Any suggestions for "deconsecrating" statues other than removing them?

This is NOT, repeat, NOT a debate thread about whether Confederate or other statues deemed offensive should be removed. It’s more about alternatives to removal.

Some of these statues weigh several tons. The four statues moved in New Orleans this past May cost $600,000. Even the smaller ones are heavy, and there are thousands of them already plus however many more are deemed offensive five years from now. They are VERY expensive to move, and destroying them would not only cause major problems and hurt feelings and legislative retaliation in addition to whatever illegal actions it might incite, it’s also expensive. Also, we’re not just talking about the U.S.- other countries have statues that offend or embarrass modern sensibilities. (Not about a statue, but from today’s Canadian news chosen just because of it’s relevance- John MacDonald is out of favor with many who want his name taken off a school; statues could follow suit there even.

So, I think there should be a way to deal with the issue of these relics of an often racist past that is not as expensive but still gets the point across. I just don’t know what it is. Any suggestions?

The cheapest idea to me would seem to be plaques: perhaps something like the blue round historic plaques in England that is small and instantly recognizable for what it is BUT (unlike those blue plaques) specifically means “This was installed in another time with different sensibilities and no longer reflects the views of those in charge of this park [or whatever] {but it’s a heavy ass mother that would cost $100,000 to move and there are better uses for that money}.”

Ancient Athens famously had the emasculation of the herms, but since our statues aren’t usually naked it wouldn’t quite work here but perhaps something less dramatic: chipping a piece of the plinth in a particular way to show “this is a part of the history of this area, but an offensive part”.

Any other suggestions for ways to decommission them without having to move them?

Permanent, funny nose glasses?

Slap someone else’s name on them?

If you go with a half-measure, you’re just going to make both sides unhappy and have to do something again in a few years anyway.

That’s not just true for statues, that’s true for a lot of things. Fix the root now, rather than spending 10x as much over 10x as long with continual ‘cheap fixes’.

EDIT: you wanted suggestions. $5 buys you 3 whacks with a sledgehammer. Fundraiser for the city and the statue is removed in a day! :slight_smile: (But seriously, I’m not convinced that many of these status have any value, even as art pieces)

and maybe replace the head. Or maybe just the hair.

Seriously though, the scrap value of most metal statues must be worth more than the cost of moving them. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be scrap metal collectors driving through the alleyways of every city.

Put 'em on craig’s list.

“Old statues, some sentimental value, $25 each.”

They’ll be gone overnight.

Contrast the cost of a one-time move for these statues (which perhaps could be shared by the municipality and a gimme-that-old-time-confederacy preservation group) with the cost over the years of repairing vandalism (spray-painting, beheading and other damage which is in no way to be condoned but getting to be inevitable these days), and it might wind up being cheaper just to transfer them to a museum.

Although I like the idea of putting a dress on this statue of Jefferson Davis.*

*yeah, I know it’s a semi-urban legend about Davis fleeing the wrath of Union forces wearing women’s clothing.
**times are changing fast enough that state legislatures will be encouraging the moving of these statues out of the public square, not punishing city officials for doing so.

I keep hoping somebody will volunteer to create a space for the Confederate statues and then the Sherman statues (a war criminal who was as racist as any Confederate general) can come down and perhaps Anderson Cooper can send some of the statues of his ancestor Judson “Kill Cavalry” Kilpatrick and they can all be automated to become the world’s biggest Civil War chess set. Til then, though.

Nothing cheap, but the only rational alternative I can think of, is to add balancing statues. Put a Union soldier next to e very Confederate soldier, and freed slave, or even (if you are brave) a slave in chains standing next to each one.

If nothing else, that would put the kibosh to those arguing that we should keep them, because it’s all about preserving our real history.

Kind of like, make a rule that you tell the whole truth about the past, or shut the F up (i.e. take down the hero worship only ones).

Or just a chain around the statue.

I wrote a thread many years ago- 2005 I think- that for some reason I can’t link to, but it was about a visit to Monticello. I’d last been there in the 1980s when the docents, all of them white women, referred to slaves as “servants”, Sally Hemings as a lie put out by political enemies, and to the extent they referred to Jefferson being a slave owner at all he was referred to as the most humane of masters who stopped just short of giving his slaves foot rubs and reading them bedtime stories. When I returned in 2005 I was amazed at how much it had changed: now the only taboo thing about Sally was that they asked you not to ask the guides about her in the house due to the adult nature of her role in Jefferson’s life, but outside not only would guides (who were no longer all white or all women) discuss her they gave a great lecture on how while there is no absolute proof Jefferson was the father of her children the combination of oral history, primary sources, DNA evidence, and probability all but close the book on it. They were restoring parts of Mulberry Row- Jefferson’s mountain top slave quarters (there were also “down the mountain” slave quarters that were lesser) and discussed slavery at Monticello in scholarly depth, including the portions that were given and the good and bad things about Jefferson as a slave owner. (He was indeed very lenient to some slaves and allowed them to be taught to read and write, but he also kept employed an overseer he openly admitted was too free with the lash for the sole reason that said overseer made him more money than others had, and he could have a cruel streak [e.g. with one runaway he ordered them to take him away at night and sell him and make it look like he disappeared from the planet, and when one of his grandchildren was attacked by a slave’s dog he had every dog on the plantation killed.) Jefferson also kept up a lavish lifestyle that was part of why he died deep in debt and with the exception of 6 members of the Hemings family all of his other slaves were sold to the winds when he died. And for these really interested, the book The Hemingses of Monticello is an incredible read (Sally was one of the least interesting members of an enormous family that is a great microcosm for studying slave society in that time).
And of course they also discuss the Declaration and his embassies to France and his term as Sec. of State and presidency and the things that he’s most important for, and of course the magnificent house itself. You see him as a genius and as a very flawed man.
To me that’s the template of historical revisionism: tell the full story.
But I don’t know how you’d do that with a statue.

Tar and feather every confederate statue depicting military and political leaders. Or, if it’s like the statue in Charlottesville, cut off Lee and leave the horse. The plaque should just read “HORSE.”

My long-held solution is to put some of the artistically finer ones in museums (the museums should WANT them), and banish the rest to large outdoor parks, like Budapest did with all the communist statues. Like a Confederacy Zoo.

I love public statuary, and wouldn’t even want to see Hitler or Satan statues melted down for scrap.

I am also against dynamiting Stone Mountain, which I respect as an engineering project more than I’d hate seeing giant traitors on the side of a mountain.

Simply have the crew saw the head off the sculpture. If stone the offensive head can be cheaply broken up. If metal it can be easily melted down.

Leave the rest exactly as it is where it is. The folks who like whatever it originally represented can worship the “destroyed” body and feel better nurturing their grievance. The folks who hate whatever it originally represented can be happy that the universal seal of disapproval has so memorably been applied.

Sounds great. But … now it’s time to fight the hypothetical.
Ultimately in a democracy it doesn’t work well to have people that het up about symbols of ancient things. Rather than spend effort on how to destroy monuments some revile and others revere, spend the same effort to bring concensus on what we do think of these things. That way lies harmony & progress, not endless bickering over a frozen conflict.

In the 1990s we all watched in utter amazement as the Serbs and Croats had a violent civil war. Whose central grievance (on both sides) can be summarized as “sometime between 300 and 700 years ago, your group was mean to our group.” The folly of them destroying their own country right then over ancient history made no sense to Americans. Though no doubt a lot of bad stuff was done much more recently under cover of “revenge” for the original crimes. But each current bad act was justified by reference to the other side’s original sin.

And here we are 30 years later preparing to refight our wars of the 1860s from now until Doomsday, making this fight the central defining characteristic of our society. That way lies madness, failure, and strife.

Work on moving on. When most everybody recognizes the statues for what they are, a lingering mistake from the past, then taking them down is both uncontroversial and helpful to harmony. The choice is do that or prepare to partition the country, *de facto *if not de jure.

Of course we should work on moving on. The statues are preventing that, exactly as they were intended to do, and so they should be removed.

Stone Mountain demands nukes. Dirty nukes.

The cost of removing 4 monuments in New Orleans was more than $2 million after the cost of lawsuits and protests or figured in, and that is to be borne by the city. The costs of removing Lee and Jackson from Charlottesville was expected to be $700,000 for the removal alone, that being before the protests and counter-protests and riots and deaths and however many lawsuits follow. We are not talking and in considerable amount of money but an ENORMOUS amount of money (there are more than 1,000 multi-ton monuments), all of which will have to be paid by monies from the taxes of the people from Southern States, states which are among the poorest in the nation with notoriously bad Healthcare and underfunded schhols and public services (and led by conservative demagogues who LOVE stuff like this both for the opportunity it gives to stir up their base and as a distraction from real issues).
This is why I am trying to think of other Alternatives. So far I like the idea of chaining the statues best. The chain represents that they were fighting a war to perpetuate slavery, the statue still stands to represent lions and tigers and bears and other such s*** that people associate with it, and because change cost a lot less than moving a huge statue the money stays in the coffers, and protesters would look like damn fools for protesting the putting of a chain on an inanimate object.
Perhaps a broken chain even to represent that slavery ended and that one can see evidence of past brutality without being chained to it.

(Pardon wonky spelling and capitalization due to voice dictating.)

I know that you don’t mean this literally, but as somebody who has very dear friends in Stone Mountain (who like the vast majority of the 7,000 residents of Stone Mountain’s residents are black) I really don’t like the notion of bombs being dropped on them, even if it’s to protect their sensitivities.
Andrew Young is also opposed to the demolition of Stone Mountain, for which he is being called an Uncle Tom in comments sections on various news sites.

Sell them?