Growing up Ken Burns' Civil War PBS series was a transformative part of my youth. It was an incredibly nuanced documentary of the events that took place around the Civil War, narrating the themes, stories, and humanity of all sides of the war. It represents a layered approach to history. A figure like Lee is very complicated, motivated by multiple forces, all of which contextualized by the time in which he lived. The stories of emancipation are equally important and should be told and celebrated. I would contend that our public spaces today should strive to balance these histories in a way similar to Ken Burns' documentary style. I'm not seeing that in today's public discourse, and that saddens me.
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 11:42 am
Consider that these statues were never put up in a spirit of balanced history. Rather they were feeble attempts to normalize and perpetuate the bullshit revisionism that pretends that slavery was only a minor point of the civil war.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 17, 17 5:56 am
Not only that, but most, if not nearly all, were erected 40-50 years after the Civil War, because it would've been met with outrage if they tried after the war.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 17, 17 5:58 am
won, your comment points out why they should be removed; history and memory can be offered through film, and conversation. It doesn't need to be glorified, and used to create fear.
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 11:41 am
Statues added to the public landscape after 1920 in order to reinforce shitty racist sentiment should not be allowed to remain.
On the fence
Aug 18, 17 4:19 pm
Yup
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 12:58 pm
Is anyone here actually living in a southern city?
I grew up in the south but lived the rest of my life in various cities in northern places and California. I have noticed a pretty distinct difference in understanding the underlying causes for the Civil War to begin with. Most people, especially in northern states, assume it was fought directly over slavery. Whereas in the south it is taught as being much more about defending states' rights versus a strong federal government. If you study the timeline of the early points of the conflict, my understanding is that slavery was the conflicting issue which divided people to begin with, but the war started directly over the issue of state's rights of self-determination. Most southern soldiers were too poor to be slave-owners, and were in the war to fight for their independence against the larger population of the North's domination. I also do not believe most Union soldiers were in it at first to free the slaves, although certainly many of them were, especially as the war raged on, and after the Emancipation Proclamation was released. I think another good point is that Robert E Lee was originally offered the command of the Union forces, despite owning slaves. It was about independence at first, and he decided he could not lead a Union army against his fellow Virginians, and therefore decided to lead the Confederate army.
But at that point in history in America, there was a vast majority of people with very racist opinions on both sides of the conflict, with actual more racial violence occurring in the northern states because there was no legal difference between poor whites and blacks, so poor whites sought violence as a means to establish some kind of power. A really good resource for opinions at this point in history would be Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' from 1835, written by a fairly neutral French scholar touring the U.S.
Now, I agree that a lot of these statues were built to perpetuate the racist culture and establish some form of white superiority in the South after the war was lost. That is a huge problem, and the fact that a lot of meaning behind that statues centers around this severely and indefensibly tarnishes their conceptual foundation. But, some of the meaning behind these statues was to memorialize the dead who fought honorably for their independence. For example the statue toppled in Durham recently was to memorialize the dead soldiers in general, and not to any individual. Defacing a statue like that, to many in the South, would be like defacing a statue to the dead of any defeated people. It could be seen similarly to Korean protesters defacing a memorial to dead Japanese soldiers of WW2 over the fight of the 'comfort women' slaves. Clearly people were in the wrong, but still hundreds of thousands of people died, and they just want to have a memorial to that tragedy.
I knew a lot of guys in the south like this, who just wanted to remember their forefathers and so forth.
Ultimately, I think it should be left up to the local communities to vote on what should happen to individual statues. Personally, I think they should be removed from anywhere near governmental property, but should not be destroyed. Erasing history does not fix history.
stone
Aug 16, 17 1:13 pm
anon: I lived in the south for nearly 60 years -- my parents and my grandparents all were born and lived there.
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 1:17 pm
Curious, how much would you say you learned about the causes of the Civil War, and what were you taught as the cause?
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 1:21 pm
What does "living in the South" have to do with it? Is the South part of the country or not? '
stone
Aug 16, 17 1:24 pm
Actually, my comments were posted before I finished. Here's the whole post:
anon: I lived in the south for nearly 60 years -- my parents and my grandparents all were born and lived there. So, I know the region very well.
I believe that most of those who defend these monuments are -- deep down inside -- really just defending and trying to justify the "lost cause". They polish it up with platitudes about "states rights", but that's just a polite way of saying "we want the freedom to do whatever we want to do, no matter how unjust or evil".
President George W. Bush: “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 1:26 pm
Are there confederate soldiers in states north of Maryland? No. It is definitely a part of the country, but there is a markedly different history in the states of the south, with a different culture carried over into the present. Would you say there's no cultural difference between New York and California? Or Miami and Tallahassee? Not being able to recognize the local cultural differences between the 'southern' states and 'northern' states is not a great place to start a real conversation.
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 1:28 pm
Not being able to admit the shameful past of
your "cultural differences" is not a great place to start a real conversation.
stone
Aug 16, 17 1:34 pm
One can debate forever whether slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. However, there can be no doubt that slavery was a persistent and powerful undercurrent to most of the events that led up to South Carolina firing on Ft. Sumter. They justified this rebellion with self-righteous platitudes about "freedom" and "Yankee tyranny" but they actually were trying to preserve a culture, and economy, almost totally dependent on the system of slavery.
It is true that most soldiers in the South during the Civil War were not -- and could never be -- slave owners. But, that's not to say they were not defending slavery. To me, that's fundamentally the same as all those GOP (and Trump) voters who -- blindly supporting economic policies that favor the rich -- persistently vote in ways that are wholly against their own self-interests. Sometimes "you just can't fix stupid".
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 1:38 pm
@Stone, maybe you're right. But you can't blame a group of people for not wanting to admit 100k in human causalities was all for nothing. It's just so sad to me. I think we should look to Germany post-WW2 and how they treated the remnants of that tragedy. For example, Auschwitz still stands, not as a memorial to nazis, but as a memorial to the tragic lesson of the Holocaust.
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 1:39 pm
Sorry I also clicked post before finishing typing. I would say the statues would be best placed in some kind of museum, but I would be afraid the museum would itself then become a shrine for the types of human scum we saw over the weekend. I have more concerns than answers I guess
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 1:39 pm
And so do the plantations. But point me to a statue of Rommel. Hitler? Anyone? Bueller?
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 1:40 pm
North Carolina passed a law prohibiting the statues to be moved to museums. Wonder why.
stone
Aug 16, 17 1:47 pm
@anon - had Lincoln lived I think race relations in this country would be quite different today. His murder -- by a Southerner -- led lesser 'statesmen' to approach reconstruction as an act of vengeance -- much as was the case with the victors in WW1.
The aftermath of WW1 led to Hitler and his Nazi party. The more enlightened aftermath of WW2 allowed both Japan and Germany to evolve and rejoin the family of nations as sensible and enlightened civilizations.
However, the aftermath of the Civil War led to a deep bitterness that still can be felt in the South today. The North's ill considered approach to reconstruction never allowed the South to reflect on what led to their downfall and reconcile with their Northern neighbors.
anon999999
Aug 16, 17 2:14 pm
I found an interesting inscription for the German soldiers buried in France at La Cambe German war cemetary, "With its melancholy rigour, it is a graveyard for soldiers not all of whom had chosen either the cause or the fight. They too have found rest in our soil of France."
I think that statues to certain individuals like Nathan Bedford Forrest need to be removed, as he certainly went on to commit evil actions. But guys like Robert E. Lee just performed the service asked of them by their states, and did so without dishonor or malice. Maybe these statues need to be curated intelligently and fairly. Some should be removed, others can be contextualized with plaques or new monuments nearby offering the kind of perspectives we found appropriate for a just society today.
mightyaa
Aug 16, 17 3:22 pm
The other that is quickly forgotten and I'm not sure those from the north or the young remember; it's still a wound in a lot of families who've been around since the civil war... my great grandparents were alive and of conscript age during the civil war. They raised my grandmother, and were involved in my mother's life. I was raised with stories my grandmother told. Probably not many Northerners grew up having picnics in Civil war memorial battlefields where their grandparents told them stories and relayed this history. Most those battlefields are in the South and are part of the culture. Sitting in some national park, grandpa pointing out the caves and how they were used to hide food so the family wouldn't starve. Those are my campfire stories. Doesn't mean I grew up to be racist. But being in Denver now, which wasn't affected, the history of the civil war is much different than those family tales and history grandma passed down, including the diaries and journals of previous generations. I'd give a generation or two more... sort of like the Revolutionary War where my family journals as a Scot who eventually fought against the US because of the persecution and political climate of "loyalty oaths" are much different than what my history class taught; but it lacks that personal touch and feel the Civil war still holds for me as I remember back to all these stories and my grandmother telling them while we visited the various memorials. That's my remembrance of being culturally identifying with the South.
David Cole, AIA
Aug 16, 17 4:25 pm
I grew up in the South, and I remember being taught in middle school that the Civil War was about "state's rights". That doesn't mean my teachers weren't full of shit.
stone
Aug 16, 17 5:23 pm
anon: would you apply the same logic that you applied to Robert E. Lee above
to those members of the German army who were commandants of concentrations camps? If WW2 proved anything, it proved that it's not enough for soldiers to "just perform the service asked of them".
jeiffert
Aug 16, 17 7:51 pm
Anon, you're way off with the 100K casualty number. Actually, more than
a million casualties, including over 600K deaths.
mightyaa
Aug 16, 17 7:56 pm
Well how about Sherman? Scorched earth march where he targeted civilian populations and stole all their food, burnt anything left over. btw; I'm essentially a CO native, but my roots are from the southern states.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 17, 17 6:04 am
The South were traitor secessionists. IDGAF teach that traitorous history in an elective class. They lost.
Non Sequitur
Aug 16, 17 1:04 pm
Melt them down and use the materials to build abortion clinics. Boom, hit two stones with one racist bird.
archinine
Aug 16, 17 1:33 pm
Anon, agreed, the history surrounding the statues is deeply complex.
Could be left to a local public vote.
Or could simply be relocated to a local museum such that there is context for it in a relatively safe environment (for viewers), meanwhile people can enjoy the parks without being accosted with what has ultimately become a symbol for white supremacy. This also may perturb armed nazis who apparently now flock there to idolize/celebrate that symbol. Though it doesn't seem much can quell that shit storm, the statues were just an excuse for them to spew their hate and violence.
I think it's more important that parks provide a positive, neutral, welcoming environment for all people - as is generally the intended purpose of public parks - than it is for them to be political statements or history lessons. It's important to take into account the current symbolism of those figures regardless of what their history was, in order for the park to to viewed as a place for all the public. As is now, the symbolism basically conveys to POC that they aren't welcome there, again regardless of any nuanced history.
SneakyPete
Aug 16, 17 1:46 pm
"Could be left to a local public vote. " It was. They voted to protect these monuments to traitors and racists. The underhanded methods and the fact that you don't know this speaks to the deep-hidden real reasons, which is less in "heritage" and more in "hatred".
randomised
Aug 16, 17 1:51 pm
They should all be kept as a constant reminder that people are arseholes, they only should be painted orange in celebration of the commander in chief.
Volunteer
Aug 16, 17 4:08 pm
A lot of these statues were erected by Democratic politicians at the turn of the century when they solidified control of the southern states, so with these statue removals it is often a case of the new, modern Dems poking a stick in the eye of their Boss Hogg Dem relatives of yesteryear. It doesn't get much more ironic than that.
stone
Aug 16, 17 5:17 pm
Volunteer -- I agree -- the current situation is very ironic.
Given the evolution of politics and political parties over time it makes little sense to say - as I have seen repeatedly on other discussion boards the past few days - that the Democrats are responsible for establishing the KKK or the John Birch Society. It would be equally silly to tout the GOP as the 'party of Lincoln' and therefor responsible for abolishing slavery. In the end, it's much more about "conservative" vs. "progressive" points of view. In the two examples I cite, conservatives were on the wrong side of history -- and morality -- both times.
Mr_Wiggin
Aug 16, 17 6:08 pm
The heritage, not hate rhetoric is BS when one can just take a look at the CSA Constitution to see that not only slavery was enshrined in their founding document, but specifically African American slavery. The majority of these statues were erected to reinforce white supremacy years after the Civil War, and during times of civil and economic strife more or less to rally the base... Not really erasing history when it's revisionist history.
archinine
Aug 16, 17 6:26 pm
Pete, I suggested to move them. I acknowledged it could also be left to a vote as a direct response to anon. It is my understanding that in Charlottesville it was voted to remove them, and then this vote was blocked by an ACLU lawsuit. Being not from the south nor living there, I do not keep up with the local newspapers of every locality's votes on whether they choose to remove or destroy such statues. I'm not sure what you're insinuating exactly, but it doesn't seem good. My suggestion to move them to a museum or other historical type setting was one of compromise in response to anon's comment regarding the statues having historical significance beyond political connotations of today's interpretation.
My opinion as an architect and designer, in response to OP, is that people of all backgrounds and race should feel welcome in public parks and that these statues are in opposition of this goal thus they should be removed from the parks.
The white nationalist right is disgusting and should never have been given the legitimizing coverage that came out of Charlottesville, but a desire for blood, the ubiquity of social media, and the media's quest to fill time and make profits in a 24-hour news cycle have led us to the divided nation we have now. That being said, do these statues really, really?, make people feel uncomfortable in our public spaces. Or is this a convenient political statement by the left in an attempt to paint conservatives in the same portrait as white nationalists?
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 5:41 pm
Yes, they do make people feel uncomfortable. They are also used as devices to terrorize people even when they do try to use those spaces. Third- if spaces celebrate the people who terrorize you and you struggle to have spaces that are important to your historical perspective, impressions are made.
sameolddoctor
Aug 16, 17 6:28 pm
Better would be to make a wall on what used to be the Mason-Dixon line. Fuck da South!
archinine
Aug 16, 17 6:34 pm
Whatever keeps the confederates out of the north doc. But we'd have to build an bridge or tunnel for evacuees because there's too many down there stuck with no feasible (financial) way out as it is. According to some news articles they've already begun invading and are putting up their flags in manhattan windows. They're still too scared to show themselves on the streets but I fear it's only a matter of time seeing how brazen they've become.
Volunteer
Aug 16, 17 7:21 pm
Charleston was settled by old Bostonian families that spent the winters in Charleston and the summers in Boston. Some Charlestonians still have a slight New England accent if you listen closely. You can't get any more southern than Charleston or any more northern than Boston, so it can get complicated, quickly. And many of the blacks in Charleston were not slaves but 'freeman' who had their own businesses. Just saying the situation was more nuanced than the liberal zealots would have you believe.
archeyarch
Aug 16, 17 10:51 pm
this is best decided as a legal issue of the town residents. What do do with the ones that come down? Auction them, then the town can put the money towards something they want.
wurdan freo
Aug 17, 17 12:26 am
I think they should tear down the statue of the fonz... ayyyy!
tduds
Aug 17, 17 1:48 pm
Take em down. Put em in museums if you want to 'remember history'
randomised
Aug 17, 17 3:49 pm
Or just build museums around them, with gift shops and cafés where you can order your pumpkin spice lattes year-round.
So we can't allow a key figure in the Confederacy be honored but we're fine with soldiers of the notorious Vietnam War (Maya Lin no less) be memorialized?
Hypocrisy...hypocrisy everywhere.
Miles Jaffe
Aug 17, 17 5:06 pm
A memorial to soldiers who lost their lives in an illegal, unjust war can't be compared with a memorial to those who fought to preserve slavery.
SneakyPete
Aug 17, 17 5:50 pm
The soldiers were drafted into the military. Was Lee? Was Jackson
? Were any of the confederates who have statues? If so, maybe that's a unique case.
tduds
Aug 17, 17 8:07 pm
The Vietnam Memorial honors dead US Citizens.
Confederate Statues honor leaders who commanded a foreign army against the US.
Nice attempt at a comparison though.
tduds
Aug 17, 17 8:08 pm
& wtf does "(Maya Lin no less)" mean?
Everyday Architect
Aug 17, 17 8:40 pm
The comparison might be apt if the Vietnam memorial were statues located in Vietnam, and they were of people like LBJ and McNamara.
Miles Jaffe
Aug 17, 17 9:12 pm
+++
archanonymous
Aug 18, 17 12:04 am
There is a memorial nearby that honors 5000 Confederate POW's who died of disease in prison. In my book permissible as it honors loss of human life. Just as I think the Vietnam memorial is absolutely appropriate, as would one honoring the many fallen Vietnamese.
Honoring a leader in a flawed cause and potent symbol of a hateful ideology is a different story.
archietechie
Aug 18, 17 1:48 am
Still don't get why so many are triggered by a status quo statue.
archietechie
Aug 18, 17 9:52 am
I realized the rest of my reply got lost with the new commenting system so here goes:
Milles - So slavery in your books takes precedence over an illegal/unjust war. Sounds like you got your priorities checked.
Sneakypete - They didn't have to. They died fighting for the nation's cause anyhow.
Tduds - What foreign army? Explain please. I brought up Maya as it seems many here forgo logic just because she's a great designer. Smells like hypocrisy to me anyway.
Everyday Architect - Except the South were americans too and helped shape our history?
Chris Teeter - Actually, I was in favor of erecting a statue for Snowden. The Southerners had the option to retaliate or conform as their businesses were directly affected by decisions made in DC.
The North were no better truth be told. It took another several decade to abolish the system of slavery altogether.
Archanonymous - The Vietnam Memorial doesn't memorialize Vietnamese dude. What're you smokin?
Miles Jaffe
Aug 18, 17 6:26 pm
archietechie, try reading it again. Memorializing soldiers as canon fodder vs. the leaders of slave society.
Peter Normand
Aug 21, 17 9:54 pm
I don't think I have ever seen a Vietnam Monument glorify the leaders of that war or the war it'self, they tend to be very somber. The American Civil War is difficult to deal with. More people died in that war than any other american war. Monuments that mark a specific site/event are and should be different than monuments that glorify and attempt to reshape the past to fit a current or recent regime of hate and discrimination.
Marc Miller
Aug 17, 17 9:16 pm
This is all about an old meme, recorded as far back as Marcus Aurelius in western history. The leader/victor/conquer on horseback. Think about it, that's the first thing that comes to mind when you say Lee memorial (the Durham memorial was lame in the spectrum of heroic statues).
This is the legacy that people are trying to maintain. Sure, there were others, but they were destroy and melted down for whatever was seen to be as a more valuable idea at the point in time. So the worst thing you can do is melt the statue because it has no more relevance. It's not text in a history book that matters, it's the physical object - the one that marks a landscape and frames in a specific context.
We'd like to think these things are of the past, but they are very much alive, shaping the places that surround them for good and for bad. But in these cases I say relocate them. The original Aurelius is in a museum now (albeit for preservation), so why can't the Lee statues be repositioned in historical discourse? Not erased, but certainly not maintained as icons of a hateful legacy.
" An object of remembrance may not be relocated to
a museum, cemetery, or mausoleum unless it was originally placed at such a location. As used
in this section, the term "object of remembrance" means a monument, memorial, plaque, statue,
marker, or display of a permanent character that commemorates an event, a person, or military
service that is part of North Carolina's history."
I'm not sure of the point given that this is legislation - and that can be altered. Please elaborate.
SneakyPete
Aug 17, 17 11:52 pm
Question: "why can't the Lee statues be repositioned in historical discourse?"
Answer: Because the state government in NC preemptively made that extremely difficult and, seeing as they have slim to zero chance of being replaced by more reasonable, inclusive folks in the foreseeable future, this is the reality. Leaving this sort of shit to the local / state governments in the South has never ended well.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 12:04 pm
@SneakyPete- The assumption that it's not worth addressing if it is not resolved in months or years has always been a dangerous pitfall. How do you honestly resolve centuries of exclusion and erasure in 5 years? Play the long game like so many others have.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 12:07 pm
@quondam- still setting the grounds for cultural legitimacy that people seek to emulate by using the same figural
themes.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 3:19 pm
I'm not sure if these nuances matter. We could ask the same question of every heroic statue that copies this model, and I think the differences would cloud the discussion. This is a case of cultural legitimacy first, the idiosyncrasies of this particular history related to the precedent come second.
SneakyPete
Aug 24, 17 12:01 pm
Marc, if I gave you the impression that I feel that this isn't an issue worth addressing, I apologize. You are correct that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I'm simply frustrated and often that leads to a sense of hopeless negativity that comes across in my discourse.
Marc Miller
Aug 24, 17 12:17 pm
Cross talk confusion, no
worries
Volunteer
Aug 18, 17 6:05 am
I think you may have the statues removed to gardens that are open to the public, like Bellingrath Gardens in Mobile. Alabama. Then people can seek them out when they visit if they wish or not. The statues will be protected against people with sledgehammers and spray paint. The bad side is that poor people will not be able to go often because of the admission charge and have to accept something as scruffy as "Emancipation Park" in Charlottesville without its centerpiece.
Volunteer
Aug 18, 17 8:18 am
^Don't forget your sledgehammer and spray paint when you visit Mobile. Think of it as part of your training for the next Barcelona. The world really needs more of your sputtering, incoherent brand of hate.
Non Sequitur
Aug 18, 17 8:53 am
Da
fuk?
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 8:58 am
1- Emancipation Park is not scruffy, it's heavily used. That's actually a good sign for a public park of that type. Although people have been known not to use the park due to the dedication.
2- Even assuming that the park became scruffy overnight (ok, a few months) due to the impact of the name change, an RFP just closed to renovate Emancipation and Justice parks (why there is little talks about Justice Park is interesting).
3- Along with this there are thoughtful discussions being had about where to relocate the Lee sculpture using a visible location on public land.
4- The comparison of a park to a botanical garden is just not accurate. That's not the service public parks/squares serve. The further suggestion that privatizing public artifact is just off base. Even the Highline in all it's luxury is a public park and open to the public (mostly).
Wood Guy
Aug 18, 17 10:36 am
My favorite two books that shed light on the complex history that has led us to this point:
They are engaging, thoroughly researched and different from traditional approaches to the subject.
gwharton
Aug 18, 17 12:18 pm
This whole issue is both more complex and simpler than you all are making it out to be. The simplicity is in what the statues are, what they memorialize, and how local communities see them as good or bad. If a local community doesn't want statues or memorials for something, then by all means they should take them down. It really is that simple. And it applies to everything. Not just Confederate memorials. Buildings too, at least the public ones over which the community has control.
If the community of Charlottesville, VA or Durham, NC or wherever wants the Confederate statues down, they should be taken down. But that also means that if they want them up, they should be left up. There are always vocal minorities who agitate about this stuff (a group of them is protesting the Lenin statue in Seattle near me right now). But those minorities, vocal though they may be, don't get to decide. It's a community decision, and should stay that way. As of right now, it's not entirely clear what the community really wants in many of these cases.
And that's why the complexity in this situation is related more to how various outside parties are using the memorials and statues as levers in a broader cultural and political war against one another. All of the parties who were fighting one another in Charlottesville were outsiders, not locals. On both sides. They all need to shut up and butt out of local decisions that are none of their business.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 1:07 pm
True, the decision had been made months ago. Hence the 1st rally of outsiders (w/ respect to Charlottesville).
It gets a bit tiresome hearing about how we need to let white people make decisions for non-white people simply because they're more numerous.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 2:33 pm
Referring to...
SneakyPete
Aug 18, 17 3:27 pm
"If a local community doesn't want statues or memorials for something, then by all means they should take them down. It really is that simple. And it applies to everything. Not just Confederate memorials. Buildings too, at least the public ones over which the community has control.
If the community of Charlottesville, VA or Durham, NC or wherever wants the Confederate statues down, they should be taken down. But that also means that if they want them up, they should be left up. There are always vocal minorities who agitate about this stuff (a group of them is protesting the Lenin statue in Seattle near me right now). But those minorities, vocal though they may be, don't get to decide. It's a community decision, and should stay that way. As of right now, it's not entirely clear what the community really wants in many of these cases."
SneakyPete
Aug 18, 17 3:28 pm
In other words, if enough people want something despicable, they get it.
gwharton
Aug 18, 17 4:39 pm
It's their home, dude. Not yours. They get to decide.
x-jla
Aug 18, 17 2:48 pm
rather than letting the public vote on it, how about we just let the public vandalize it. The nazis can be in charge of cleaning up the paint and making repairs if they wish. We can destroy it if we wish. I say let it remain in ruin...eroded and vandalized.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 3:08 pm
like these...
SneakyPete
Aug 18, 17 3:31 pm
Erected in 1977. Total bullshit revisionism.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 3:54 pm
And the other?
SneakyPete
Aug 18, 17 4:29 pm
Can't read anything.
Marc Miller
Aug 18, 17 5:37 pm
That's an Emmett Till Historical Marker has been repeatedly vandalized. The point being- to leave something in place with the understanding this it will be destroyed by detractors is a dangerous proposition with unintended consequences.
wurdan freo
Aug 18, 17 5:16 pm
1984 here we come.
SneakyPete
Aug 18, 17 6:58 pm
Right. In 1984, fascists were told to fuck off resulting in the plot of the book. Or not. Whatever. Nothing matters if it doesn't align with your predetermined view.
dedubs
Aug 18, 17 6:42 pm
If they can turn a cartoon frog named Pepe into a symbol of hate and racism, it doesn't matter what the hell these monuments "actually" commemorate. By removing these statues, no one is erasing history, just an opportunity for someone to have a platform and attach their bigotry to PUBLIC space.
This kind of shameful history should be preserved in other places, like books, but unfortunately Texas is a step ahead of the game and already whitewashing the Civil War in every textbook your kid reads.
x-jla
Aug 19, 17 11:18 am
The key phrase is "Public Space". Do we have the right to express disgusting views in the public realm? Yes of course. Do we have the right to have a statue that represents those views in a Public Space? No. There is a big difference there. Tearing down the statues imo is akin to tearing down the Berlin Wall. It's a symbolic gesture. By removing artifacts that where initially Intended to impose racial superiority we are making a statement not about the past, but about the future that we want. I hate censorship and sugar coating, but this is not the same. Removing the statues is not an act of unwriting history, it's an act of writing history. It is additive, not reductive. This is why I am fine with the removal of these monuments despite being a big proponent of free speech and expression. My only fear, is the power the state gains as deciders of moral decency. I do not want them to have that power. The removal of the statues should imo be done through a public and democratic route to avoid setting any precedent for future abuse of power.
x-jla
Aug 19, 17 1:00 pm
Or, Rather than removing them, I'll settle for adding giant bronze statues of Lincoln tea bagging the Lee statues with the inscription "lick my balls loser"
( o Y o )
Aug 19, 17 1:55 pm
If they're going to remove all the Confederate statues they should remove all the Union ones too.
Dangermouse
Aug 19, 17 2:11 pm
weak bait
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 19, 17 2:15 pm
Oh lord. What level of stupid did this person step in?
Volunteer
Aug 21, 17 5:35 pm
A monument to Christopher Columbus in Baltimore, Maryland, (the oldest monument to Columbus in the New World) has been severely damaged because of the Indian thingy with Chris. A video on You Tube indicates it is the inner city residents of Charm City defacing the statue. Apparently if you wear black masks and black hoodies you can destroy, terrorize, and injure at will, while wearing white masks and white hoodies is a no-no. See the difference? Me neither.
geezertect
Aug 21, 17 7:13 pm
Well, now.........there is a difference. The boys with white hoodies don't just attack statues. They have a nasty habit of trying to kill people.
Dangermouse
Aug 21, 17 11:13 pm
i mean, one group is a highly organized politically active entity that represents over a century of collaborative oppression and violence towards various groups of people deemed to be 'unclean' and actively advocates genocidal acts against said unclean peoples; whereas the other appears to be a bunch of young memelords seizing upon the zeitgeist to do a little mischief
Dangermouse
Aug 21, 17 11:13 pm
but yeah totally the fucking same thing bro
/s
SneakyPete
Aug 22, 17 1:03 pm
The oldest monument to Christopher Columbus in the country on whose soil HE NEVER SET FOOT.
Volunteer
Aug 22, 17 7:10 am
This pleasant fellow was caught defacing a Confederate cemetery marker in Indianapolis, Indiana, of all places. No zealotry here.
x-jla
Aug 24, 17 1:58 am
White guys with dreads should all be arrested immediately.
godglory
Aug 23, 17 3:18 pm
I am so sick and tired of seeing all these statues talking about they represent racism, hatred and slavery But the statues and the Confederate flag have been up for a 100 or more years and it never seemed to bother anybody before until now. People want to pick and choose which statues to remove and if you notice it's only of white people I wonder how it would feel if the tables were turned and we started getting rid of black statues and black monuments sign this petition and let's start removing these memorials to black people and slavery use your voice quit being scared stand up for your rights and your freedom
tduds
Aug 23, 17 5:05 pm
"...and it never seemed to bother anybody before until now."
It did. You just weren't listening to them because they're black.
x-jla
Aug 23, 17 5:58 pm
What happend...all out of periods in honky land?
possum
Sep 19, 17 4:42 pm
it seems no one is trying to protect the statues and monuments being removed except the Americanhistorypreservation.us group. many people are only complaining and do not know what they can do. this outfit wants to hear about any removals or destruction planned to American Historical artifacts and hopes to protect them. They have a place on their site for us to add any information that may be helpful.
Non Sequitur
Sep 19, 17 4:54 pm
who cares about those dumb racist symbols
possum
Sep 19, 17 5:07 pm
we should not overlook the African American activists who fought to reclaim their history of the Civil War as part of their quest for equal citizenship. In fact, it would be easier to forget that the Civil War’s legacy has always been contentious. But the war and its symbols have always held different meanings for different groups, and confronting that history is imperative
possum
Sep 19, 17 5:37 pm
Artists, historic preservationists and museum curators are watching the nation's Confederate soldier statues coming down and are torn about what should happen to them when they're no longer atop their pedestals.
I'm interested to hear architects/designers/artists take on this.
http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017...
well said
Growing up Ken Burns' Civil War PBS series was a transformative part of my youth. It was an incredibly nuanced documentary of the events that took place around the Civil War, narrating the themes, stories, and humanity of all sides of the war. It represents a layered approach to history. A figure like Lee is very complicated, motivated by multiple forces, all of which contextualized by the time in which he lived. The stories of emancipation are equally important and should be told and celebrated. I would contend that our public spaces today should strive to balance these histories in a way similar to Ken Burns' documentary style. I'm not seeing that in today's public discourse, and that saddens me.
Consider that these statues were never put up in a spirit of balanced history. Rather they were feeble attempts to normalize and perpetuate the bullshit revisionism that pretends that slavery was only a minor point of the civil war.
Not only that, but most, if not nearly all, were erected 40-50 years after the Civil War, because it would've been met with outrage if they tried after the war.
won, your comment points out why they should be removed; history and memory can be offered through film, and conversation. It doesn't need to be glorified, and used to create fear.
Statues added to the public landscape after 1920 in order to reinforce shitty racist sentiment should not be allowed to remain.
Yup
Is anyone here actually living in a southern city?
I grew up in the south but lived the rest of my life in various cities in northern places and California. I have noticed a pretty distinct difference in understanding the underlying causes for the Civil War to begin with. Most people, especially in northern states, assume it was fought directly over slavery. Whereas in the south it is taught as being much more about defending states' rights versus a strong federal government. If you study the timeline of the early points of the conflict, my understanding is that slavery was the conflicting issue which divided people to begin with, but the war started directly over the issue of state's rights of self-determination. Most southern soldiers were too poor to be slave-owners, and were in the war to fight for their independence against the larger population of the North's domination. I also do not believe most Union soldiers were in it at first to free the slaves, although certainly many of them were, especially as the war raged on, and after the Emancipation Proclamation was released. I think another good point is that Robert E Lee was originally offered the command of the Union forces, despite owning slaves. It was about independence at first, and he decided he could not lead a Union army against his fellow Virginians, and therefore decided to lead the Confederate army.
But at that point in history in America, there was a vast majority of people with very racist opinions on both sides of the conflict, with actual more racial violence occurring in the northern states because there was no legal difference between poor whites and blacks, so poor whites sought violence as a means to establish some kind of power. A really good resource for opinions at this point in history would be Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' from 1835, written by a fairly neutral French scholar touring the U.S.
Now, I agree that a lot of these statues were built to perpetuate the racist culture and establish some form of white superiority in the South after the war was lost. That is a huge problem, and the fact that a lot of meaning behind that statues centers around this severely and indefensibly tarnishes their conceptual foundation. But, some of the meaning behind these statues was to memorialize the dead who fought honorably for their independence. For example the statue toppled in Durham recently was to memorialize the dead soldiers in general, and not to any individual. Defacing a statue like that, to many in the South, would be like defacing a statue to the dead of any defeated people. It could be seen similarly to Korean protesters defacing a memorial to dead Japanese soldiers of WW2 over the fight of the 'comfort women' slaves. Clearly people were in the wrong, but still hundreds of thousands of people died, and they just want to have a memorial to that tragedy.
I knew a lot of guys in the south like this, who just wanted to remember their forefathers and so forth.
Ultimately, I think it should be left up to the local communities to vote on what should happen to individual statues. Personally, I think they should be removed from anywhere near governmental property, but should not be destroyed. Erasing history does not fix history.
anon: I lived in the south for nearly 60 years -- my parents and my grandparents all were born and lived there.
Curious, how much would you say you learned about the causes of the Civil War, and what were you taught as the cause?
What does "living in the South" have to do with it? Is the South part of the country or not? '
Actually, my comments were posted before I finished. Here's the whole post:
anon: I lived in the south for nearly 60 years -- my parents and my grandparents all were born and lived there. So, I know the region very well.
I believe that most of those who defend these monuments are -- deep down inside -- really just defending and trying to justify the "lost cause". They polish it up with platitudes about "states rights", but that's just a polite way of saying "we want the freedom to do whatever we want to do, no matter how unjust or evil".
President George W. Bush: “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”
Are there confederate soldiers in states north of Maryland? No. It is definitely a part of the country, but there is a markedly different history in the states of the south, with a different culture carried over into the present. Would you say there's no cultural difference between New York and California? Or Miami and Tallahassee? Not being able to recognize the local cultural differences between the 'southern' states and 'northern' states is not a great place to start a real conversation.
Not being able to admit the shameful past of your "cultural differences" is not a great place to start a real conversation.
One can debate forever whether slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. However, there can be no doubt that slavery was a persistent and powerful undercurrent to most of the events that led up to South Carolina firing on Ft. Sumter. They justified this rebellion with self-righteous platitudes about "freedom" and "Yankee tyranny" but they actually were trying to preserve a culture, and economy, almost totally dependent on the system of slavery.
It is true that most soldiers in the South during the Civil War were not -- and could never be -- slave owners. But, that's not to say they were not defending slavery. To me, that's fundamentally the same as all those GOP (and Trump) voters who -- blindly supporting economic policies that favor the rich -- persistently vote in ways that are wholly against their own self-interests. Sometimes "you just can't fix stupid".
@Stone, maybe you're right. But you can't blame a group of people for not wanting to admit 100k in human causalities was all for nothing. It's just so sad to me. I think we should look to Germany post-WW2 and how they treated the remnants of that tragedy. For example, Auschwitz still stands, not as a memorial to nazis, but as a memorial to the tragic lesson of the Holocaust.
Sorry I also clicked post before finishing typing. I would say the statues would be best placed in some kind of museum, but I would be afraid the museum would itself then become a shrine for the types of human scum we saw over the weekend. I have more concerns than answers I guess
And so do the plantations. But point me to a statue of Rommel. Hitler? Anyone? Bueller?
North Carolina passed a law prohibiting the statues to be moved to museums. Wonder why.
@anon - had Lincoln lived I think race relations in this country would be quite different today. His murder -- by a Southerner -- led lesser 'statesmen' to approach reconstruction as an act of vengeance -- much as was the case with the victors in WW1.
The aftermath of WW1 led to Hitler and his Nazi party. The more enlightened aftermath of WW2 allowed both Japan and Germany to evolve and rejoin the family of nations as sensible and enlightened civilizations.
However, the aftermath of the Civil War led to a deep bitterness that still can be felt in the South today. The North's ill considered approach to reconstruction never allowed the South to reflect on what led to their downfall and reconcile with their Northern neighbors.
I found an interesting inscription for the German soldiers buried in France at La Cambe German war cemetary, "With its melancholy rigour, it is a graveyard for soldiers not all of whom had chosen either the cause or the fight. They too have found rest in our soil of France." I think that statues to certain individuals like Nathan Bedford Forrest need to be removed, as he certainly went on to commit evil actions. But guys like Robert E. Lee just performed the service asked of them by their states, and did so without dishonor or malice. Maybe these statues need to be curated intelligently and fairly. Some should be removed, others can be contextualized with plaques or new monuments nearby offering the kind of perspectives we found appropriate for a just society today.
The other that is quickly forgotten and I'm not sure those from the north or the young remember; it's still a wound in a lot of families who've been around since the civil war... my great grandparents were alive and of conscript age during the civil war. They raised my grandmother, and were involved in my mother's life. I was raised with stories my grandmother told. Probably not many Northerners grew up having picnics in Civil war memorial battlefields where their grandparents told them stories and relayed this history. Most those battlefields are in the South and are part of the culture. Sitting in some national park, grandpa pointing out the caves and how they were used to hide food so the family wouldn't starve. Those are my campfire stories. Doesn't mean I grew up to be racist. But being in Denver now, which wasn't affected, the history of the civil war is much different than those family tales and history grandma passed down, including the diaries and journals of previous generations. I'd give a generation or two more... sort of like the Revolutionary War where my family journals as a Scot who eventually fought against the US because of the persecution and political climate of "loyalty oaths" are much different than what my history class taught; but it lacks that personal touch and feel the Civil war still holds for me as I remember back to all these stories and my grandmother telling them while we visited the various memorials. That's my remembrance of being culturally identifying with the South.
I grew up in the South, and I remember being taught in middle school that the Civil War was about "state's rights". That doesn't mean my teachers weren't full of shit.
anon: would you apply the same logic that you applied to Robert E. Lee above to those members of the German army who were commandants of concentrations camps? If WW2 proved anything, it proved that it's not enough for soldiers to "just perform the service asked of them".
Anon, you're way off with the 100K casualty number. Actually, more than a million casualties, including over 600K deaths.
Well how about Sherman? Scorched earth march where he targeted civilian populations and stole all their food, burnt anything left over. btw; I'm essentially a CO native, but my roots are from the southern states.
The South were traitor secessionists. IDGAF teach that traitorous history in an elective class. They lost.
Melt them down and use the materials to build abortion clinics. Boom, hit two stones with one racist bird.
Anon, agreed, the history surrounding the statues is deeply complex.
Could be left to a local public vote.
Or could simply be relocated to a local museum such that there is context for it in a relatively safe environment (for viewers), meanwhile people can enjoy the parks without being accosted with what has ultimately become a symbol for white supremacy. This also may perturb armed nazis who apparently now flock there to idolize/celebrate that symbol. Though it doesn't seem much can quell that shit storm, the statues were just an excuse for them to spew their hate and violence.
I think it's more important that parks provide a positive, neutral, welcoming environment for all people - as is generally the intended purpose of public parks - than it is for them to be political statements or history lessons. It's important to take into account the current symbolism of those figures regardless of what their history was, in order for the park to to viewed as a place for all the public. As is now, the symbolism basically conveys to POC that they aren't welcome there, again regardless of any nuanced history.
"Could be left to a local public vote. " It was. They voted to protect these monuments to traitors and racists. The underhanded methods and the fact that you don't know this speaks to the deep-hidden real reasons, which is less in "heritage" and more in "hatred".
They should all be kept as a constant reminder that people are arseholes, they only should be painted orange in celebration of the commander in chief.
A lot of these statues were erected by Democratic politicians at the turn of the century when they solidified control of the southern states, so with these statue removals it is often a case of the new, modern Dems poking a stick in the eye of their Boss Hogg Dem relatives of yesteryear. It doesn't get much more ironic than that.
Volunteer -- I agree -- the current situation is very ironic.
Given the evolution of politics and political parties over time it makes little sense to say - as I have seen repeatedly on other discussion boards the past few days - that the Democrats are responsible for establishing the KKK or the John Birch Society. It would be equally silly to tout the GOP as the 'party of Lincoln' and therefor responsible for abolishing slavery. In the end, it's much more about "conservative" vs. "progressive" points of view. In the two examples I cite, conservatives were on the wrong side of history -- and morality -- both times.
The heritage, not hate rhetoric is BS when one can just take a look at the CSA Constitution to see that not only slavery was enshrined in their founding document, but specifically African American slavery. The majority of these statues were erected to reinforce white supremacy years after the Civil War, and during times of civil and economic strife more or less to rally the base... Not really erasing history when it's revisionist history.
Pete, I suggested to move them. I acknowledged it could also be left to a vote as a direct response to anon. It is my understanding that in Charlottesville it was voted to remove them, and then this vote was blocked by an ACLU lawsuit. Being not from the south nor living there, I do not keep up with the local newspapers of every locality's votes on whether they choose to remove or destroy such statues. I'm not sure what you're insinuating exactly, but it doesn't seem good. My suggestion to move them to a museum or other historical type setting was one of compromise in response to anon's comment regarding the statues having historical significance beyond political connotations of today's interpretation.
My opinion as an architect and designer, in response to OP, is that people of all backgrounds and race should feel welcome in public parks and that these statues are in opposition of this goal thus they should be removed from the parks.
http://abc11.com/politics/in-nc-local-officials-cant-remove-confederate-memorials/2310048/
The white nationalist right is disgusting and should never have been given the legitimizing coverage that came out of Charlottesville, but a desire for blood, the ubiquity of social media, and the media's quest to fill time and make profits in a 24-hour news cycle have led us to the divided nation we have now. That being said, do these statues really, really?, make people feel uncomfortable in our public spaces. Or is this a convenient political statement by the left in an attempt to paint conservatives in the same portrait as white nationalists?
Yes, they do make people feel uncomfortable. They are also used as devices to terrorize people even when they do try to use those spaces. Third- if spaces celebrate the people who terrorize you and you struggle to have spaces that are important to your historical perspective, impressions are made.
Better would be to make a wall on what used to be the Mason-Dixon line. Fuck da South!
Whatever keeps the confederates out of the north doc. But we'd have to build an bridge or tunnel for evacuees because there's too many down there stuck with no feasible (financial) way out as it is. According to some news articles they've already begun invading and are putting up their flags in manhattan windows. They're still too scared to show themselves on the streets but I fear it's only a matter of time seeing how brazen they've become.
Charleston was settled by old Bostonian families that spent the winters in Charleston and the summers in Boston. Some Charlestonians still have a slight New England accent if you listen closely. You can't get any more southern than Charleston or any more northern than Boston, so it can get complicated, quickly. And many of the blacks in Charleston were not slaves but 'freeman' who had their own businesses. Just saying the situation was more nuanced than the liberal zealots would have you believe.
this is best decided as a legal issue of the town residents. What do do with the ones that come down? Auction them, then the town can put the money towards something they want.
I think they should tear down the statue of the fonz... ayyyy!
Take em down. Put em in museums if you want to 'remember history'
Or just build museums around them, with gift shops and cafés where you can order your pumpkin spice lattes year-round.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/06/26/we-should-treat-confederate-monuments-the-way-moscow-and-budapest-have-treated-communist-statutes/
I don't get it...
So we can't allow a key figure in the Confederacy be honored but we're fine with soldiers of the notorious Vietnam War (Maya Lin no less) be memorialized?
Hypocrisy...hypocrisy everywhere.
A memorial to soldiers who lost their lives in an illegal, unjust war can't be compared with a memorial to those who fought to preserve slavery.
The soldiers were drafted into the military. Was Lee? Was Jackson ? Were any of the confederates who have statues? If so, maybe that's a unique case.
The Vietnam Memorial honors dead US Citizens.
Confederate Statues honor leaders who commanded a foreign army against the US.
Nice attempt at a comparison though.
& wtf does "(Maya Lin no less)" mean?
The comparison might be apt if the Vietnam memorial were statues located in Vietnam, and they were of people like LBJ and McNamara.
+++
There is a memorial nearby that honors 5000 Confederate POW's who died of disease in prison. In my book permissible as it honors loss of human life. Just as I think the Vietnam memorial is absolutely appropriate, as would one honoring the many fallen Vietnamese.
Honoring a leader in a flawed cause and potent symbol of a hateful ideology is a different story.
Still don't get why so many are triggered by a status quo statue.
I realized the rest of my reply got lost with the new commenting system so here goes:
Milles - So slavery in your books takes precedence over an illegal/unjust war. Sounds like you got your priorities checked.
Sneakypete - They didn't have to. They died fighting for the nation's cause anyhow.
Tduds - What foreign army? Explain please. I brought up Maya as it seems many here forgo logic just because she's a great designer. Smells like hypocrisy to me anyway.
Everyday Architect - Except the South were americans too and helped shape our history?
Chris Teeter - Actually, I was in favor of erecting a statue for Snowden. The Southerners had the option to retaliate or conform as their businesses were directly affected by decisions made in DC.
The North were no better truth be told. It took another several decade to abolish the system of slavery altogether.
Archanonymous - The Vietnam Memorial doesn't memorialize Vietnamese dude. What're you smokin?
archietechie, try reading it again. Memorializing soldiers as canon fodder vs. the leaders of slave society.
I don't think I have ever seen a Vietnam Monument glorify the leaders of that war or the war it'self, they tend to be very somber. The American Civil War is difficult to deal with. More people died in that war than any other american war. Monuments that mark a specific site/event are and should be different than monuments that glorify and attempt to reshape the past to fit a current or recent regime of hate and discrimination.
This is all about an old meme, recorded as far back as Marcus Aurelius in western history. The leader/victor/conquer on horseback. Think about it, that's the first thing that comes to mind when you say Lee memorial (the Durham memorial was lame in the spectrum of heroic statues).
This is the legacy that people are trying to maintain. Sure, there were others, but they were destroy and melted down for whatever was seen to be as a more valuable idea at the point in time. So the worst thing you can do is melt the statue because it has no more relevance. It's not text in a history book that matters, it's the physical object - the one that marks a landscape and frames in a specific context.
We'd like to think these things are of the past, but they are very much alive, shaping the places that surround them for good and for bad. But in these cases I say relocate them. The original Aurelius is in a museum now (albeit for preservation), so why can't the Lee statues be repositioned in historical discourse? Not erased, but certainly not maintained as icons of a hateful legacy.
And Mabel Wilson frames this matter so well...
" An object of remembrance may not be relocated to a museum, cemetery, or mausoleum unless it was originally placed at such a location. As used in this section, the term "object of remembrance" means a monument, memorial, plaque, statue, marker, or display of a permanent character that commemorates an event, a person, or military service that is part of North Carolina's history."
http://ncga.state.nc.us/Sessio...
I'm not sure of the point given that this is legislation - and that can be altered. Please elaborate.
Question: "why can't the Lee statues be repositioned in historical discourse?"
Answer: Because the state government in NC preemptively made that extremely difficult and, seeing as they have slim to zero chance of being replaced by more reasonable, inclusive folks in the foreseeable future, this is the reality. Leaving this sort of shit to the local / state governments in the South has never ended well.
@SneakyPete- The assumption that it's not worth addressing if it is not resolved in months or years has always been a dangerous pitfall. How do you honestly resolve centuries of exclusion and erasure in 5 years? Play the long game like so many others have.
@quondam- still setting the grounds for cultural legitimacy that people seek to emulate by using the same figural themes.
I'm not sure if these nuances matter. We could ask the same question of every heroic statue that copies this model, and I think the differences would cloud the discussion. This is a case of cultural legitimacy first, the idiosyncrasies of this particular history related to the precedent come second.
Marc, if I gave you the impression that I feel that this isn't an issue worth addressing, I apologize. You are correct that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I'm simply frustrated and often that leads to a sense of hopeless negativity that comes across in my discourse.
Cross talk confusion, no
worries
I think you may have the statues removed to gardens that are open to the public, like Bellingrath Gardens in Mobile. Alabama. Then people can seek them out when they visit if they wish or not. The statues will be protected against people with sledgehammers and spray paint. The bad side is that poor people will not be able to go often because of the admission charge and have to accept something as scruffy as "Emancipation Park" in Charlottesville without its centerpiece.
^Don't forget your sledgehammer and spray paint when you visit Mobile. Think of it as part of your training for the next Barcelona. The world really needs more of your sputtering, incoherent brand of hate.
Da fuk?
1- Emancipation Park is not scruffy, it's heavily used. That's actually a good sign for a public park of that type. Although people have been known not to use the park due to the dedication.
2- Even assuming that the park became scruffy overnight (ok, a few months) due to the impact of the name change, an RFP just closed to renovate Emancipation and Justice parks (why there is little talks about Justice Park is interesting).
3- Along with this there are thoughtful discussions being had about where to relocate the Lee sculpture using a visible location on public land.
4- The comparison of a park to a botanical garden is just not accurate. That's not the service public parks/squares serve. The further suggestion that privatizing public artifact is just off base. Even the Highline in all it's luxury is a public park and open to the public (mostly).
My favorite two books that shed light on the complex history that has led us to this point:
http://www.colinwoodard.com/am...
http://www.colinwoodard.com/am...
They are engaging, thoroughly researched and different from traditional approaches to the subject.
This whole issue is both more complex and simpler than you all are making it out to be. The simplicity is in what the statues are, what they memorialize, and how local communities see them as good or bad. If a local community doesn't want statues or memorials for something, then by all means they should take them down. It really is that simple. And it applies to everything. Not just Confederate memorials. Buildings too, at least the public ones over which the community has control.
If the community of Charlottesville, VA or Durham, NC or wherever wants the Confederate statues down, they should be taken down. But that also means that if they want them up, they should be left up. There are always vocal minorities who agitate about this stuff (a group of them is protesting the Lenin statue in Seattle near me right now). But those minorities, vocal though they may be, don't get to decide. It's a community decision, and should stay that way. As of right now, it's not entirely clear what the community really wants in many of these cases.
And that's why the complexity in this situation is related more to how various outside parties are using the memorials and statues as levers in a broader cultural and political war against one another. All of the parties who were fighting one another in Charlottesville were outsiders, not locals. On both sides. They all need to shut up and butt out of local decisions that are none of their business.
True, the decision had been made months ago. Hence the 1st rally of outsiders (w/ respect to Charlottesville).
*yawn*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It gets a bit tiresome hearing about how we need to let white people make decisions for non-white people simply because they're more numerous.
Referring to...
"If a local community doesn't want statues or memorials for something, then by all means they should take them down. It really is that simple. And it applies to everything. Not just Confederate memorials. Buildings too, at least the public ones over which the community has control. If the community of Charlottesville, VA or Durham, NC or wherever wants the Confederate statues down, they should be taken down. But that also means that if they want them up, they should be left up. There are always vocal minorities who agitate about this stuff (a group of them is protesting the Lenin statue in Seattle near me right now). But those minorities, vocal though they may be, don't get to decide. It's a community decision, and should stay that way. As of right now, it's not entirely clear what the community really wants in many of these cases."
In other words, if enough people want something despicable, they get it.
It's their home, dude. Not yours. They get to decide.
rather than letting the public vote on it, how about we just let the public vandalize it. The nazis can be in charge of cleaning up the paint and making repairs if they wish. We can destroy it if we wish. I say let it remain in ruin...eroded and vandalized.
like these...
Erected in 1977. Total bullshit revisionism.
And the other?
Can't read anything.
That's an Emmett Till Historical Marker has been repeatedly vandalized. The point being- to leave something in place with the understanding this it will be destroyed by detractors is a dangerous proposition with unintended consequences.
1984 here we come.
Right. In 1984, fascists were told to fuck off resulting in the plot of the book. Or not. Whatever. Nothing matters if it doesn't align with your predetermined view.
If they can turn a cartoon frog named Pepe into a symbol of hate and racism, it doesn't matter what the hell these monuments "actually" commemorate. By removing these statues, no one is erasing history, just an opportunity for someone to have a platform and attach their bigotry to PUBLIC space.
This kind of shameful history should be preserved in other places, like books, but unfortunately Texas is a step ahead of the game and already whitewashing the Civil War in every textbook your kid reads.
The key phrase is "Public Space". Do we have the right to express disgusting views in the public realm? Yes of course. Do we have the right to have a statue that represents those views in a Public Space? No. There is a big difference there. Tearing down the statues imo is akin to tearing down the Berlin Wall. It's a symbolic gesture. By removing artifacts that where initially Intended to impose racial superiority we are making a statement not about the past, but about the future that we want. I hate censorship and sugar coating, but this is not the same. Removing the statues is not an act of unwriting history, it's an act of writing history. It is additive, not reductive. This is why I am fine with the removal of these monuments despite being a big proponent of free speech and expression. My only fear, is the power the state gains as deciders of moral decency. I do not want them to have that power. The removal of the statues should imo be done through a public and democratic route to avoid setting any precedent for future abuse of power.
Or, Rather than removing them, I'll settle for adding giant bronze statues of Lincoln tea bagging the Lee statues with the inscription "lick my balls loser"
If they're going to remove all the Confederate statues they should remove all the Union ones too.
weak bait
Oh lord. What level of stupid did this person step in?
A monument to Christopher Columbus in Baltimore, Maryland, (the oldest monument to Columbus in the New World) has been severely damaged because of the Indian thingy with Chris. A video on You Tube indicates it is the inner city residents of Charm City defacing the statue. Apparently if you wear black masks and black hoodies you can destroy, terrorize, and injure at will, while wearing white masks and white hoodies is a no-no. See the difference? Me neither.
Well, now.........there is a difference. The boys with white hoodies don't just attack statues. They have a nasty habit of trying to kill people.
i mean, one group is a highly organized politically active entity that represents over a century of collaborative oppression and violence towards various groups of people deemed to be 'unclean' and actively advocates genocidal acts against said unclean peoples; whereas the other appears to be a bunch of young memelords seizing upon the zeitgeist to do a little mischief
but yeah totally the fucking same thing bro
/s
The oldest monument to Christopher Columbus in the country on whose soil HE NEVER SET FOOT.
This pleasant fellow was caught defacing a Confederate cemetery marker in Indianapolis, Indiana, of all places. No zealotry here.
White guys with dreads should all be arrested immediately.
I am so sick and tired of seeing all these statues talking about they represent racism, hatred and slavery But the statues and the Confederate flag have been up for a 100 or more years and it never seemed to bother anybody before until now. People want to pick and choose which statues to remove and if you notice it's only of white people I wonder how it would feel if the tables were turned and we started getting rid of black statues and black monuments sign this petition and let's start removing these memorials to black people and slavery use your voice quit being scared stand up for your rights and your freedom
"...and it never seemed to bother anybody before until now."
It did. You just weren't listening to them because they're black.
What happend...all out of periods in honky land?
it seems no one is trying to protect the statues and monuments being removed except the Americanhistorypreservation.us group. many people are only complaining and do not know what they can do. this outfit wants to hear about any removals or destruction planned to American Historical artifacts and hopes to protect them. They have a place on their site for us to add any information that may be helpful.
who cares about those dumb racist symbols
we should not overlook the African American activists who fought to reclaim their history of the Civil War as part of their quest for equal citizenship. In fact, it would be easier to forget that the Civil War’s legacy has always been contentious. But the war and its symbols have always held different meanings for different groups, and confronting that history is imperative
Artists, historic preservationists and museum curators are watching the nation's Confederate soldier statues coming down and are torn about what should happen to them when they're no longer atop their pedestals.