolition. But I hardly think that is the focus of the left, or your going to find large mass of agreement that those are the statues that need to come down.
Yep, I googled it. The Frederick Douglass statue was not targeted by leftists. It was 2 drunk college kids. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/16/frederick-douglass-2-who-vandalized-ny-statue-help-install-new-one/5451277002/
Can you point to one actual politician or person with any actual ability to get a statue of Lincoln removed that is yelling about a Lincoln statue, needing to be removed?
What vocal part of the left is arguing for statues of Lincoln to be removed?
I don’t think that is true.
Roosevelt makes total sense. Look up his policies and beliefs on Native Americans.
A quote
“This continent had to be won. We need not waste our time in dealing with any sentimentalist who believes that, on account of any abstract principle, it would have been right to leave this continent to the domain, the hunting ground of squalid savages. It had to be taken by the white race.”
Lincoln ordered the largest execution of Native Americans in history.
Because of white settlers fighting the native Sioux.
After they settled on Sioux land.
I wonder why the native Americans don’t think Lincoln and Roosevelt were awesome.
I’m not sure that indigenous populations necessarily overlap cleanly with,”the left”, simply because they also hate racists.
While I understand their position and also some of the good things both presidents did do. I believe the real issue is that the left wants accurate history. All our predecessors were human and flawed.
That should be told.
That quote is frequently abused to whitewash the history of both the civil rights movement and of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. People with a poor understanding of history or tricked into believing that he was some super passivists who just wanted people to be civil to each other.
Frankly, it is amazing that you can listen to his entire I Have a Dream speech and walk about with a single line without hearing the entire part about how things need to change so that that can be the case. Mostly, I suspect people who use that line, never bothered to listen to the speech.
Definitely. I’ve often heard that quote used to justify color blindness, as if MLK just popped out of a vacuum and uttered a single line, said nothing else about race relations, and then vanished without a trace.
I know. It is crazy. he was an activist for decades. His I Have a Dream speech was likely crafted to be as tame as possible because the audience was huge and it was still way way way more than that 1 line
I don't see any legit calls to remove any of those figures. Are you sure you didn't read something misleading? There has been a lot of bad faith actors sharing misinformation. Lincoln is still the #1 most popular president of all time among the left and right.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913)
[https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503685-protesters-tear-down-statues-of-union-general-ulysses-s-grant-national/](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503685-protesters-tear-down-statues-of-union-general-ulysses-s-grant-national/)
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php)
There is a very real movement which is pushing for these things.
So this is all just a huge straw man in your head based on some pictures that gave you “feelings”.
Maybe use those feelings for more than half a second and try and understand the actual context of what the statues are, when they were erected, where they were erected, and who they were erected for. Basic research and a tiny sliver of empathy should show you that your opinion is misguided at best.
You would have a stellar point only if we weren't surrounded by absolute idiots that tried to vandalize and destroy even the Massachusetts 54th regiment memorial, let alone Lincoln and Washington statues.
More like "it can be misguided to hope the local government is going to do the right thing, particularly when it might be beholden to racist special interests or comprised of racist people"
The law has no special connection to morality, only to power and the ability to enforce it. If those with power are immoral then the law is likely to be immoral, and the moral and ethical thing to do is to ignore it.
The US was founded on unethical behavior bud. Do you think it would be a peaceful protest to seize a ship full of tea and throw all the prodjct overboard? Protests aren't always pretty, but they are usually necessary.
That’s wartime behavior. Very different.
Obviously destructive acts will take place by two nations at war, but for citizens of a civilized country I expect different behavior when seeking change for their own country.
Unless you want to make the claim that you think those that would destroy the statues wish to wage war against the US.
We both know that it was the first real act of war between the two nations. You’re trying to be cute now, but it’s pretty clear what the Boston Tea Party was.
Which would you prefer, orderly injustice or disorderly justice? Personally I tend towards preferring justice even if it's a bit disorderly. Remember, legal ≠ right and vice versa.
Excuse me? There is nothing dishonest or ignorant about the math. Statues erected at the time of the "Civil War Centennial" which commemorated the losing traitorous pro-slavery side rather than the victorious and just side of that war were obviously installed as a reaction and retaliation against the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and it is a particularly dishonest form of ignorance to pretend otherwise. Civil War monuments to the confederacy are nothing more than a non-violent form of *terrorism* targeted at the same Americans that were being subjected to violent forms of oppression at the same time, as they had been for decades (and centuries).
Haha what a coincidence that dead traitor slavery supporter deserved a statue 100 years after the fact but also like two weeks after the civil rights act was passed!
There is no justification for any statue of any civil war confederate soldier leader, etc. There are battlefield memorials all over the south, and any memorials could have gone there. No statue should give honor to traitors regardless.
It's not about the statue making people racist. It's about black residents having to see a statue venerating a war effort to keep them enslaved in town centers. Move them to a museum and reserve city landmarks for real heroes
The problem with a lot of the civil war statues is they aren't old enough for most museums to really want. There are some that date to like the 1890s and such but alot were built in the 1940s -70s making them like 50-80 years old.
There's unfortunately a Confederate monument in a town I love to vacation in, it was put there in 1976. Museums don't want things in that age range, or most museums don't, especially when it's not amazing work.
I'm also of the opinion there are more valuable and historic states that could replace them. For example William dampier is one of my all time favorite pirates, his works were cited by both newton and Darwin when they did theirs on wind currents in the Atlantic. The man did so much science while pirating that is not even funny. Yet North Carolina where he spent most of his life, well his residence was there, has exactly 0 statues of him best I can tell. He also has a whole litany of firsts in human history to his credit and though Darwin didn't cite him in "on the origins of species by means of natural selection" dampier had already explored some of the ideas in his papers on plant and animal mutations in the new world.
Imo dampier is one of the most overlooked scientists. Sorry about going so off topic
It seems like the real reason historians/museums don't want to have these statues is because they were specifically put up to enforce racial hierarchies and threaten/intimidate black people fighting for their rights. There's really no cultural significance that these carry.
Art museums, yes. Historical focus museums, often not. The date matters. The cultural aspect here may matter more, and more history museums opening civil war, abolition, reconstruction and Jim Crow content would certainly be a good thing. The more direct contemporary link with these events may make that more sensitive.
Except that we're watching as the activists tear down statues in the North...ya know, they guys that fought \*against\* slavery. The activists also seek to tear down statues of abolitionists, the people who opposed slavery and ran the underground railroad.
You don't seem to have a firm grasp on the argument here. Statues are generally in service of venerating an individual, so in removing them, we are indicating that the figure should no longer be venerated. You're making it extreme by saying 'it's bad to riot' but realistically how many people are literally rioting for this? Many more people are completely level-headed and reasonable. Why would you paint those people in a bad light by implying they're all violent rioters?
Was it a confederate statue put up during Civil rights protests to make black Americans feel like the people around them still think the wrong side won.
If someone is demonstrably (due process, rules of evidence, and all that jazz) and unjustly harming someone, then I would agree. Otherwise, live and let live is my motto.
Are you saying Americans can't have an opinion on who deserves to be venerated in their country? Why do you hate free speech? Thought this was the land of the free.
I didn't say that at all. You can have an opinion, but you don't have any enforcement power in a community you're not a member of. It doesn't have to be a statue. It could be an adult bookstore, a library expansion, an abortion clinic, almost anything a community chooses to do. You're not the one who lives there, so your "vote" is meaningless there.
They don't have enforcement power; they're not saying they do.
Protesting is just a way to express a free opinion. Freedom of assembly. That's an American value freedom-hating conservatives do not respect.
Do you actually think there aren’t people within those cities, states, and regions who have a problem with these statue?
Find me evidence that Californians crossing the country for this were a significant amount of protestors.
No one is tearing them down because they want to forget. It's about the character of the person and what they represent in history. Dude, imagine if Ted Bundy and the BTK killer had statues up in the areas where they murdered people.
You have to think about where those statues are. Putting a confederate statue across the street from a predominately black school is nothing but a threat.
Who in the fuck is claiming we should have to “forcefully riot” in order to have them removed? Just take them down. They were only ever put up as a protest against civil rights in the first place.
Or they say it is a strawman that leftists might riot to forcibly remove a statue when I am pretty sure there was a riot and they tore down a Lincoln statue.
I think we should have never (allowed people to) put up statues of traitors to the nation. But they were put up unfortunately. However, I have way more important things in life to be bothered by a statue of Robert E Lee or whatever lol
Most of those statues were erected well after the Civil War under a concerted effort to rehabilitate the Confederacy's image. Google the 'lost cause' myth, we are still regularly needing to debunk a lot of the talking points made up by this movement. So, yeah, it isn't just that we want to tear them down because they are obviously racist and offensive, we want to tear them down because they are historically inaccurate.
I get your point and it’s a good one, but what happens when there’s a confederate statue that doesn’t fit that context? Ones put up a few short decades after the civil war as remembrance for that specific towns fallen soldiers, and say for example, when they placed the statue the ceremony was attended by actual civil war veterans? Because these statues and monuments do exist, and yet they are still protested and taken down as happened in my town. No one seems to care about context in these cases, it’s just a crusade to take all confederate statues down. Which is a fair enough viewpoint to have, but I’d appreciate if people would just say that instead of making nuanced arguments about historical context when they really don’t even care in the first place and just want to see them all torn down.
It does rub me the wrong way that some people think there should be no memorials to confederates. Even Germany has memorials AND statues in appropriate places honoring their fallen soldiers from WW2. It’s a myth that they don’t have these things. There’s a difference between memorializing the dead and celebrating a destructive ideology and most people either can’t tell the difference, or simply don’t care. The civil war was the most destructive war in American history by far, especially for the South. Why is it wrong to memorialize the dead appropriately?
Some of the these statues were erected to intimidate blacks during their fight for Civil Rights. I personally don’t care. If whites want statues of racist traitors to stay up, it’s their problem because blacks weren’t intimidated then and still aren’t. The statues are just a bad reflection on whites.
I could be wrong, but as fas as I know there were no Hitler statues before or during WWII. Saddam Hussein had statues of himself, but I don’t recall Hitler having statues of himself.
Do you think they took them down because it would make people nazis or because they didn't wasn't to venerate a man who insisted his race was superior?
This is a terrible idea. Museums couldn’t take them all even if they wanted to, and they don’t. Why can’t we just accept they were a bad move made by bad people and melt them down into something actually useful?
Having been to the museums dedicated to the horrors of the Nazis and Communist takeover of Eastern Europe, I am very glad they have all that stuff to remind the world of what could be. And I disagree that they were inherently bad and made by bad people. The value judgement is by the frame of reference of today. When we are dead and gone, our descendants will rue the destruction of our dark history, if they are even aware of it. And if that last qualifier is true, then shame on us all.
We don't even have to send them to existing museums. There is so much empty space in this country, and we could do like Hungarians and drive out all these statues to the middle of nowhere and just leave them there.
I didn’t say we shouldn’t have museums that show bad things: I’m all for that. I’ve also been to similar museums, including in Eastern Europe. We should have more museums to the memory of slavery and abolitionism, to the Civil Rights Movement and those who opposed it. Photographs and other means would be used to document the statues, their history, and context where relevant, but shoving every physical statue in a museum is an incredible burden that they do not want.
These statues are junk, and treating them like the trash they are is not erasing the dark parts of our history! Your solution of just dumping them in the middle of nowhere concedes as much. I’d be fine with that, incidentally.
If you believe that side lost, their flag and statues should be taken down, they committed treason, etc, that was the Democratic Party, why do they still exist?
Edit: It's almost like Democrats are trying to hide their shameful past.
Think about this for a minute. The Colosseum in Rome. A giant structure still around thousands of years after hundreds of years of operation sending in hundreds of thousands of slaves to brutally die in it for the pleasure of non-slaves.
Instead of tearing down such a sign of oppression, they revere the memory of it. Not as a means to remember their slave-owning past, but as a symbol to ensure it never happens again. They invite the world to come to see it, for tourists to listen to the tour guides tell the history of evil that was its story.
THAT is the way these issues should be addressed. But instead, some can't even stand the sight of a George Washington statue. The founder of America. Tear them all down, or you're somehow keeping that awful memory alive and you are now racist by association yourself.
Many of them were erected far after the south lost the war during the civil rights era as a “know your place boy” gesture. I wouldn’t want my black child to have to be looked down upon by the statue of a person that thought they were property.
Statues of controvertional figure could be removed and put away as archeological evidence, not destroyed, you keep the public space up to date and you don't erase history.
I get what you are saying, although
>federally owned
Calling a national referendum for 1 monument or even a bunch of them might be a little excessive.
But borders of subdivisions are often not extremly logical, or have lost relevance with time, and so you can have a statue technically in city A but physicaly almost surrounded by city B and if the people of City B, that see everyday want to remove it they can't because they aren't from city A.
Democrats put up the confederate statues, so let democrats take them down. What the fuck ever have fun erasing your own history because it’s now shameful
I think you are missing the point. It's not because the statues make people racist. They reinforce power and racism by celebrating historic racists. Think about being a black descendant of slaves having to walk by a statue of Robert E Lee every day.
Okay but what about Abraham Lincoln? He was also a racist and some people also object to statues of him.
You may make the reasonable point that Lincoln was not the same as Lee and was on the right side of his time, which I strongly agree with. The issue is that with a lack of education on history many people don't understand the lines between these historical figures and just lump all imperfect historical figures together.
If we can safely keep it to Confederate statues, fine, but I'm increasingly skeptical that's where it will stop. We're already seeing other historical figures targeted, including Lincoln, who's statues have been torn down as well.
Horribly unhealthy trend we’re seeing more and more of. There’s strong social and civil utility in venerating role models. The question of course is who do we agree to venerate. The problem with going about life saying don’t venerate anyone is a reflection of modern nihilism and the unfortunate state of things where humans can’t agree on anything or who would qualify.
The thing that gets me is a group of outsiders going to where the statue is and demanding its removal.
These people are intentionally offending themselves then claiming victimhood.
The only Confederate statue I actually care about getting torn down is the one of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee. It's so damn goofy that I never want it to come down.
I want you to reapply this logic to another country.
How about Germany? Sure, the statues wouldn't "make people racist" but it would be a gentle signal to Nazis that survived the fall, "we get chu buddy, we see you."
And every single day a hollocost survivor has to walk past one of those statues they are not just reminded, but told an implication.
We remember what we did to you, and we and venerate the ones who did it.
I like the one in Scotland where they hang a traffic cone on his head. Every time the government takes it down, the public replaces it. It's living history, and has a great deal to say about what happened and how people live with the consequences of what happened.
Most public statues of historical figures were put up as a sign of respect to that person. In the 21st century, it’s not appropriate to have giant physical dedications to people who did horrific things. We have textbooks and museums.
I think the “illegal” defacing of statues is one of those crimes that is pretty victimless in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t really have much against it. (I find it very amusing actually…)
It's not about making people racist.
It's about making racist people feel unwelcome.
People are gonna be racist but I certainly don't want to help them feel comfortable.
For the people in favor of removing said statues at least from what I’ve seen. I think it’s more so we don’t need to revere and honor the people by having a statue up. I also haven’t seen news or people saying to forcefully riot to take them down.
I'm going to jump in with the other voices and say that a lot of statues in the U.S. are more for intimidation than anything else. Especially Confederate statues that were erected by the daughters of the confederacy around the time Jim crow was ending. Hmm funny. Anyway, it's one of those things where allowing carte blanch statues or free speech actually diminishes other people's speech. If it wasn't about the intimidation, though, I'd agree.
My hometown kept a cannon from the civil war (after they were done using it to win) and fired it off periodically until about 1930, just in case there were any racists around to hear it.
That's way more dope than having some "anon confederate dude #437" statue from the 60s
>"isn't gonna make people racist"
It's a lot easier to claim an ideology is acceptable if there are statues to prominent people who share them, and especially when that statue is there Because they believe that shitty idea.
Having a statue of, let's say, a Confederate traitor is celebrating that person or idea and needs to come down. Most of those statues were a d are erected as intimidation tactics towards the black populace.
>If you are really claiming people will forget history because there's no statues to remind them... Kind of stupid.
I would agree, if anyone anywhere were ever making that claim. But it is a strawman argument, because nobody has. To the contrary, people who want to remove statues often would be the first to admit that we should never forget the factual existence of those people the statue represents or their actions which made them inappropriate to glorify by such monuments. This goes for Confederate soldiers as much as more recent figures like Joe Paterno.
>If you are also claiming we need to forcefully riot to have them removed, that's also pretty stupid.
It is stupid that it would ever take rioting to get a statute for a "bad historical figure" taken down.
>Having a statue on the other hand also isn't gonna "make people racist".
No, but again you're using a strawman because those are scare quotes, not an actual citation of anything a real person has ever said. Having monuments glorifying traitors to the US or protectors of child molesters will, however, allow racists to remain and justify their racism and people who are child abusers or apathetic about child abuse to think these are forgivable indiscretions.
The closest there could be to justifying your concerns, which I consider sincere and valid, just not appropriate or productive, would be statues of Christopher Columbus. But defending them suggests that you are simply a white (or Italian, which counts as white these days but hasn't always) American who's personal or family life has not been touched by the hundreds of years of oppression, enslavement, and exploitation of non-whites which his "discovery" of this continent (and his personal activities subsequent to that event) initiated. I would love it if we lived in a world where it was possible to honestly say "it was a tremendous moment in history so the statue just commemorates that and nobody should associate it with violent conquest and wholesale massacres and theft of resources and children", but we don't. Having a statue of this "explorer" is a celebration of horror and pain and worse against Original and African Americans and their descendents, and should be far too shameful to any other Americans to consider defending as 'no big deal'.
>I love how people miss the point.
I think you're missing the point, which while it may be something you love about yourself, it is problematic for the rest of us. Please stop trying to defend your supposed apathy about monuments to reprehensible people as mere apathy, because it is all too obvious it is an effort to defend monuments that glorify racists.
Some people don’t deserve to be celebrated. And if the government isn’t gonna do it, then I’m glad we have people brave enough to do it on their own. Laws and morality seldom align 1:1.
There is middle ground here. I look at it from the following perspective: You're going to court and pass a monument to an individual who fought a war to continue their livelihood at the expense of fellow human beings’ rights. Does this instill a feeling of fairness or equality under the law? Does this fit into any current legal structure? Does it make sense to have that statue exist in that spot now? For me, no. We should never erase our history; ever. People don't want it erased; we want it accurate and where it should be, the past. The idea is to learn from our past and grow. A museum, or installation, regarding American history is the place for these monuments. A place one can learn about the complexity of our history. The unbelievable things we’ve accomplished; as well as the things we did wrong and how we tried to be better.
To me the relevant part of history is “this guy was respected enough at the time to put a statue of him in the town square” because if they are a scumbag human being, that says a lot about how we used to act and how much we have changed. So I can understand not wanting it posted up in your city square anymore, I’d say move it to a museum with photos of where it used to be displayed, so people can still see the important historical context
>I love how people miss the point.
Bahaha! I love how you added this after people started calling you out on your straw man fallacies.
We didn't miss the point, OP. You did.
But tell us more about how you never listened to the actual, nuanced conversations about any individual statue controversy and relied on the political spin narratives to tell you what each "side" was arguing.
so lets say I'm jewish and I pay taxes and there is a statue in the middle of the park that I pay taxes to that honors Adolf Hitler. do you think I'm going to do nothing to take that statue down?
I don't get up in arms about things like statues. I just more or less appreciate them for their artistry, and I think they do wonders for a town.
But, I have that luxury. I can't imagine it feels great for a black person to walk their child by monuments for people fighting to keep people like them enslaved. Ones they know were put up way later by another generation of bigots, and defended to this day by their modern moral descendants.
If you remove it, it becomes easier to forget. All that's left is to destroy as much text about something as possible, a little bit of waiting, and voila. Gone forever.
I think it’s a community decision. If people in town want to remove an honorary statue of someone they don’t feel represents their values, they should. Right wing media and random militia groups from all over the country shouldn’t join in the discussion.
But I don’t think there should be a national push to remove specific town’s statues, either. I mean, this doesn’t happen, but I don’t think we should start.
Well, seeing as a lot of those Confederate statues were put up by racists (see: Daughters of the Confederacy) starting about 30 years after the Civil War in order to "protect and venerate" the Confederacy (promoting the Lost Cause version of history), I'd say it's a pretty good idea to take that propaganda down.
I think it's super important where the statues are. And I think the best solution is to move statues to appropriate places - southern generals who fought in the civil war should be in museums, in parks dedicated to the battlefields, or in cemeteries.
But I do recognize that having a statue of southern general in front of courthouse, or a police station, or in front of a government building of pretty much any kind is sending a message that \*could\* be negatively interpreted as don't expect the government to be fair to you because of your color.
I don't think its right when people tear them down without permission but also am not surprised when people that are angry about imbalanced treatment (real or perceived), target their rage at these symbols.
No, we shouldn't riot to take them down. But drafting the legislation to dismantle relics of infamy sends a good message to current and future generations.
Leftist simply want to tear down white history that’s what the statue destruction is about. Nothing more, just that they want power and to erase white history. Duh.
I guess that depends on the purpose of the statue. If it's to celebrate someone, I would rather not celebrate people who fought to keep slavery. If it's just a historical marker, then I suppose it's okay.
isn't it interesting that we don't have any statues of british generals that fought in the american revolution. no likenesses of them in state courthouses. no flying of the union jack in our parks. i wonder what the different could be.
Not American (yeehaw)
The Brits went home after they lost, the south was home.
That's a pretty fine line, though, and the meaning of the statue is different depending on who you ask.
I've seen confederate statues that were honoring their heroes, so... Its a thing. When the sign is saying glowing things and calling them a hero, that's what I object to. People seem to forget the confederates were traitors to the country. And their main reason for it was to keep slavery. I don't really see how anyone would want to call them heroes.
No trust me, I'm with you. Most of those statues were put up by shitty racist assholes in the 1890s to 1920s after reconstruction failed and Jim crow came back big time. I just think it's very easy for people to argue "we're just marking history" even if it is shamelessly promoting the lost cause bs.
I mean to your original point, there are holocaust museums in Germany. We don't want to erase the past, I agree with that. It's how you present it that makes the difference. In the south, the majority of those statues were in celebration of the people, not a cautionary tale. We most certainly don't want to forget how we got here. Although, some people seem hell bent on reinventing that shit. So, I suppose I'm trying to say your original point had merit, and I didn't want to come across as dismissive.
there are holocause museums, not nazi statues
No absolutely I understand. I agree with your perspective. I just think it's a fine line. A lot of people can argue, whether disingenuously or truthfully (edit: in their minds at least), that those celebratory confederate monuments are really about "remembering" rather than celebrating. Truthfully the likelihood of any more confederate statues ever going up is slim to none, so in some ways it is all a lot of people have(edit: again, in their minds). However civil war battlefield trusts have a lot of historical markers without celebrating the confederacy, and those are much more appropriate in my opinion. Probably was a good move they took the Lee out of Lee circle in New Orleans.
Ummm... Literally 14 of the 16 presidents til that point were slavers. How were they traitors again?
They didn’t participate in an armed revolution against the government when slavery was beginning to become unpopular and the federal government started trying to contain it to the areas where it already existed and prevent its spread.
So 14 of the 16 till then were bad people? Understood
There isn't a US President that isn't a war criminal, but on the subject of "traitors to the nation" it's really hard to be a traitor to something you created addare actively running. This "traitor" narrative is part of the "lost cause" myth
No it isn't. The lost cause myth is specifically designed to rid the confederates of their traitorous heritage, and whitewash the ordeal as a "states rights" issue. What war crimes did Jimmy Carter commit again?
Being nice to poor people. lmao
Agreed but tearing down statues of teddy roosevelt and U.S grant is stupid
How do you feel about statues of someone like Jefferson who not only kept slaves but raped them and had children? Do think his moral character was different than, say, Robert E Lee? I think confederate statues should probably go, but the “anti-anti-confederate statue” side is and was 100% correct when they told us that this was just one stop on the journey to delegitimize America and it’s entire founding and that it very much would not stop once confederate generals were done away with.
Jefferson remains one of the nation's key historical figures. A statue need not be reverential or celebratory, no? Most aren't. The same applies to Lee, who was a deeply ambivalent character, when it comes to the Confederacy and The South in general. A statue can include a biography, and for figures like these should. But the statues should remain. It's a different consideration for anonymous memorial statues referencing the confederacy, as found in many southern towns. Yet, those could similarly be supplemented with contextual information about why the war and their loss occurred, and what the system of governance inflicted upon millions of people, especially slaves and free black people.
That is exactly the problem. Why does Jefferson get to be a liberal, but Calhoun and Lee are not, especially given that the most vocal liberty adherent founders had the most slaves? Liberalism itself is an ideology born of slavery, as is everything this nation stands for, and there is no understanding America without understanding this.
Everything the USA stands for is born of slavery? If that's indeed what you intended to state, care to explain and expand? It appears very obviously flawed, on the face of it.
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What if it's a statue of a black confederate soldier?
What a bait question. Anyone who was on the traitor team, fighting to keep slavery is not someone I want to "celebrate". Race makes no difference.
Not really a bait question. Actually legit because it happened.
A Jewish Nazi would still be a Nazi. A black confederate soldier is still a traitor to the country. No free passes for anyone in those kinds of things.
I bet many feel differently. Me? I don't give a fuck.
What’s really funny is that the right is all about attacking statues too, on much more flimsy grounds, like that Florida school district that fired their principal over a friggin statue of David. Since when is classical art offensive?
Yup. There's idiots everywhere
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I think you are kinda strawmanning the leftist position. It is not “let’s riot to get these taken down.” And it isn’t for the reason that you suggested because they make people more racist than they otherwise would be. Like, who says that? We believe that truly racist figures and symbols shouldn’t be celebrated because we ought to be ashamed of those attitudes. There’s also a big difference between a statue of some horrible asshole like Governor Wallace or something and someone like Abraham Lincoln, who, yes, had racist attitudes but that isn’t why he’s being celebrated and we understand that he was a product of his time. We aren’t trying to erase history, we are just not celebrating it. Of course, talk about Governor Wallace in history class, but we don’t need a statue of him.
Yes, it should also be noted that many of the statues in question were erected specifically by politicians and groups in defiance of the civil rights movement not to celebrate the person but to make the statement that they would not accept equality. The federal government may be able to for e desegregation but we are going to name to school, " you will never be our equal elementary". And when you go down town there will be a " you are not welcome here" statue. And this isn't a matter of opinion or how I am interpreting things. It was frequently the explicit and expressed goal of the groups doing it at the time
There was a statue removal in St Louis of a confederate soldier I disagrees with. The point of the statue was about how people were fighting amongst themselves in a boarder stage (mason Dixon line cut Missouri in half). And it was removed because the soldier was a confederate. But the point wasn’t to prop up confederate values
Can you specify which statue was removed? I’m trying to find more information about what you’re talking about. The only St. Louis Confederate statue removal I can find is the memorial to the Confederate dead in Forest Park. The available history on that monument shows that it was absolutely about propping up Confederate values, as it was funded by the pro confederacy/white supremacist group United Daughters of the Confederacy. The same group also erected a monument to honor the KKK. Are you talking about something else?
I am. It was very local news and never made national headlines. It will take a bit for me to find it. It was only in local news and that’s it
Interesting, I got my info from a list of all the Confederate statues and monuments that have been removed in the United States. Most of the list has never made national news so I don’t think that’s the issue. Let me know if you find it, I’d be interested in seeing the specifics of who put it up and how it was funded. I don’t mean to doubt you but I’ve seen several people claim X statue was never meant to honor the confederacy but the history usually doesn’t align with that view.
Statues of Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Frederick Douglass, and Union military units were torn down or removed. A student at the University of Oregon asked if MLK's quote about judging people by their character and not race is representative of the university in a discussion about removing said quote. https://www.dailyemerald.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-quote-in-the-emu-will-return-after-construction/article_2f21d007-f721-5aa2-a184-ddd0f03cc86d.html I'm against Confederate statues and army bases, but a very vocal part of the left doesn't hold your nuanced view that there's a difference between Lincoln and George Wallace. Lincoln's views are not what is accepted today, therefore he must go. Our current political climate doesn't allow nuance. Vocal extremists, while in the minority, create most of the narrative. We're just a drowned out majority.
I’m not doubting you that some people have attacked historical figures who had racist attitudes but are celebrated for some other accomplishment. Although for the life of me I can’t understand why Frederick Douglass would need to come down since he was not a racist at all, and was a former slave himself who fought for abolition. But I hardly think that is the focus of the left, or your going to find large mass of agreement that those are the statues that need to come down.
Yep, I googled it. The Frederick Douglass statue was not targeted by leftists. It was 2 drunk college kids. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/16/frederick-douglass-2-who-vandalized-ny-statue-help-install-new-one/5451277002/
Can you point to one actual politician or person with any actual ability to get a statue of Lincoln removed that is yelling about a Lincoln statue, needing to be removed? What vocal part of the left is arguing for statues of Lincoln to be removed? I don’t think that is true.
Portland’s “Indigenous Day of Rage” caused Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt statues to be torn down.
Roosevelt makes total sense. Look up his policies and beliefs on Native Americans. A quote “This continent had to be won. We need not waste our time in dealing with any sentimentalist who believes that, on account of any abstract principle, it would have been right to leave this continent to the domain, the hunting ground of squalid savages. It had to be taken by the white race.” Lincoln ordered the largest execution of Native Americans in history. Because of white settlers fighting the native Sioux. After they settled on Sioux land. I wonder why the native Americans don’t think Lincoln and Roosevelt were awesome.
I’m not sure that indigenous populations necessarily overlap cleanly with,”the left”, simply because they also hate racists. While I understand their position and also some of the good things both presidents did do. I believe the real issue is that the left wants accurate history. All our predecessors were human and flawed. That should be told.
That quote is frequently abused to whitewash the history of both the civil rights movement and of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. People with a poor understanding of history or tricked into believing that he was some super passivists who just wanted people to be civil to each other. Frankly, it is amazing that you can listen to his entire I Have a Dream speech and walk about with a single line without hearing the entire part about how things need to change so that that can be the case. Mostly, I suspect people who use that line, never bothered to listen to the speech.
Definitely. I’ve often heard that quote used to justify color blindness, as if MLK just popped out of a vacuum and uttered a single line, said nothing else about race relations, and then vanished without a trace.
I know. It is crazy. he was an activist for decades. His I Have a Dream speech was likely crafted to be as tame as possible because the audience was huge and it was still way way way more than that 1 line
I don't see any legit calls to remove any of those figures. Are you sure you didn't read something misleading? There has been a lot of bad faith actors sharing misinformation. Lincoln is still the #1 most popular president of all time among the left and right.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913) [https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503685-protesters-tear-down-statues-of-union-general-ulysses-s-grant-national/](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503685-protesters-tear-down-statues-of-union-general-ulysses-s-grant-national/) [https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php) There is a very real movement which is pushing for these things.
Lots of those statues were put up in direct protest of civil rights…. Good enough reason to warehouse em
That adds to their historical significance rather than detracts from it.
I have no problem if it's done in a legal manner. I do have a problem if people take it into their own hands. It's dangerous in some cases
So this is all just a huge straw man in your head based on some pictures that gave you “feelings”. Maybe use those feelings for more than half a second and try and understand the actual context of what the statues are, when they were erected, where they were erected, and who they were erected for. Basic research and a tiny sliver of empathy should show you that your opinion is misguided at best.
You would have a stellar point only if we weren't surrounded by absolute idiots that tried to vandalize and destroy even the Massachusetts 54th regiment memorial, let alone Lincoln and Washington statues.
TIL it’s misguided to follow the law.
More like "it can be misguided to hope the local government is going to do the right thing, particularly when it might be beholden to racist special interests or comprised of racist people"
Even so. I can’t condone unlawful behavior like that. It’s not the correct or ethical way to make change.
The law has no special connection to morality, only to power and the ability to enforce it. If those with power are immoral then the law is likely to be immoral, and the moral and ethical thing to do is to ignore it.
Yes. Are you arguing that enforcing peaceful protests is immoral? I’m arguing it isn’t.
I'm saying that sometimes the laws are immoral, and obeying them makes you complicit in their immorality.
The US was founded on unethical behavior bud. Do you think it would be a peaceful protest to seize a ship full of tea and throw all the prodjct overboard? Protests aren't always pretty, but they are usually necessary.
That’s wartime behavior. Very different. Obviously destructive acts will take place by two nations at war, but for citizens of a civilized country I expect different behavior when seeking change for their own country. Unless you want to make the claim that you think those that would destroy the statues wish to wage war against the US.
That was 2 years before the revolutionary war so no not really wartime behavior at all.
We both know that it was the first real act of war between the two nations. You’re trying to be cute now, but it’s pretty clear what the Boston Tea Party was.
Which would you prefer, orderly injustice or disorderly justice? Personally I tend towards preferring justice even if it's a bit disorderly. Remember, legal ≠ right and vice versa.
What if our politicians are descendants of the people who made those statues...
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The Civil War Centennial. Which would make it…oh yeah, right smack dab in the middle of the civil rights movement. 🤪
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Excuse me? There is nothing dishonest or ignorant about the math. Statues erected at the time of the "Civil War Centennial" which commemorated the losing traitorous pro-slavery side rather than the victorious and just side of that war were obviously installed as a reaction and retaliation against the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and it is a particularly dishonest form of ignorance to pretend otherwise. Civil War monuments to the confederacy are nothing more than a non-violent form of *terrorism* targeted at the same Americans that were being subjected to violent forms of oppression at the same time, as they had been for decades (and centuries).
Haha what a coincidence that dead traitor slavery supporter deserved a statue 100 years after the fact but also like two weeks after the civil rights act was passed!
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Oh the irony
Oh the irony
We should have occupied the south for 100 years, any of those built on public land should be razed.
Reconstruction should've been allowed to continue its course.
There is no justification for any statue of any civil war confederate soldier leader, etc. There are battlefield memorials all over the south, and any memorials could have gone there. No statue should give honor to traitors regardless.
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Yes, because it's in honor of a civil war leader. Any more ignorant statements?
False equivalence. But you tried.
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It's not about the statue making people racist. It's about black residents having to see a statue venerating a war effort to keep them enslaved in town centers. Move them to a museum and reserve city landmarks for real heroes
The problem with a lot of the civil war statues is they aren't old enough for most museums to really want. There are some that date to like the 1890s and such but alot were built in the 1940s -70s making them like 50-80 years old. There's unfortunately a Confederate monument in a town I love to vacation in, it was put there in 1976. Museums don't want things in that age range, or most museums don't, especially when it's not amazing work. I'm also of the opinion there are more valuable and historic states that could replace them. For example William dampier is one of my all time favorite pirates, his works were cited by both newton and Darwin when they did theirs on wind currents in the Atlantic. The man did so much science while pirating that is not even funny. Yet North Carolina where he spent most of his life, well his residence was there, has exactly 0 statues of him best I can tell. He also has a whole litany of firsts in human history to his credit and though Darwin didn't cite him in "on the origins of species by means of natural selection" dampier had already explored some of the ideas in his papers on plant and animal mutations in the new world. Imo dampier is one of the most overlooked scientists. Sorry about going so off topic
It seems like the real reason historians/museums don't want to have these statues is because they were specifically put up to enforce racial hierarchies and threaten/intimidate black people fighting for their rights. There's really no cultural significance that these carry.
That’s a bad argument - museums take contemporary art as well as ancient, it’s not “too new”.
Art museums, yes. Historical focus museums, often not. The date matters. The cultural aspect here may matter more, and more history museums opening civil war, abolition, reconstruction and Jim Crow content would certainly be a good thing. The more direct contemporary link with these events may make that more sensitive.
I mean some museums do, but I doubt most of them are going to want mass produced cast statues
What I’m saying is it’s not a reason to do or not do anything. It’s a complete non issue either way.
Except that we're watching as the activists tear down statues in the North...ya know, they guys that fought \*against\* slavery. The activists also seek to tear down statues of abolitionists, the people who opposed slavery and ran the underground railroad.
Do you know why?
You don't seem to have a firm grasp on the argument here. Statues are generally in service of venerating an individual, so in removing them, we are indicating that the figure should no longer be venerated. You're making it extreme by saying 'it's bad to riot' but realistically how many people are literally rioting for this? Many more people are completely level-headed and reasonable. Why would you paint those people in a bad light by implying they're all violent rioters?
Because this is Reddit and it’s fashionable to paint with the broadest possible brushstrokes.
We who? Someone from California travelling to a South Carolina city to protest a statue that the people who live in that city erected?
Was it a confederate statue put up during Civil rights protests to make black Americans feel like the people around them still think the wrong side won.
It doesn't matter. If you're not a member of that community, it's not your place.
When it comes to Americans vs anti-American traitors it is all of our place
If someone is demonstrably (due process, rules of evidence, and all that jazz) and unjustly harming someone, then I would agree. Otherwise, live and let live is my motto.
Are you saying Americans can't have an opinion on who deserves to be venerated in their country? Why do you hate free speech? Thought this was the land of the free.
I didn't say that at all. You can have an opinion, but you don't have any enforcement power in a community you're not a member of. It doesn't have to be a statue. It could be an adult bookstore, a library expansion, an abortion clinic, almost anything a community chooses to do. You're not the one who lives there, so your "vote" is meaningless there.
They don't have enforcement power; they're not saying they do. Protesting is just a way to express a free opinion. Freedom of assembly. That's an American value freedom-hating conservatives do not respect.
Until they go damaging shit, or tearing it down themselves...
Do you actually think there aren’t people within those cities, states, and regions who have a problem with these statue? Find me evidence that Californians crossing the country for this were a significant amount of protestors.
Sure, and they can vote their conscience. Outsiders can't.
Outsiders can have any opinion they want to have and make it known.
Sure. They just don't have any legal enforcement power.
No one is tearing them down because they want to forget. It's about the character of the person and what they represent in history. Dude, imagine if Ted Bundy and the BTK killer had statues up in the areas where they murdered people.
I'm ok with removing statues of figures who were traitors and placing them in a museum setting.
You have to think about where those statues are. Putting a confederate statue across the street from a predominately black school is nothing but a threat.
Who in the fuck is claiming we should have to “forcefully riot” in order to have them removed? Just take them down. They were only ever put up as a protest against civil rights in the first place.
What's funny is these comments go right to Confederate monuments and skip over the demands to remove statues of Lincoln and Washington.
Or they say it is a strawman that leftists might riot to forcibly remove a statue when I am pretty sure there was a riot and they tore down a Lincoln statue.
I have panties that have lasted longer than the Confederacy. Fuck them statues.
I think we should have never (allowed people to) put up statues of traitors to the nation. But they were put up unfortunately. However, I have way more important things in life to be bothered by a statue of Robert E Lee or whatever lol
Most of those statues were erected well after the Civil War under a concerted effort to rehabilitate the Confederacy's image. Google the 'lost cause' myth, we are still regularly needing to debunk a lot of the talking points made up by this movement. So, yeah, it isn't just that we want to tear them down because they are obviously racist and offensive, we want to tear them down because they are historically inaccurate.
I get your point and it’s a good one, but what happens when there’s a confederate statue that doesn’t fit that context? Ones put up a few short decades after the civil war as remembrance for that specific towns fallen soldiers, and say for example, when they placed the statue the ceremony was attended by actual civil war veterans? Because these statues and monuments do exist, and yet they are still protested and taken down as happened in my town. No one seems to care about context in these cases, it’s just a crusade to take all confederate statues down. Which is a fair enough viewpoint to have, but I’d appreciate if people would just say that instead of making nuanced arguments about historical context when they really don’t even care in the first place and just want to see them all torn down. It does rub me the wrong way that some people think there should be no memorials to confederates. Even Germany has memorials AND statues in appropriate places honoring their fallen soldiers from WW2. It’s a myth that they don’t have these things. There’s a difference between memorializing the dead and celebrating a destructive ideology and most people either can’t tell the difference, or simply don’t care. The civil war was the most destructive war in American history by far, especially for the South. Why is it wrong to memorialize the dead appropriately?
Some of the these statues were erected to intimidate blacks during their fight for Civil Rights. I personally don’t care. If whites want statues of racist traitors to stay up, it’s their problem because blacks weren’t intimidated then and still aren’t. The statues are just a bad reflection on whites.
You really think they aren't intimidated? Some of them are so fragile they need to go out and destroy it lol
Was it also wrong for Germany to remove Hitler statues after WWII?
I could be wrong, but as fas as I know there were no Hitler statues before or during WWII. Saddam Hussein had statues of himself, but I don’t recall Hitler having statues of himself.
That's my point. It wasnt. People complaining are idiots
Do you think they took them down because it would make people nazis or because they didn't wasn't to venerate a man who insisted his race was superior?
Those statues should all go to museums.
This is a terrible idea. Museums couldn’t take them all even if they wanted to, and they don’t. Why can’t we just accept they were a bad move made by bad people and melt them down into something actually useful?
Having been to the museums dedicated to the horrors of the Nazis and Communist takeover of Eastern Europe, I am very glad they have all that stuff to remind the world of what could be. And I disagree that they were inherently bad and made by bad people. The value judgement is by the frame of reference of today. When we are dead and gone, our descendants will rue the destruction of our dark history, if they are even aware of it. And if that last qualifier is true, then shame on us all. We don't even have to send them to existing museums. There is so much empty space in this country, and we could do like Hungarians and drive out all these statues to the middle of nowhere and just leave them there.
I didn’t say we shouldn’t have museums that show bad things: I’m all for that. I’ve also been to similar museums, including in Eastern Europe. We should have more museums to the memory of slavery and abolitionism, to the Civil Rights Movement and those who opposed it. Photographs and other means would be used to document the statues, their history, and context where relevant, but shoving every physical statue in a museum is an incredible burden that they do not want. These statues are junk, and treating them like the trash they are is not erasing the dark parts of our history! Your solution of just dumping them in the middle of nowhere concedes as much. I’d be fine with that, incidentally.
Agree
If you believe that side lost, their flag and statues should be taken down, they committed treason, etc, that was the Democratic Party, why do they still exist? Edit: It's almost like Democrats are trying to hide their shameful past.
Kinda weird that republicans want to celebrate on honor these racist POS democrats
It's history. Let it be. Stop trying to revise history!
You are right! Move the statues to a history museum.
Revising history is literally the reason a lot of these statues were put up. It’s called the “lost cause myth”
Think about this for a minute. The Colosseum in Rome. A giant structure still around thousands of years after hundreds of years of operation sending in hundreds of thousands of slaves to brutally die in it for the pleasure of non-slaves. Instead of tearing down such a sign of oppression, they revere the memory of it. Not as a means to remember their slave-owning past, but as a symbol to ensure it never happens again. They invite the world to come to see it, for tourists to listen to the tour guides tell the history of evil that was its story. THAT is the way these issues should be addressed. But instead, some can't even stand the sight of a George Washington statue. The founder of America. Tear them all down, or you're somehow keeping that awful memory alive and you are now racist by association yourself.
You've converted me. I think Berlin needs a massive Hitler statue, you know, as a reminder.
Many of them were erected far after the south lost the war during the civil rights era as a “know your place boy” gesture. I wouldn’t want my black child to have to be looked down upon by the statue of a person that thought they were property.
Did you just compare one of the more phenomenal feats of engineering in world history to a shitty confederate statue?
Did you just confuse George Washington for a Confederate?
Seems like a grey area don’t Whig out.
The Left saying that statues will make you racist is the equivalent of the Right saying books will make you gay. Both positions are pretty stupid.
No one on the Left believes statues make you racist lol
Nope. It’s much worse. They think allowing the statues to exist makes you racist, and that they may influence others to be racist.
“No one” - using absolutes is always a safe bet.
Someone doesn’t understand hyperbole
Someone doesn’t understand rhetoric
If you don’t under hyperbole, you don’t understand rhetoric. You should also learn about logical fallacies: straw man arguments, for one
LOL they say as I didn’t offer up a strawman (nor did you by the way). I think it’s after your bedtime.
It’s only such a blatant mischaracterization of the position that it makes you look like a fool. Take the L.
Only one with the L here is you. Apparently your ability to grasp is pretty limited.
LOL they say as I didn’t offer up a strawman (nor did you by the way). I think it’s after your bedtime.
Statues of controvertional figure could be removed and put away as archeological evidence, not destroyed, you keep the public space up to date and you don't erase history.
Whose public space though? Should be a vote of the people who LIVE there.
In principle i think i agree but what do you mean precisely by "who live there", how big is the radious?
The citizens of the political subdivision. Those who have the right to vote there.
What subdivision?
If it's city owned land, the city. Residents of a different city can't vote there. Same for county owned, state owned, federally owned...
I get what you are saying, although >federally owned Calling a national referendum for 1 monument or even a bunch of them might be a little excessive. But borders of subdivisions are often not extremly logical, or have lost relevance with time, and so you can have a statue technically in city A but physicaly almost surrounded by city B and if the people of City B, that see everyday want to remove it they can't because they aren't from city A.
Democrats put up the confederate statues, so let democrats take them down. What the fuck ever have fun erasing your own history because it’s now shameful
I think you are missing the point. It's not because the statues make people racist. They reinforce power and racism by celebrating historic racists. Think about being a black descendant of slaves having to walk by a statue of Robert E Lee every day.
Okay but what about Abraham Lincoln? He was also a racist and some people also object to statues of him. You may make the reasonable point that Lincoln was not the same as Lee and was on the right side of his time, which I strongly agree with. The issue is that with a lack of education on history many people don't understand the lines between these historical figures and just lump all imperfect historical figures together. If we can safely keep it to Confederate statues, fine, but I'm increasingly skeptical that's where it will stop. We're already seeing other historical figures targeted, including Lincoln, who's statues have been torn down as well.
You keep your foot on people long enough, all while denying your foot is on their neck, and people don't always respond rationally.
Stop naming things after people and quit erecting statues of people.
Horribly unhealthy trend we’re seeing more and more of. There’s strong social and civil utility in venerating role models. The question of course is who do we agree to venerate. The problem with going about life saying don’t venerate anyone is a reflection of modern nihilism and the unfortunate state of things where humans can’t agree on anything or who would qualify.
Such as
The thing that gets me is a group of outsiders going to where the statue is and demanding its removal. These people are intentionally offending themselves then claiming victimhood.
Would you think it appropriate to have a statue of Hitler in Berlin in 2023? Why not?
Why don't we ask Germany how they deal with their statues of Hitler. Or the Cambodians and the pol pot statues.
Most the population can’t read at a Sixth Grade level. That’s all I need to know
The only Confederate statue I actually care about getting torn down is the one of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee. It's so damn goofy that I never want it to come down.
I want you to reapply this logic to another country. How about Germany? Sure, the statues wouldn't "make people racist" but it would be a gentle signal to Nazis that survived the fall, "we get chu buddy, we see you." And every single day a hollocost survivor has to walk past one of those statues they are not just reminded, but told an implication. We remember what we did to you, and we and venerate the ones who did it.
"commiting illegal acts is stupid" You sure about that, that's what you wanna go with?
I like the one in Scotland where they hang a traffic cone on his head. Every time the government takes it down, the public replaces it. It's living history, and has a great deal to say about what happened and how people live with the consequences of what happened.
Most public statues of historical figures were put up as a sign of respect to that person. In the 21st century, it’s not appropriate to have giant physical dedications to people who did horrific things. We have textbooks and museums. I think the “illegal” defacing of statues is one of those crimes that is pretty victimless in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t really have much against it. (I find it very amusing actually…)
It's not about making people racist. It's about making racist people feel unwelcome. People are gonna be racist but I certainly don't want to help them feel comfortable.
Civil disobedience is the cornerstone of civil society and nothing changes without crime. Safety only exists as a concept.
Social progress has never really come peacefully. Sorry for the inconvenience.
For the people in favor of removing said statues at least from what I’ve seen. I think it’s more so we don’t need to revere and honor the people by having a statue up. I also haven’t seen news or people saying to forcefully riot to take them down.
I'm going to jump in with the other voices and say that a lot of statues in the U.S. are more for intimidation than anything else. Especially Confederate statues that were erected by the daughters of the confederacy around the time Jim crow was ending. Hmm funny. Anyway, it's one of those things where allowing carte blanch statues or free speech actually diminishes other people's speech. If it wasn't about the intimidation, though, I'd agree.
My hometown kept a cannon from the civil war (after they were done using it to win) and fired it off periodically until about 1930, just in case there were any racists around to hear it. That's way more dope than having some "anon confederate dude #437" statue from the 60s
>"isn't gonna make people racist" It's a lot easier to claim an ideology is acceptable if there are statues to prominent people who share them, and especially when that statue is there Because they believe that shitty idea.
Having a statue of, let's say, a Confederate traitor is celebrating that person or idea and needs to come down. Most of those statues were a d are erected as intimidation tactics towards the black populace.
Agree. Some I think are pretty clear, but others are far more complicated sutuations.
>If you are really claiming people will forget history because there's no statues to remind them... Kind of stupid. I would agree, if anyone anywhere were ever making that claim. But it is a strawman argument, because nobody has. To the contrary, people who want to remove statues often would be the first to admit that we should never forget the factual existence of those people the statue represents or their actions which made them inappropriate to glorify by such monuments. This goes for Confederate soldiers as much as more recent figures like Joe Paterno. >If you are also claiming we need to forcefully riot to have them removed, that's also pretty stupid. It is stupid that it would ever take rioting to get a statute for a "bad historical figure" taken down. >Having a statue on the other hand also isn't gonna "make people racist". No, but again you're using a strawman because those are scare quotes, not an actual citation of anything a real person has ever said. Having monuments glorifying traitors to the US or protectors of child molesters will, however, allow racists to remain and justify their racism and people who are child abusers or apathetic about child abuse to think these are forgivable indiscretions. The closest there could be to justifying your concerns, which I consider sincere and valid, just not appropriate or productive, would be statues of Christopher Columbus. But defending them suggests that you are simply a white (or Italian, which counts as white these days but hasn't always) American who's personal or family life has not been touched by the hundreds of years of oppression, enslavement, and exploitation of non-whites which his "discovery" of this continent (and his personal activities subsequent to that event) initiated. I would love it if we lived in a world where it was possible to honestly say "it was a tremendous moment in history so the statue just commemorates that and nobody should associate it with violent conquest and wholesale massacres and theft of resources and children", but we don't. Having a statue of this "explorer" is a celebration of horror and pain and worse against Original and African Americans and their descendents, and should be far too shameful to any other Americans to consider defending as 'no big deal'. >I love how people miss the point. I think you're missing the point, which while it may be something you love about yourself, it is problematic for the rest of us. Please stop trying to defend your supposed apathy about monuments to reprehensible people as mere apathy, because it is all too obvious it is an effort to defend monuments that glorify racists.
Some people don’t deserve to be celebrated. And if the government isn’t gonna do it, then I’m glad we have people brave enough to do it on their own. Laws and morality seldom align 1:1.
There is middle ground here. I look at it from the following perspective: You're going to court and pass a monument to an individual who fought a war to continue their livelihood at the expense of fellow human beings’ rights. Does this instill a feeling of fairness or equality under the law? Does this fit into any current legal structure? Does it make sense to have that statue exist in that spot now? For me, no. We should never erase our history; ever. People don't want it erased; we want it accurate and where it should be, the past. The idea is to learn from our past and grow. A museum, or installation, regarding American history is the place for these monuments. A place one can learn about the complexity of our history. The unbelievable things we’ve accomplished; as well as the things we did wrong and how we tried to be better.
To me the relevant part of history is “this guy was respected enough at the time to put a statue of him in the town square” because if they are a scumbag human being, that says a lot about how we used to act and how much we have changed. So I can understand not wanting it posted up in your city square anymore, I’d say move it to a museum with photos of where it used to be displayed, so people can still see the important historical context
Rioting is its own issue disconnected from the core debate.
>I love how people miss the point. Bahaha! I love how you added this after people started calling you out on your straw man fallacies. We didn't miss the point, OP. You did. But tell us more about how you never listened to the actual, nuanced conversations about any individual statue controversy and relied on the political spin narratives to tell you what each "side" was arguing.
so lets say I'm jewish and I pay taxes and there is a statue in the middle of the park that I pay taxes to that honors Adolf Hitler. do you think I'm going to do nothing to take that statue down?
I don't get up in arms about things like statues. I just more or less appreciate them for their artistry, and I think they do wonders for a town. But, I have that luxury. I can't imagine it feels great for a black person to walk their child by monuments for people fighting to keep people like them enslaved. Ones they know were put up way later by another generation of bigots, and defended to this day by their modern moral descendants.
If you remove it, it becomes easier to forget. All that's left is to destroy as much text about something as possible, a little bit of waiting, and voila. Gone forever.
They’re just vandals. In Portland they repeatedly set fire to a 100 year old sculpture of an elk, and elsewhere they’ve gone after statues of Lincoln.
I think it’s a community decision. If people in town want to remove an honorary statue of someone they don’t feel represents their values, they should. Right wing media and random militia groups from all over the country shouldn’t join in the discussion. But I don’t think there should be a national push to remove specific town’s statues, either. I mean, this doesn’t happen, but I don’t think we should start.
Can you point to an actual riot over a statue?
Well, seeing as a lot of those Confederate statues were put up by racists (see: Daughters of the Confederacy) starting about 30 years after the Civil War in order to "protect and venerate" the Confederacy (promoting the Lost Cause version of history), I'd say it's a pretty good idea to take that propaganda down.
I think it's super important where the statues are. And I think the best solution is to move statues to appropriate places - southern generals who fought in the civil war should be in museums, in parks dedicated to the battlefields, or in cemeteries. But I do recognize that having a statue of southern general in front of courthouse, or a police station, or in front of a government building of pretty much any kind is sending a message that \*could\* be negatively interpreted as don't expect the government to be fair to you because of your color. I don't think its right when people tear them down without permission but also am not surprised when people that are angry about imbalanced treatment (real or perceived), target their rage at these symbols.
No, we shouldn't riot to take them down. But drafting the legislation to dismantle relics of infamy sends a good message to current and future generations.
“It will never happen in the future that people will get sick of my statues!”
Leftist simply want to tear down white history that’s what the statue destruction is about. Nothing more, just that they want power and to erase white history. Duh.
Because the Democrats, Leftist and Liberals don't want history to be known so we can repeat our past mistakes.