And those three memorials have statues of who exactly?
CMC
Those are places where things happened. The place itself is a part of history. We are talking about statues and names to people who may have never even visited the places they are being honored.
They want to preserve some battlegrounds (which they have done) and put some museums at those battlegrounds, then that would be a good location to move these statues to. Maybe even put up some pictures of schools, military bases, and other institutions that were named after those who took up arms against our country.
But people who are just going to pay their taxes shouldn’t be subject to a history lesson in how the ancestors of their neighbors fought to keep their ancestors as slaves.
C’mon, can we all not agree that this,
as an eighteen foot tall statue at the front door is exactly what the 9/11 memorial is missing?
CMC
That and renaming some local schools and hospitals after the hijackers.
Remembering bad times is one thing. Glorifying the people who committed heinous crimes and excusing keeping up memorials to them is sick. If the September 11 museum was taken down and replaced with a big statue of Osama Bin Laden on a horse with a ‘Death to America’ plaque, or the Auschwitz Musem was replaced with a big statue of Dr. Mengele or Hitler, then I think that locals would be working to tear them down if they could even get erected in the first place. A museum about the history and honoring the victims is pretty much the exact opposite of a statue glorifying the vile and not even showing the victims.
Keeping up memorials that honor people who committed treason in the name of white supremacy and in an attempt to maintain their ability to rape, torture, murder, and exploit black people at their whim is sick and disgusting. It’s doubly so when the people who’s rape, murder, torture, and exploitation is being celebrated have to walk by them to get to government offices. And claiming that keeping this sickening filth should be done as a ‘memorial’ is indeed a new concept.
I guess our difference of opinion comes down to my doubt that the statues are causing the severe mental and emotional damage you suggest they are. None of the people alive today have met any of the people represented by those statues. They’re statues of historical villains.
Seattle had (may still have) a statue of Stalin. Stalin slaughtered millions of people with my family’s religious background (and raped and oppressed them too). But somehow while there, I was able to gather the strength to look at it and not fall to my knees weeping in outrage and self-pity.
Seriously, it’s just a statue of a bad guy from 70 years ago.
“Since 1995 the statue has been held in trust waiting for a buyer, standing on temporary display for the last 25 years on a prominent street corner in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. It has become a Fremont landmark, and frequently has been decorated, or vandalized. The statue has sparked political controversy, including criticisms for being communist chic and as not taking the historic meaning of Lenin and communism seriously, or for taking it all too seriously, or by comparing the purported acceptance of such a charged political symbol to the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. Much of the debate ignores the former monument’s private, not public, ownership, and that it is installed on private property, with the public and the government having virtually no say in the matter.”
CMC
I’m aware of a statue of Lenin in Seattle, but to the best of my knowledge it’s on private property.
(Edited to add: dangit! Ninja’d!)
No one says it causes “severe mental or emotional damage”, that is a strawman and a fabrication of your own design. That they are detrimental is a different thing entirely.
None of the people in New York have ever met any of those behind the 9/11 attacks. Do you think that it would just be of historical interest to put up statues to them?
First, the statue to Lenin is on private property, so there is little that the government can do about that. Second, it’s odd that you went out of your way to go look at it, and even odder that, after going out of your way, you thought it was to Stalin, rather than to Lenin. Third, no one is saying that anyone is falling to their knees in outrage and weeping in outrage or self pity, that is once again just something that you have chosen to make up, and adds nothing to the debate, just severely detracts from my impression of how seriously to take your statements.
Do you get how a statue that is on private property is different at all from a statue that is condoned by your local government?
It’s not that someone will break down in tears at seeing it, that’s ridiculous hyperbole that is just an attempt at derailing things, it’s that, when passing it on your way in to the courthouse, you know that the people in that courthouse approved that thing to be out there. If you cannot understand why someone would feel differently about their government condoning and protecting statues of people who enslaved your ancestors right on the land you are currently standing on is entirely different from a statue of a guy
who lived half a world away on private property, then you may need to brush up on some things before you can keep up with such a discussion.
ETA: was it Stalin or Lenin who murder your extended family.
Leave the statues just where they are. Simply crudely cut all the heads off with a cutting torch leaving a jagged edge and the rest intact. Problem solved. Now we’ve memorialized 3 things in a simple artful way. The traitorous war, the assholic last 150 years of repression, AND the current awakening to what’s right.
Once we rename every government building and road named after any of the now-headless traitors we’ll be done.
Done that is with the first phase of moving our attitude towards our own sordid history beyond a Japan-style attitude to WWII and beginning to move towards a German-style attitude to WWII.
Rule one when in a hole: quit digging. Rule zero when in a hole: Recognize you’re in a hole.
It seems a sizeable fraction of America is still struggling with rule zero. WIth ever less justification to keep their eyes screwed shut. But no apparent decrease in motivation to do so.
It was Stalin who murdered them.
We went to the statue because we were tourists and it is a tourist attraction. I think I thought it was Stalin while I was there too; I didn’t get super close. That’s a bit embarrassing.
Well, I guess my point has been refuted.
Put up for the express purpose of reminding the descendants of those victims that the villains ideals were very much still held by those in power. They may have lost the war, but the Governor, Mayor, or whomever was in power believed the South was right to enslave your ancestors.
Add to that “The South Will Rise Again” and a lot of people will realize that their long term prospects ain’t looking that good if they don’t move to somewhere safer.
CMC
What exactly do you think motivates people to risk arrest, beating, or death at the hands of police to tear the statues down in defiance of the law? This isn’t just talk, people are taking to the streets to damage or destroy these monuments to rape, torture, murder, and exploitation of black people. Your snide dismissal of the feelings of black people is not unexpected, but says a lot more about you than it does about the people fighting the memorialization of white supremacy.
The City of Seattle does not have a monument to Stalin. The statue you’re talking about is of Lenin, as has been pointed out, and is privately owned, so is completely different from monuments owned and maintained by governments and sitting on government buildings. It was bought by a private individual as a collector’s item and is held on their property, there’s no government action keeping it there. Further, despite right-wing propaganda, there is no credible evidence that the city of Seattle is preparing to implement a Leninist government. There is abundant evidence that the states with statues celebrating confederates had white supremacist governments and continue to have strong influences along those lines in government - the statues themselves are a stark indicator.
And again, people aren’t ‘falling to their knees weeping in self pity’, they’re grabbing ropes and taking down the statues since appealing to the decency of Republican legislatures has proven to be a fool’s task. Your attempt to paint them as whiny snowflakes doesn’t match reality at all.
Well the unhinged, radical mob isn’t stopping at Confederate memorials now are they? So, my proposal is for every statue that the mob tears down the state puts up two more. When mob violence is stopped and disincentivized then we can engage in a rational debate. At the moment society needs to demonstrate that we won’t let the toddlers run the daycare.
They already are!
You misunderstood my proposal. I have no interest in empowering mobs.
After suitable legislation is passed, the people cutting off the heads shall be workers of whichever local or state government owns the statute. Overseen by Federal troops if necessary.
Your proposal is to put up more statues of traitorous losers? Aside from showing black people what their proper place in your apparently desired society is, what would this accomplish?
It’s interesting how cops using chemical weapons and physical force against peaceful protestors apparently does not qualify as mob violence and definitely comes below people damaging inanimate objects put up for purely for the purpose of hateful intimidation. Also interesting that people tearing down monuments to the state condoned rape, torture, murder, and exploitation of a particular race are referred to as ‘animals’ and not the people cheering on state-sanctioned rape, torture, murder, and exploitation.
And comparing people tearing down Hitler-equivalent statues to brownshirts really takes the cake, the brownshirts were the ones who made sure to praise the person in favor of raping, torturing, murdering, and exploiting the ‘lesser races’.
Interesting article from the great great grand daughter of a confederate general.