RACISM SOLVED on IIDB! "This whole business about whether someone had ancestors who were a slave or slaveholder is just ridiculous. It means nothing."

[stanley]

I do wish to expose the racism inherent in this forum, but that's just gravy.

There is racism inherent to the human species, not particularly this forum. This forum happens to be composed of humans and in any group of humans large enough, there will be idiots and racists, usually the same people are both.

If you go back far enough, every one of us has slave-owning ancestors. I'm just not running around creating statues of my Viking ancestors with plaques under them stating they were perfect knights, without blemishes, chivalrous and using public funds partially from their pillaged, raped, conquered peoples to maintain those lies.

Exactly. We should not be guilty over who are ancestors are or what they did. We are only responsible for who we are.

But looking up to slave owners is something people are doing now, not an act of their ancestors. The statues are despicable.

What statues specifically are you referring to? Statues honoring someone specifically because they were a slaveowner? Certainly that is despicable.

Or are you referring to a statue of someone who did some great things but also owned slaves (e.g. Thomas Jefferson)?

Most Confederate monuments were erected by pro slavery racists to counter efforts at desegregation and civil rights. The few monuments that actually memorialize the fallen soldiers (rather than glorify the Confederacy itself) were built mostly in or near gravesites and are solemn in their design and built within a couple decades of the Civil War. The majority of monuments are clear celebratory glorifications of the Confederacy (and thus of the slavery it was created to preserve), and were built at the same time that the KKK was reaching the apex of their popularity, and the south was enacting and violently enforcing Jim Crow laws between 1890 and 1930. In fact, The Daughters of the Confederacy who erected many of the monuments also erected monuments to honor the KKK itself. A second huge spike in monuments occurred, not coincidentally, at the time of Brown vs. Board of Education as white supremacist repudiation of that desegregating verdict. The statues are very much designed and intended to promote white supremacy and the vast majority of the people that fight to preserve them hold that ideology.

 

[stanley]

If you go back far enough, every one of us has slave-owning ancestors. I'm just not running around creating statues of my Viking ancestors with plaques under them stating they were perfect knights, without blemishes, chivalrous and using public funds partially from their pillaged, raped, conquered peoples to maintain those lies.

Exactly. We should not be guilty over who are ancestors are or what they did. We are only responsible for who we are.

But looking up to slave owners is something people are doing now, not an act of their ancestors. The statues are despicable.

What statues specifically are you referring to? Statues honoring someone specifically because they were a slaveowner? Certainly that is despicable.

Or are you referring to a statue of someone who did some great things but also owned slaves (e.g. Thomas Jefferson)?

The main dispute is over "Civil War" memorials. Most really are symbols of oppression and should be removed. (Although if the idiots want to fund a museum for them somewhere I won't object.)

Correct. Removing statues of people like Jefferson, who did own slaves but are honored for good reasons that have nothing to do with being pro slavery or fighting to preserve it is a whole separate issue. There is room for reasonable debate about those statues. The Confederacy monuments however, not only seek to glorify an traitorous enemy of the United States that killed US soldiers to preserve slavery, but the monuments were erected by KKK sympathizing white supremacists as part of the surge in Jim Crow laws in the early 1900s and against desegregation and civil rights efforts in the 1950s. It isn't just that there is nothing honorable about the Confederacy, but the motive behind honoring the confederacy with the monuments was clearly to promote white supremacy.

 

[stanley]

"This whole business about whether someone had ancestors who were a slave or slaveholder is just ridiculous. It means nothing, other than a mildly curious footnote in someone's ancestry that might make for interesting cocktail party conversation. But that's it." - IIDB forums user @thebeave - veteran member of IIDB dot org and a Capital-A Atheist from California says so.

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If only the Atheists would use more than just a drop of that Reason they're always marketing about. l

Of course you can find racists among atheists, including on this site. Applying reason to the question of god leads to atheism. Those who do generally apply reason are more likely to apply it to the question of god and thus be atheists. However, applying reason to the god question is no guarantee of applying it consistently elsewhere. However, you will find a far higher percentage of racists among theists. Among white people, the more devout a Christian they are, the more likely they are to be racists. Remember the KKK was a deeply Christian organization, and it is conservative Christian evangelicals who inherited that ideology.

 

[Janice Rael]

. However, you will find a far higher percentage of racists among theists.

Hello @stanley . Due to reality being real and things existing, we will find a far higher percentage of literally everything under The Sun, everything on Earth, IN THEISTS, than in nontheists, merely due to the mathematical reality that there are more of them.

That said, the "Theist/Atheist" distinction is useless. It serves as a vehicle for forum discussions and YouTube videos that grow no legs outside of the stagnant pool of confusion.

 

[Gospel]

That said, the "Theist/Atheist" distinction is useless. It serves as a vehicle for forum discussions and YouTube videos that grow no legs outside of the stagnant pool of confusion.

When a belief system's core teaching is to be prejudiced against those who don't adhere to it, it increases the likelihood of being prejudiced against people for any reason.

 

[Bullmoose Too]

If you go back far enough, every one of us has slave-owning ancestors. I'm just not running around creating statues of my Viking ancestors with plaques under them stating they were perfect knights, without blemishes, chivalrous and using public funds partially from their pillaged, raped, conquered peoples to maintain those lies.

Exactly. We should not be guilty over who are ancestors are or what they did. We are only responsible for who we are.

But looking up to slave owners is something people are doing now, not an act of their ancestors. The statues are despicable.

What statues specifically are you referring to? Statues honoring someone specifically because they were a slaveowner? Certainly that is despicable.

Or are you referring to a statue of someone who did some great things but also owned slaves (e.g. Thomas Jefferson)?

The main dispute is over "Civil War" memorials. Most really are symbols of oppression and should be removed. (Although if the idiots want to fund a museum for them somewhere I won't object.)

Putting those memorials into a museum is actually a good idea.

The Federal government, with permission from any state that wants its Confederate statues removed, could create a federal museum to store the statues in. Each statue will have information about the person in question. The info will be about the guys life and believes. Such as betraying the USA in order to protect and expand slavery. Further info will detail on why the statue was made in the first place. Like how Confederate groups erected the statue as a means to intimidate minorities during the Civil Rights era.

It’ll be very educational.

 

[thebeave]

If you go back far enough, every one of us has slave-owning ancestors. I'm just not running around creating statues of my Viking ancestors with plaques under them stating they were perfect knights, without blemishes, chivalrous and using public funds partially from their pillaged, raped, conquered peoples to maintain those lies.

Exactly. We should not be guilty over who are ancestors are or what they did. We are only responsible for who we are.

But looking up to slave owners is something people are doing now, not an act of their ancestors. The statues are despicable.

What statues specifically are you referring to? Statues honoring someone specifically because they were a slaveowner? Certainly that is despicable.

Or are you referring to a statue of someone who did some great things but also owned slaves (e.g. Thomas Jefferson)?

The main dispute is over "Civil War" memorials. Most really are symbols of oppression and should be removed. (Although if the idiots want to fund a museum for them somewhere I won't object.)

Putting those memorials into a museum is actually a good idea.

The Federal government, with permission from any state that wants its Confederate statues removed, could create a federal museum to store the statues in. Each statue will have information about the person in question. The info will be about the guys life and believes. Such as betraying the USA in order to protect and expand slavery. Further info will detail on why the statue was made in the first place. Like how Confederate groups erected the statue as a means to intimidate minorities during the Civil Rights era.

It’ll be very educational.

This sounds like a decent idea. Reasonable people will recognize it as an educational endevour. Sadly, though, the radicals will not recognize the context and instead claim its "endorsing slavery" or some such nonsense, and seek to "tear it down". Maybe if it was a part of a whole, comprehensive Civil War museum it might go over better.

 

[Gospel]

I would agree with that proposal if the focus is indeed on their betrayal, an admission fee is charged, and the collected funds are used to invest in small improvement projects in underserved Black neighborhoods. Otherwise it's just the usual government building with confederate statues.

 

[Elixir]

Putting those memorials into a museum is actually a good idea.

The Federal government, with permission from any state that wants its Confederate statues removed, could create a federal museum to store the statues in. Each statue will have information about the person in question. The info will be about the guys life and believes. Such as betraying the USA in order to protect and expand slavery. Further info will detail on why the statue was made in the first place. Like how Confederate groups erected the statue as a means to intimidate minorities during the Civil Rights era.

It’ll be very educational.

This sounds like a decent idea. Reasonable people will recognize it as an educational endevour. Sadly, though, the radicals will not recognize the context and instead claim its "endorsing slavery" or some such nonsense, and seek to "tear it down".

I agree it's a good idea. Destroying that stuff and pretending it never existed is a bad idea. It insults people who view it differently and the artist who created it, and enables denialism. Putting it in a museum should keep it from offending anyone, and interpretive signage/video/audio elements could be placed to ensure that it's not misunderstood.

Maybe if it was a part of a whole, comprehensive Civil War museum it might go over better.

Yeah, or at least a wing of a museum clearly dedicated to preserving the memory of that war.

 

[thebeave]

Yup. What's the old saying, "Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it". Er, something like that.

 

[stanley]

. However, you will find a far higher percentage of racists among theists.

Hello @stanley . Due to reality being real and things existing, we will find a far higher percentage of literally everything under The Sun, everything on Earth, IN THEISTS, than in nontheists, merely due to the mathematical reality that there are more of them.

That said, the "Theist/Atheist" distinction is useless. It serves as a vehicle for forum discussions and YouTube videos that grow no legs outside of the stagnant pool of confusion.

Due to reality being real and language having meaning, for those that understand mathematics "a far higher percentage" accounts for the difference in population size. IOW, what I said and meant and what is true is that the % of racists among theists is far higher than the % among atheists. I already gave some reasons for it, but another is that monotheistic religion was created in large part to rationalized dehumanization of outgroups, justifying harm against them via equating them with immorality outside of god's inner circle. The Bible is the most pro violent, pro genocide book ever written. Atheism/theism is a very useful distinction and is highly predictive of many other things as well, including holding misogynistic views, homophobic hatred, accepting basic facts about reality both historical and scientific, and even general intelligence.

 

[stanley]

Putting those memorials into a museum is actually a good idea.

The Federal government, with permission from any state that wants its Confederate statues removed, could create a federal museum to store the statues in. Each statue will have information about the person in question. The info will be about the guys life and believes. Such as betraying the USA in order to protect and expand slavery. Further info will detail on why the statue was made in the first place. Like how Confederate groups erected the statue as a means to intimidate minorities during the Civil Rights era.

It’ll be very educational.

This sounds like a decent idea. Reasonable people will recognize it as an educational endevour. Sadly, though, the radicals will not recognize the context and instead claim its "endorsing slavery" or some such nonsense, and seek to "tear it down".

I agree it's a good idea. Destroying that stuff and pretending it never existed is a bad idea. It insults people who view it differently and the artist who created it, and enables denialism. Putting it in a museum should keep it from offending anyone, and interpretive signage/video/audio elements could be placed to ensure that it's not misunderstood.

Maybe if it was a part of a whole, comprehensive Civil War museum it might go over better.

Yeah, or at least a wing of a museum clearly dedicated to preserving the memory of that war.

In most cases "the artist" was a white supremacist and deserves to be insulted as do the people who dishonestly pretend they enjoy it for reasons other than it glorifies the Confederacy and thus "the good ol days". A museum is fine but should include the facts surrounding those monuments including about their coincidence with the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, monuments built by the same people (e.g., Daughters of the Confederacy) to honor the KKK, etc..

 

[stanley]

Yup. What's the old saying, "Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it". Er, something like that.

Those monuments were not built to and do not teach history, the mostly present a propagandized glorification of the Confederacy. The fact that most people, especially southern whites, remain so ignorant of the facts of that history and the reality of the murderous white supremacy behind those very monuments proves how useless they are. In fact, those monuments are designed to express the desire to repeat the history of slavery, which is also mostly what the MAGA slogan is all about.

History could be taught in a museum that had informative plaques and videos, like showing the pro KKK movie "Birth of a Nation" that came out the same time most these monuments were built. But then it isn't the monument showing history but being used as an example of the history of racism and pro slavery ideology that ruled the south long after the civil war ended.

 

[Elixir]

A museum is fine but should include the facts surrounding those monuments including about their coincidence with the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, monuments built by the same people (e.g., Daughters of the Confederacy) to honor the KKK, etc..

Yes, that is what interpretive materials are all about. That an artist was an asshole is irrelevant. Art is art, not politics. Where they are put into bed together, much interesting internal conflict arises.
My youngest sister is an accomplished multimedia artist, a "liberal" and has been a museum curator for years - at the Montgomery (Alabama) Museum of Fine Arts, if you can feature that. It's a position that is almost untenable by definition; no matter what you do or fail to do, someone's feathers get ruffled.
So she has learned to look at art with an eye that is way more objective than I could ever see it... just the art. If it makes a statement, the statement is not the point, the point is the power that art lends it. I don't expect many people to have such a practiced eye, so interpretive materials would be essential to go along with the preservation of Civil War/post Civil War statuary and art.

 

[thebeave]

Yup. What's the old saying, "Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it". Er, something like that.

Those monuments were not built to and do not teach history, the mostly present a propagandized glorification of the Confederacy. The fact that most people, especially southern whites, remain so ignorant of the facts of that history and the reality of the murderous white supremacy behind those very monuments proves how useless they are. In fact, those monuments are designed to express the desire to repeat the history of slavery, which is also mostly what the MAGA slogan is all about.

History could be taught in a museum that had informative plaques and videos, like showing the pro KKK movie "Birth of a Nation" that came out the same time most these monuments were built. But then it isn't the monument showing history but being used as an example of the history of racism and pro slavery ideology that ruled the south long after the civil war ended.

Yes, this was all mentioned in Bullmoose Too's post earlier. The statues are essentially being repurposed from "honoring" to "educating". I think most people can understand the distinction.

 

[stanley]

If you go back far enough, every one of us has slave-owning ancestors. I'm just not running around creating statues of my Viking ancestors with plaques under them stating they were perfect knights, without blemishes, chivalrous and using public funds partially from their pillaged, raped, conquered peoples to maintain those lies.

Exactly. We should not be guilty over who are ancestors are or what they did. We are only responsible for who we are.

But looking up to slave owners is something people are doing now, not an act of their ancestors. The statues are despicable.

What statues specifically are you referring to? Statues honoring someone specifically because they were a slaveowner? Certainly that is despicable.

Or are you referring to a statue of someone who did some great things but also owned slaves (e.g. Thomas Jefferson)?

The main dispute is over "Civil War" memorials. Most really are symbols of oppression and should be removed. (Although if the idiots want to fund a museum for them somewhere I won't object.)

Putting those memorials into a museum is actually a good idea.

The Federal government, with permission from any state that wants its Confederate statues removed, could create a federal museum to store the statues in. Each statue will have information about the person in question. The info will be about the guys life and believes. Such as betraying the USA in order to protect and expand slavery. Further info will detail on why the statue was made in the first place. Like how Confederate groups erected the statue as a means to intimidate minorities during the Civil Rights era.

It’ll be very educational.

This sounds like a decent idea. Reasonable people will recognize it as an educational endevour. Sadly, though, the radicals will not recognize the context and instead claim its "endorsing slavery" or some such nonsense, and seek to "tear it down". Maybe if it was a part of a whole, comprehensive Civil War museum it might go over better.

If it was done with historical accuracy, then it is definitely the confed flag waving right that would seek to tear it down for reveal how their racist grandparents and parents who built these monuments well into the 20th century were trying to promote white supremacy.

 

[thebeave]

A museum is fine but should include the facts surrounding those monuments including about their coincidence with the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, monuments built by the same people (e.g., Daughters of the Confederacy) to honor the KKK, etc..

Yes, that is what interpretive materials are all about. That an artist was an asshole is irrelevant. Art is art, not politics. Where they are put into bed together, much interesting internal conflict arises.
My youngest sister is an accomplished artist, a "liberal" and has been a museum curator for years - at the Montgomery (Alabama) Museum of Fine Arts, if you can feature that. It's a position that is almost untenable by definition; no matter what you do or fail to do, someone's feathers get ruffled.
So she has learned to look at art with an eye that is way more objective than I could ever see it... just the art. If it makes a statement, the statement is not the point, the point is the power that art lends it. I don't expect many people to have such a practiced eye, so interpretive materials would be essential to go along with the preservation of Civil War/post Civil War statuary and art.

Yup, an atheist can appreciate the artistry of Michelango's Christian themed paintings without getting uppity about some of the stupid and evil things done in the name of that religion.

 

[Elixir]

Yup, an atheist can appreciate the artistry of Michelango's Christian themed paintings without getting uppity about some of the stupid and evil things done in the name of that religion.

Zackly. No need to tear down the Sistine Chapel because so many priests are child rapers. And no need to coddle child rapers because their church owns great art.

 

[stanley]

A museum is fine but should include the facts surrounding those monuments including about their coincidence with the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, monuments built by the same people (e.g., Daughters of the Confederacy) to honor the KKK, etc..

Yes, that is what interpretive materials are all about. That an artist was an asshole is irrelevant. Art is art, not politics. Where they are put into bed together, much interesting internal conflict arises.
My youngest sister is an accomplished artist, a "liberal" and has been a museum curator for years - at the Montgomery (Alabama) Museum of Fine Arts, if you can feature that. It's a position that is almost untenable by definition; no matter what you do or fail to do, someone's feathers get ruffled.
So she has learned to look at art with an eye that is way more objective than I could ever see it... just the art. If it makes a statement, the statement is not the point, the point is the power that art lends it. I don't expect many people to have such a practiced eye, so interpretive materials would be essential to go along with the preservation of Civil War/post Civil War statuary and art.

Yup, an atheist can appreciate the artistry of Michelango's Christian themed paintings without getting uppity about some of the stupid and evil things done in the name of that religion.

Art is art, not politics" is nonsense. A great deal of art is politics and war memorials glorifying a particular side are pure politics and arguably not art. A practiced eye sees what the artist was intending, and in some cases like this one the intent was to promote hate and racism. They belong in something more akin to a holocaust museum which a type of history museum than an art museum.

 

[stanley]

A museum is fine but should include the facts surrounding those monuments including about their coincidence with the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws, monuments built by the same people (e.g., Daughters of the Confederacy) to honor the KKK, etc..

Yes, that is what interpretive materials are all about. That an artist was an asshole is irrelevant. Art is art, not politics. Where they are put into bed together, much interesting internal conflict arises.
My youngest sister is an accomplished artist, a "liberal" and has been a museum curator for years - at the Montgomery (Alabama) Museum of Fine Arts, if you can feature that. It's a position that is almost untenable by definition; no matter what you do or fail to do, someone's feathers get ruffled.
So she has learned to look at art with an eye that is way more objective than I could ever see it... just the art. If it makes a statement, the statement is not the point, the point is the power that art lends it. I don't expect many people to have such a practiced eye, so interpretive materials would be essential to go along with the preservation of Civil War/post Civil War statuary and art.

Yup, an atheist can appreciate the artistry of Michelango's Christian themed paintings without getting uppity about some of the stupid and evil things done in the name of that religion.

But Michelangelo wasn't trying to endorse the evil things done in the name of Christianity, those monument builders were, because that was the type of monument they were hired to make.