And the flip side of that - if these districts have someone they want to honor, schools named for Jefferson or Washington shouldn’t be above being re-named.
We need to stop judging historical figures by current standards. Nancy Pelosi was wrong to remove the portraits of Speakers who also fought for the confederacy - if the display had ALL of the former speakers of the house, then they should be included because they were elected speaker of the house and held that position.
The biggest difference between statues of Washington and statues of Lee are that monuments to Washington were put up to honor a man who helped create the country; monuments to Lee erected in the 20th century were put up to remind blacks that they are sub-human. No monument to Washington was ever erected to celebrate that he was a slave owner.
With a lot of people considered “heroes,” only time will tell. Mother Teresa has won the Nobel Peace Prize. She has also been criticized as colonial, racist, and other things.
Thanks! I never heard of her, but she has a better resume than I do, that’s for sure.
I wonder what Obama (either one) or Winfrey has to say about it. No one speaks for all black people, but they are about as prominent as it gets. If they make the case that statues to Jefferson are offensive, I’ll be willing to listen.
Again, what does it matter if Obama and Oprah don’t find them offensive? That doesn’t automatically make them not offensive to other people. Obama and Oprah aren’t out there toppling statues. Endorsing statue toppling will result in statues toppling. Not saying anything will result in statues toppling. The only thing they could do, that maybe, MAYBE would change anything, is a forceful denunciation of statue toppling, which not only will not happen, but probably would not make a difference anyway.
I was responding specifically to Wrenching Spanners, who kindly provided a cite of at least one at least somewhat prominent progressive who is advocating removing those statues. I hadn’t heard of anyone prominent advocating such, so it was interesting to me. I’m curious about what other prominent African Americans think.
I have yet to see any prominent person advocating “statue toppling”, and I also don’t advocate that.
What exactly is it that you are wanting here? For no one at all to be talk about being offended by a statue?
There are people out there with many different opinions on many different things, and this concentration on the most extreme, and demanding that they either be justified or stopped, is pretty much a textbook definition of nutpicking.
There will be people will have negative opinions of anyone who was well known enough to be fixed into stone or metal. That will not change, no matter what you, I, or even progressive leaders do.
If you ignore the leaders, and focus only on the most extreme of followers, then you are going to end up with a rather skewed point of view.
Oh? Is writer, civil rights activist and BLM promoter Shaun King prominent enough for you? He not only wants the statues removed, he recently additionally tweeted support for removing all depictions of a “European Jesus” in churches.
Nobody’s arguing that we shouldn’t be taking down monuments and statues meant to glorify and commemorate the Confederacy and Confederates.
The question at hand is really whether or not we need to take down every statue of anyone historic who ever owned a slave or fought for the Confederacy, even if their statues are there for accomplishments unrelated to their Confederate service.
People are products of their time. By 2020 standards, I suspect a lot of the “good guys” of the Civil War era were hopelessly racist vs. black people, Native Americans, Mexicans, etc… And almost certainly against LGBTQ people and concepts. Does that mean that none of their achievements are valid or worth celebration?
My university is currently engaged in an imbroglio about a statue of a very influential early President of the school- one of two men who truly shaped the course of the university. He also advocated for Texas A&M and Prairie View A&M (first historically black university in Texas) when there was a push in Austin to shut both schools down. He also founded the first school for deaf and blind black youth (Texas Blind, Deaf and Orphan School), and appointed a black man as president. He also was the first governor to decree that Arbor Day would be observed in Texas.
The catch? 20-30 years before, he had been a Confederate General at the venerable age of 26, and a Texas Ranger commander before that. All of which apparently negates everything else he did.
And some of our idiot athletes are now fanning the flames claiming that he’s a POS because he didn’t push to integrate the schools in the 19th century. As if that was even an option at the time for an elected official. But that doesn’t matter, and it apparently doesn’t matter that he did a lot of good for the state and university, it only matters that he was on the wrong side in his youth.
This kind of scares me; no historical figure is ever going to live up to that kind of absurdity if it’s taken seriously.
I don’t care at all about this person, but Confederate General is pretty damning. This is easily rephrased as “all he did was become a traitor and take up arms against the United States of America.” One could argue that he made up for it, but that’s a pretty damning history. I guess I don’t understand why all the leaders (generals, president, etc.) weren’t tried and hung for treason.
If the interpretation and significance of historical events and figures is open for debate (which it always is), then one should expect and welcome debate about whether or not monuments celebrating and “immortalizing” those figures and events have a place in the public square. This goes as much for the Lincoln Memorial as it does for statues of Confederate McGee.
We should welcome this debate always, because it makes a lot of sense. Calling one position “extreme” shows a failure to understand what is even being talked about.
I’m not sure at this point what it is that you are objecting to.
Is it that people want these statues removed and replaced with something that better reflects contemporary values?
Or is it the people that are removing statues as a mob, without the consent of the community?
I am not seeing what you are seeing that makes the first so reprehensible, and I’m not seeing examples of the second among anyone that has any level of prominence or notoriety.
The argument here isn’t that he was or wasn’t a Confederate general, but rather that he’s commemorated for his university-related activities, NOT for being a Confederate. Or for that matter, not because he was a Governor, Texas Ranger or state Senator either.
That’s the crux of the matter; his statue has nothing to do with his Confederate service, and everything to do with stuff he did 30 years later. AFAIK, he wasn’t a slave owner either, just a professional soldier.
I’m not ignoring the leaders. The only prominent people really talking about this conservatives. Pelosi is removing stuff from the capitol as we speak. And crickets everywhere else. To my knowledge, Joe Biden isn’t saying anything, nor Obama, nor Oprah nor any other person. And they’d be smart not to!
That’d be a nice start I suppose! Who’s the arbiter though? Many people don’t like Columbus, but Cuomo won’t remove it because something about Italian heritage. I guess it’s a good thing it’s pretty high up and would be a bitch to pull down.
Okay, so lets get anyone of prominence or notoriety saying one thing or another. People on the left of course, because people on the right apparently don’t count.
I can’t speak for slavery in other cultures, but certainly in Biblical law, children of slaves were slaves. If it wasn’t universal, it certainly wasn’t unique to antebellum America.
Fine. So where’s the information? It is a known fact that statues are being torn down of Jefferson, Washington, Columbus, Grant, etc. Yet, when asked what “prominent” democrats think about it, I have to tell YOU. Meaning, there’s virtually NO information about it.
