The specifics of the decision matter. If they were removing the Castro statue to put up a new statue of Heberto Padilla and they simply need the space, of course I have no problem.
But if they wanted to remove the Castro statue because people didn’t like the idea of Castro, yeah, I’d counsel against that. Castro, I’d say to them, is gone already: mission accomplished. But you cannot remove the memory of Castro because that shit happened, and remembering history is actually kinda important.
And if they reply that they’re not trying to “remove the memory of Castro” – and rush to add that they agree about the importance of remembering history – what then?
There was a similar problem years ago with theEnola Gay, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Years ago when they first restored the plane and put it on display it was criticized for being to “Pro-Japanese”. They changed it later.
In any case I know the history of Castro and I did not need a statue for that, the confederate statues, outside of historical context, are there to deny history.
Sure, the case has been made by others, but several of us have made what I’d regard as refutations of that case.
I can only take this to mean that you have no better argument for the Confederate statues at Gettysburg than those that have already been made. And you’ve got nothing to show that those refutations I refer to are anything less than that.
My cite’s a government one, too, far more reliable than your cite of an upworthy article about a speech which relies on a Southern Poverty Law Center “study,” an organization which can somehow discern six hate groups in an empty room.
You’ll need to be more specific about which parts of the cite we should look to for your argument, because “this website exists” alone ain’t doing much for you.
If I had to guess, I’d suppose that you were hoping to argue that some (all?) of the states at Gettysburg were not placed there with the intent of glorifying the confederacy, terrorizing blacks, or distorting the perception of history. And regarding the ‘some’ argument, that’s certainly true, and I’d freely agree that the statues that innocently and accurately represent history and honor people to deserving degrees should be preserved.
I’m not super-certain that all the statues at Gettysburg are keepers, though. So I wouldn’t be opposed to putting together a team of laymen and experts to assess the meaning, value, and history of each statue. Though before that I would take that team and have them assess the statues that are not at Gettysburg, because those statues need addressing and possibly removal more than then ones safely ensconced in the memorial, in my opinion.
Wait, which is the actual and which is the politicized? Surely the one with all the Lost Cause statues is the politicized one, and the one with hills and trees and fences is the actual, no?
The point of much of what several of us are saying here is that by omitting much about Lee and the Gettysburg campaign, not to mention the Civil War generally, while having let states represent the war as they wished in their memorials, the battlefield as it is is in fact quite politicized. Maybe not politicized with contemporary politics, but by the politics of earlier periods in our history.
That is the goal - not ‘the same’ consideration, because nobody’s had that consideration yet.
If including previously omitted but directly relevant truths is ‘political,’ then the truth is political. That’s life.
Bricker, you still didn’t answer the question. I’m curious if you believe it’s always wrong to get rid of statues/memorials because the community disagrees with the message, or if you believe that it sometimes can be appropriate to do so (like in the case of Germany after WWII).
Now that is just one of the most ridiculous replies I have seen coming in an attempt to defend confederate monuments.
First, what you attempted to do there was a “killing the messenger” fallacy.
Second, you actually missed that I did take into consideration that monuments with a historical monument (like in Gettysburg) do have historical context so depending on a review I do agree that confederate ones there have a reason for being there, but instead you decided to say “no” like if it was a proper reply.
And that lead us to the Third item: I was also replying to your clear move outside Gettysburg regarding a hypothetical statue of Castro. Clearly you were talking then about other statues and the point from iiandyiiii was that the statue of Castro had very little to no historical context. Indeed, the last bit of my reply was to point out that **those statues outside a museum are about the denial of history. **