Should we take down Mount Rushmore because Jefferson was a slave owner?
Maybe we should take down all FDR statues and re-name roads because he sent the Japanese Americans to camps.
No, you’re not getting it.
What does this have to do with elections anyway? Maybe an IMHO or Pit thread.
As some other folks have said in other threads, there’s a difference between honoring someone despite their moral failings, and honoring someone because of their moral failings.
“Suddenly”?
…life has new meaning to meeee
There’s beauty up above
And things we never take notice of
You wake up suddenly
And decide that maybe it’s past time to take down a bunch of statues erected entirely for the purpose of promoting white supremacist views…
Well said.
Another point: this isn’t about people being OFFENDED. It’s about the local governments funding and protecting and showing honor to traitors and racists, under the guise of preserving history.
No, let’s leave the statues of Jefferson and FDR standing.
Since there exists a very bright line between traitors and non-traitors, the Slippery Slope Argument can be easily dismissed.
People have been offended by imagery glorifying the Confederacy, which was a nation of people who committed treason against the United States to preserve the right of white people to rape, torture, and kill black people on a whim, since the confederacy formed. There have been protests and agitations to remove such statues since they were installed either as reminders of white power during Jim Crow or as opposition during the Civil Rights era. But those protests were mostly from black people and their allies, who are fairly easy for the Republicans to dismiss. Now the message of those statues is both harder to obscure (the “Lost Cause” myth is harder to maintain when you can casually look up the real facts on a phone) and less acceptable to the majority of people, so they’re finally coming down. Pretending that objections are something brand new and out of nowhere is just absurd though.
And, since people defending the statutes don’t like to hear it, here is a part of the dedication speech for a monument that came down yesterday:
If you think we should, make your case. If you don’t, explain why.
This might be as good a place as any to post what I was thinking on my drive in to work. In a perverse way, perhaps we should be happy for Trump’s election, because he is focusing attention on many of America’s worst aspects. I’m not sure whether the majority of Americans are good enough and strongwilled enough to do something about our longstanding prejudices, inequities, and hypocrisies, but perhaps it will be beneficial simply to shine a brighter light on what America truly stands for, instead of blindly proclaiming exceptionalism in all areas.
I think our response to the ugliness of Trump and his supporters will go some ways towards demonstrating what America truly stands for. And I’m hoping we come out on the right side, though that is by no means assured.
People are not “suddenly” offended by these statues, they’ve been offended since the day they were erected it’s just that no one paid attention to the offended because those people doing were seen as not important.
It’s only “sudden” because you haven’t been paying attention.
The fact that you think that these statues “suddenly” offend people is a reflection of the bubble many Americans live in. Union veterans were opposed to a statue of Lee at Gettysburg in 1903 and
Even that’s not quite right. People did pay attention to the offended, insofar as the purpose of the statues in the first place was to offend them.
QFT.
When folks say this about “people”, often they mean “regular people”. You know-- “white people”. This might be sub-conscious to a certain extent, but that is the assumption.
Perspective on “erasing history”.
This whole debate has reminded me of the words of Malcolm Reynolds who said: “It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of 'em was one kinda sombitch or another.” We can decide as a society which kinds of sombitches we honor and which we don’t. We can even, as an evolving society, change our minds on the subject.
So only “white people” are regular? Are you saying that all the non-white people have to eat the poop-inducing yoghurt from Jaime Lee Curtis?
Well, it wasn’t news to this white person, but then, I’ve long lived in mixed areas where I get to hear viewpoints from other people who aren’t exactly like me. I guess my viewpoint has long been why wouldn’t African-Americans be offended by symbols of the Confederacy?
Of course not. That’s John Mace’s point.