I could see the GOP trying to modify the law to say “And you cannot put stuff nearby an existing statue” if they thought people would do that.
The big difference now is the NC GOP will no longer have an automatic override of a veto from the Dem governor so they can’t just change the law at will.
This one is easy, here’s your cite (Southern strategy - Wikipedia).
statue pedestal to be removed and the Chancellor is quitting. Could be the 2 things are related.
Indeed. In addition, look at the number of African Americans who have served in Congress over the years. Overwhelmingly Democrats.
Crickets from Tempe Jeff, though. Not surprising.
pedestal was removed but the chancellor is being forced out this month rather than in May like she requested
As expected Sam is not going back to UNC. And he’s not going back near any UNC system campus. He is going to sons of confederate veterans and they also get $2.5 mil from non-state funds.
Silent Sam lawsuit by SCV was settled before it was filed.
This thing stinks. I’m still not clear what that “non-state funds” business means: is that alumni money? Because I know a lot of UNC alums, and I’m not sure how many plan to keep giving if their money is going to the SCV.
Non state money normally means donations from alums or really anyone. Sometimes non alums donate if their parents or kids or even friends went to the school.
I guess in theory they could also use money from ticket sales to FB, BB, plays, concerts , etc.
they said the non state money does not include alum donations.
and now the SCV is going to be sued if they don’t turn over the $2.5 million to charity
AIUI, the non-state money is accumulated interest from non-restricted holdings. That is, alumni donated money, it went into an endowment, it earned interest, and that interest is funding white supremacists.
I don’t think the interim chancellor’s claim that it’s not alumni money is purely accurate.
But that lawsuit is beautiful.
I think this is going to drag on for a while. They thought this settlement would be the end but it just got some people really ticked off.
The students, faculty, staff, and surrounding community – particularly blacks – no longer must observe a racist symbol that promotes slavery and oppression in perpetuity. That’s a good outcome to a very longstanding, very serious offence.
Some folks have a problem with that, despite the Sons of Confederate Veterans being given the statute and 2.5 million dollars. That’s gratitude for you, from the folks who promote the public flying of the Confederate battle flag. There never was anything noble about slave culture. Not then, not now, not ever. Fighting and dying to maintain slavery was not heroic – it was horrific and the justification of it was and remains truly evil.
Getting righteously indignant because the statute matter was resolved by civil disobedience rather than by legislative action ignores the reality that in 2015 the state legislated that such statutes must not be moved without authorization by the North Carolina Historical Commission, that the university dithered rather than make a request for removal, and that the Commission found in other similar cases that it did not have such authority. The various authorities’ inaction was deafening. The authorities failed to mitigate the ongoing harm when all it required was a bit of paperwork (statutory and administrative) followed by renting a crane and a flatbed for an afternoon. Simply putting a tarp or shed over it, leaving a friendly rent-a-cop at it, and announcing that getting it moved was a state and university priority would have mitigated the need for civil disobedience, but the authorities didn’t even do that – the first public university chartered under the US Constitution, full of brilliant minds, and one-hundred and seventy elected politicians in the state legislature – yet in over a century they were not up to a very simple, very necessary task. NC Historical Commission Agrees To Keep 3 Confederate Monuments On Capitol Grounds, Reinterpret Them | WUNC
GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA SESSION 2015, SESSION LAW 2015-170, SENATE BILL 22, SECTION 3.(c) Article 1 of Chapter 100 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to read:
"§ 100 2.1. Protection of monuments, memorials, and works of art.
(a) Approval Required. – Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this section, a monument, memorial, or work of art owned by the State may not be removed, relocated, or altered in any way without the approval of the North Carolina Historical Commission.) S.L. 2015-170
Such systemic failure is illustrative of why the USA is a flawed democracy Democracy continues its disturbing retreat | The Economist rather than a full democracy (or to use a phrase popularized by its duly elected racist president, a “shithole country”) https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/01/12/trump-immigrants-johns-dnt-newday.cnn: the most powerful country in the world that is arguably second only to North Korea and China in incarceration rates List of countries and some dependent territories and subnational areas by incarceration rate - Wikipedia, which in the USA are grossly disproportional against blacks Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia, that will not institute universal health care to help its citizens live, and instead constitutionally enshrines the right of people to arm themselves to the teeth, resulting in a gun death rate that is off the scale when compared to first world countries, and that most importantly is unable to move forward on campaign finance reform and on addressing jerrymandering to make everyone’s votes effective. These are blatantly obvious major racialized issues that the USA is not capable of resolving – just as for one-hundred and five years it has not been willing to resolve the very serious problem of the rebel statute willfully promoting racial hatred and celebrating generations of racialized subjugation, poverty, ill-health and death that followed Silent Sam’s war that had been fought to continue the slavery that had existed in the USA from and prior to its revolution against the Crown.
That’s where civil disobedience comes in. The Project Gutenberg eBook of On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau Abolitionist philosopher Henry David Thoreau gave us: “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”
In felling the statue, ethical people peacefully acted in accordance with their consciences because those in power failed to act in good conscience for generation after generation after generation. Ethical people refused to let racism remain normalized and be perpetuated through a monument to racism and race-based slavery continuing to lord over passersby on the grounds of a major public’s institution of higher learning.
It is a great pity that there are so many racists in the USA, and that their obstructionism results in civil disobedience. Racists should look closely at who they are and what they are promoting, but introspection is not their strong suit. I hope the USA cleans itself up, for its reverence for its slaveholding past and its toleration of ongoing racism is keeping it mired in its own shit.
The county just south of Chapel Hill, Chatham, took down their confederate statue saying it was actually owned by a private confederate group United Daughters of Confederacy. They tried to sue to keep it up but the case was thrown out. Chatham county is mostly rural with small towns. There are a few high priced areas near Chapel Hill.
UNC lost a grant due to the silent Sam deal , probably not the last time this happens