That’s what the Holocaust Museum does–at the end of the exhibit, it explores contemporary “genocides” that are occurring in (typically) non-Western nations.
The Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, UK has a very tasteful extended exhibit on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I thought it was very well done–informative without being inflammatory, thought-provoking without being didactic. It also doesn’t resort to sensational techniques the way an overly-politicized display would. I was impressed and was surprised I’d never seen anything comparable in the States.
I agree that it ought to be in DC, but given the glacial pace and rancor, VA is a good alternative. Slaves were in VA before Pilgrims were in MASS, and Jamestown property owners weren’t budging.
As the article(s) argued: on the one hand you’d have white resentment at the guilt such a monument would be bound to unfairly inspire. On the other hand it is equally bound to promote a sense of victimhood among blacks. That’s divisive.
Maybe you or I wouldn’t feel either of these things - what do you think you would feel when you visited it by the way? - but on balance, common sense tells me it’s by far the most probable result.
Now, for balance, if someone could just explain how it will “promote ‘reconciliation’ and ‘healing’”
Well then why not throw out the history books that you bought up earlier, afterall they teach about slavery. Wouldn’t you white resentment/black victimhood still apply? Or on a slightly different track shouldn’t those same arguments apply to the Holocaust museum with respect to Jews/Germans? It’s a freaking memorial, people will bring to it what they will as with any other peice of art/structure/statue. Because some might not like it is no reason not to build it.
If Zimbabwe doesn’t count, Rwanda does. We sure didn’t help there.
I don’t think either of these is necessarily the case. I’m white and feel no guilt or responsibility for slavery. My ancestors were still roughing it in Eastern Europe at the time. Even descendants of slaveowners - who, it is mentioned earlier, were relatively few - have nothing to feel guilty about. Assuming they know who they are to begin with. Likewise, plenty of black people aren’t descended from slaves. This kind of thing is NOT an everyday subject to the point where it would promote victimhood and resentment.
I think what might really be touchy about the issue of slavery is that a testimonial of some kind (monument, museum, whatever) might remind people that, while African slavery is in the past in America, its effects aren’t. Nobody on either side of the aisle and few people of any race are very comfortable with that particular discussion.
A lot of people seem to think this has to be a monument to shame. Why? Why shouldn’t Americans be proud that, while our problems are numerous, we no longer sanction this brutal practice? (I will, for the moment, ignore issues like sweatshops and slavery abroad. I don’t ignore those on a regularl basis, though.) Why shouldn’t there be pride that we’ve made strides toward equality in the last 150 years? Why shouldn’t Americans of any color be proud of people like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth? A memorial to slavery would surely have to discuss great people like these, who overcame titanic adversity and achieved a great deal. If this museum taught more kids about them (not just in Black History Month/Flavor of the Month kind of way), wouldn’t that be a major plus?
I’d also say the museum can promote open discourse about our past, as well as awareness regarding current slavery problems, and yes, perhaps the giant elephant in America’s living room, race relations. Because we still don’t live in a raceless or classless society. I really like the idea of a monument here - and perhaps it can be the first of several on issues like these. A monument like this to Native American history could be next (let’s not forget what happened to them). And perhaps a Women’s Rights or Women’s Suffrage Museum as well. Openness on topics like these would do everybody some good, I think, honesty being the best policy and all.
“If you know your history, then you would know where you’re coming from.” -Bob Marley
Bingo. Which is a main reason, IMHO, why such a museum is needed. You can directly trace much of the present-day disparity between whites and blacks (whether in poverty, prison population, or what have you) to a chain of events from slavery through the failure of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, ghettoization, et cetera. That most people don’t think to do so absolutely informs contemporary attitudes on race–including, most notably, the social Darwinism of those who believe, explicitly or im-, that blacks are on the whole less well off in this country than whites in part because they deserve to be. After all, we’ve all got the same rights under the law…
Well, the two biggest I know happen to be black democrats, yes, but I rather believe that it’s opportunism rather than… actually, no, the second and third biggest… Farrakhan is first, then Jackson and Sharpton.
Someone whose modius operandi is self promotion through legal, illegal, ethical, and unethical methods, using the historical differences, issues, and horrible wrongs, between two races, as a means for self promotion.
In and of itself, I have no objections to a memorial or museum dedicated to slavery in the U.S. Horrible, tragic and evil things happen in this world, they’ve happened in this country, and it’s only right that they be recognized.
My ONLY objection is this: after a while, things like this (along with the Holocaust Museum and the Irish Famine memorial in New York City) have an unfortunate tendency to spiral into turf wars, in which people of various ethnic groups argue over who’s suffered more. And after a while, people’s eyes just glaze over and they stop listening.
Close, as the saying goes, only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Nope. Now, if you could point to a specific ethnic, social or political group who are being starved at the expense of all others, and if you can show that this is a planned act rather than government ineptitude, that might constitute genocide. Thing is, that’s not the case in Zim.
I guessing that’s probably enough for this particular deviation from the discussion at hand, unless for some reason you want to keep on with your own hijack.
astorian, I’ve never heard of the turf wars inspired by the National Holocaust Museum or the Irish Famine Memorial (which I’ve never even heard about). Care to elaborate?
It seems like a Slavery Memorial would be even more appropriate than the memorials cited above. American slavery was peculiar and long-lasting. It spurned an entire culture that lasts until today. It had historical importance. American history would be so boring if not for slavery. The formal commeration of this fact would be appreciated by many.
A memorial would make up for the fact that US government has not even recognized its role in the perpetuation of the Evil Institution.
december, are we to be like Ancient Egypt, and have not a single monument made documenting some of the wrongs of the American empire, so that the future peoples would learn from the mistakes made and how they were corrected? Do you wish that remains of what we were be akin the statue of Ozymandias in a desert?
Of course, given that Col spends his life examining financial and economic issues, this may simply indicate that your overblown admiration of Sowell is founded more on your delight in finding a black who says what you like to hear rather than that Sowell is, indeed, anyone of note. He’s a newspaper columnist. Whatever “wonderful” ideas he has expressed in economics do not appear to have actually made any mark on the world of people who actually practice in the area on which he pontificates.
And your second quoted paragraph indicates such an enormous ignorance of the historical reality of American slavery as to justify the immediate groundbreaking of a museum to counter such silliness.
Slavery in the U.S. was not the worst in the world. It was, however, a peculiar form of chattel slavery that was maintained in a nation purportedly founded on the notion of the innate equality of humans. One would suppose that any decent museum addressing slavery would, indeed, point out that slavery continues to exist in the world. However, a failure (or refusal) to recognize that the slavery that was established in the U.S., based exclusively on perceived race with laws to inhibit manumission (and to permit re-enslavement of people caught without their papers of manumission based solely on their perceived race), is different than the personal servitude that continues in various parts of the world, today, frequently based on poverty or debt from which one may purchase one’s freedom, bespeaks a woeful ignorance of the general topic of slavery in or out of this country. Such a museum might even be used to keep an awareness of the continued slavery throughout the world in the public eye.
Celebrate evil? Despite the many posts in this thread, you don’t understand the meaning of a memorial, do you?
Red herring: Sudan’s slavery problem is not related to creating a memorial to remember the brutality of American slavery.
False Claim: “Celebrating slavery” (see above — check definition of memorial) DOES NOT imply Sudan’s slavery will be ignored. If you think so, show me how.
Are you assuming a black person wouldn’t be likely to deserve admiration on his own? Sowell is highly admired by conservatives and libertarians My admiration for Sowell is perhaps even higher because he and I think in similar ways. No surprise, perhaps, due to our having been at the University of Chicago. Also, his logical, economist’s POV seems pretty close to my logical actuarial POV. And, I admire his horror at illogical policy and bad thinking in general. We also share a number of political beliefs, as well as a love for Yosemite National Park, and a desire to see it widely enjoyed.
His books cover a wide range of subjects. A recent one deals with children who are late talkers, despite having normal or superior intelligence. He has written several books about the the importance of culture. His book of a couple of years ago, “Basic Economics” is a nice, simple presentation of free market economics. You ought to read it. You won’t agree with it, but you’ll learn something.
Although his PhD is in economics, his books are on a variety of public policy areas. Obviously, the free market ideas he espouses have been in the ascendency for some time. E.g., deregulation, school vouchers, welfare reform, tax cuts.
No doubt this would be a hoped-for result. However, as I said, I question whether it would actually be effective in this role.
Should there be some sort of memorial for the victims of 9/11. Or would that merely be celebrating/memorializing our failures and acknowledging the victory of evil (at least until we catch OBL). I mean REALLY the vast majority of th people who died did nothing heroic or were even necessarily good people - they were just in the way of a madman.
If you think we should acknowledge the victims at the WTC (leave the Pentagon out of this because the people there were serving their country) how is it different from the slavery memorial, other than the timeliness (in which case shouldn’t we wait to make sure our feelings about 9/11 endure - if in 5 or 50 years we have followed Tarantula’s advice and “gotten over it” we won’t want some slab of concrete sucking up prime Manhattan real estate)
“I don’t think either of these is necessarily the case. I’m white and feel no guilt or responsibility for slavery. My ancestors were still roughing it in Eastern Europe at the time. Even descendants of slaveowners - who, it is mentioned earlier, were relatively few - have nothing to feel guilty about. Assuming they know who they are to begin with. Likewise, plenty of black people aren’t descended from slaves. This kind of thing is NOT an everyday subject to the point where it would promote victimhood and resentment.”
Even so, most people won’t think that far.
Just out of curiosity, is there a memorial for the rape of Nanking or for the Angkar in Cambodia or for the western expansion in the US?