Removing Confederate Monuments and Renaming Confederate-Named Military Bases

[DBT]

This is such a great point. Here's the deal, many of these statutes were strategically placed in areas purposely intended to mock the local people there. Getting rid of these statues dosn't change history! The thought of this is absolutely crazy.

But it's gotten to the point where mobs are targeting statues like Churchill, Columbus, etc....where does it stop when fault can be found in every man?

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

It reminds me of witchhunts and bookburnings, mobs driven by emotion rather than reason.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

It reminds me of witchhunts and bookburnings, mobs driven by emotion rather than reason.

But what makes a STATUE significant? Liberty, a gift from a nation to another nation would be one. The replica in Vegas, not so much.

Made by a famous artist, such as David, that would be. The copy my Mom had on the mantel, meh.

Rushmore, Stone Mountain, certainly significant by the mind-numbing scales and effort.

Statues on the tomb of the individual, probably. In his home town, or on the site of his victory/surrender? A civil war statue in Boise, though, that went up during Civil Rights marches? Just propaganda. Emotion-driven to raise it in there in the first place, so a swing in the national emotion is probably fitting.

 

[Jarhyn]

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

It reminds me of witchhunts and bookburnings, mobs driven by emotion rather than reason.

But what makes a STATUE significant? Liberty, a gift from a nation to another nation would be one. The replica in Vegas, not so much.

Made by a famous artist, such as David, that would be. The copy my Mom had on the mantel, meh.

Rushmore, Stone Mountain, certainly significant by the mind-numbing scales and effort.

Statues on the tomb of the individual, probably. In his home town, or on the site of his victory/surrender? A civil war statue in Boise, though, that went up during Civil Rights marches? Just propaganda. Emotion-driven to raise it in there in the first place, so a swing in the national emotion is probably fitting.

And the DotC statues are pointedly mass produced, no more meaningful than a gaudy fucking racist-ass Highschool class ring.

 

[DBT]

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

It reminds me of witchhunts and bookburnings, mobs driven by emotion rather than reason.

But what makes a STATUE significant? Liberty, a gift from a nation to another nation would be one. The replica in Vegas, not so much.

Made by a famous artist, such as David, that would be. The copy my Mom had on the mantel, meh.

Rushmore, Stone Mountain, certainly significant by the mind-numbing scales and effort.

Statues on the tomb of the individual, probably. In his home town, or on the site of his victory/surrender? A civil war statue in Boise, though, that went up during Civil Rights marches? Just propaganda. Emotion-driven to raise it in there in the first place, so a swing in the national emotion is probably fitting.

What is or isn't significant and what should or should not be scrapped needs to determined by cool heads and rational thought, not mobs running in the streets bent on their own agendas, like scenes of witchhunts in the dark ages.

The mob scene could be the dark ages except people are dressed differently and many are gazing into their phones.....an improvement on pitchforks I guess.

 

[bilby]

Why should it stop?

Who is sufficiently better than the majority as to justify having a statue at all?

Columbus was a colossal cunt, who deserves exactly zero respect from anybody.

Seriously, you might as well have statues of Hitler as statues of Columbus.

He was a genocidal arsehole and a shithouse navigator to boot.

Columbus was not the best example, however it's still a part of history. Perhaps, as I said, some statues should be relocated to museums.

Consider the huge statue of Alexander in Thessolonika, a killer, a conqueror, yet a part of Macedonian history and culture.

So is everything in that category to be removed from public space?

Where is the line drawn between acceptable and unacceptable when much of our history is nasty and brutish?

Statues of real people in public spaces are probably a bad idea.

Why worry about drawing a line - which might move as more is discovered about a person - when you could just not bother. There are plenty of perfectly good alternative artistic and even sculptural options, and plenty of places like museums and art galleries where statuary can be displayed for the benefit of any who wish to seek them out.

 

[laughing dog]

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

 

[DBT]

Why do you think that once a statue is placed, it must stay there forever?

I didn't say that statues must stay in place forever. I even suggested that some should be moved to museums. My point was that even statues of monsters may have historical significance, so should not be summarily destroyed.

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

 

[Arctish]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

WRT symbols of the Confederacy and statues honoring people who enslaved others, yes.

 

[Arctish]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

WRT symbols of the Confederacy and statues honoring people who enslaved others, yes.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump might go down in history as the last president of the Confederacy - The Washington Post

Lee’s surrender ended nothing, because the nation did not even begin to grapple with white supremacy. Reconstruction was strangled in its infancy; true racial reconciliation was never even attempted. The statue of Davis in Richmond, brought down by protesters Wednesday night, was not erected until 1907. Like almost all of the Lost Cause monuments, it was built during the revanchist era, when Southern whites were celebrating their reestablished dominance over African Americans via repressive Jim Crow laws and the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan.

...
When it was reported that high-ranking Army officials are open to stripping the names of Confederate generals from military posts such as Fort Bragg, Fort Benning and Fort Hood, Trump reacted instantly. He tweeted Wednesday that he “will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.”

Trump claimed, ridiculously, that the names are somehow part of the nation’s “history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.”

When they were traitors and losers.

 

[repoman]

Wow this is real at this moment from my google search the US



https://www.google.com/search?q=uk+prime+ministers&oq=uk+pr&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3j69i60.4338j0j4&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Does not even list his WWII term.

Disgraceful. It will not stip with the statue

 

[DBT]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

WRT symbols of the Confederacy and statues honoring people who enslaved others, yes.

Things seem to have gone a good deal further than that, it appears.

 

[Arctish]

WRT symbols of the Confederacy and statues honoring people who enslaved others, yes.

Things seems to have gone a good deal further than that, it appears.

Because asking nicely didn't work.

I think we should preserve the monuments at the Gettysburg battlefield. It's the appropriate place for such things and they really do inform the present generation about the events that took place there in July, 1863.

I'm okay with the giant statue of Gen. Thomas Jackson at Manassas. It's where he earned the nickname "Stonewall" for his actions during that battle, so even though I despise the man, it's the right place for a memorial to him.

But I don't think all those pillars and shrines and statues of Civil War figures erected in city parks are sacrosanct, especially the ones that were 'gifts' to the citizens from white supremacists in the 20th century. They're inappropriate displays of respect in a society that proclaims "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

[Politesse]

An excellent short essay on the statue issue, from a historian friend of mine Brett Devereaux, who originally posted it on his Twitter feed:

"Statues are back in the news; I suppose I ought say something about statues, because I'm a historian and people keep saying that statues are about 'remembering history.' Folks, statues are not about remembrance, they are about commemoration; not teaching, but moralizing.

Let me explain that a bit. Our statue tradition comes from Egypt, by way of Greece; most of the Egyptian mega-statuary that compares to the statues we are talking about was state art. It was paid for by the state, and the state was the pharaoh. Smaller statues might be used for the private commemoration of the deceased. But you can see what was important in the design of these sorts of statues. They are mostly formulaic and idealized, often presenting a 'standard' face rather than the face of the deceased. Even larger statues in this tradition are very standardized, not individualized. Because - beyond their religious significance - they're not about remembering the deceased ("Hank here liked propane...") but about revering them more generally.

Meanwhile, the big expensive statues for pharaohs were all about communicating state power. It's legitimacy artwork, designed to confirm in the viewer that the pharaoh is big and powerful and doing a good job. Once again, nailing the facial features was not a big issue. The thing is, Egyptian religious practice *did* care about remembrance, but they used inscriptions, not statues for that (because the thing that needed to be remembered was the name). This is going to be a theme: you remember with words, you transmit *values* with statues.

Ok, so the tradition comes to Greece and they make statues mostly...of gods and heroes. When regular people do get statues in a Greek polis, it is explicitly because they have done something that community values and they express some value the community wants.

The irony here is that the first historian to complain that statues don't teach history *is*the*first*historian* himself, Thucydides. Seriously, Thucydides points out that the story behind the statues of the 'tyrannicides' in Athens is a bit of a fib. The public assumed these guys killed the tyrants - after all, we made statues of them - but they didn't, they killed his brother. As Thucydides notes,

"So little pains do the commons take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." (Thuc. 1.20).​

Statues have always been about commemorating values, and have never been about teaching history. The statues of the tyrannicides communicated "Athens doesn't like tyrants" not "these two fellows specifically killed tyrants."

Now, it isn't that we don't have large, publicly funded history teaching tools! We do! They're called museums (and also to an extent, battlefield parks)! But statues are not teaching tools. No history is lost when a statue comes down. On the flip-side, that means statues aren't *about* the people they're *of.* The statues of the tyrannicides weren't about Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the two fellows in question), they were *about* the overthrow of the tyrants in Athens. So don't expect historians to rush to defend the statues. We've been complaining about them being bad teaching tools for 2,400 years.

The thing is, you don't pay historians to get misty-eyed over statues, you pay us to uncover, remember and explain uncomfortable truths. So when we are asking "should this statue stay up or should it go away" the question is not about 'heritage' OR if the person in the statue lived a perfect, saintly life. The question is, "what values does this statue express?" And here's the thing: for those confederate statues, we *know* what values they expressed, because the people who made them *told us.* They literally told us: https://theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/its-not-just-the-monuments/612940/. These statues stood for hate. That was their 'value.' Confederate Monuments Were Used to Sell a Segregated Neighborhood Real-estate developers used the statues on Monument Avenue to draw white buyers to a neighborhood where houses could not be sold “to any person of African descent.” And I hear the hemming and hawing and "but did they really mean it" in the back. They *really* meant it. They wanted to be *very* clear: https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html (content warning on that one, the speech, dedicating a now fallen statue, is disturbingly hateful.

And that's why I'm not persuaded that there's some statue slippery-slope that will lead us towards total de-monumentalization. There are a lot of statues up of people with imperfect pasts that no one is seriously suggesting taking down, because statues fundamentally are not about the people they depict but about the *values* that person represents. Jefferson is safe not because he was perfect (he was *not*), but because he doesn't represent his imperfects, but rather his finest words.

So if you are thinking, "should this statue be here?" The question you want to ask is not "what history is it connected to?" but "what values does it express right now ?" Not who does it glorify, but WHY does it glorify them?
And for the person saying, "well, maybe it was because they were good soldiers" let me ask this: where are James Longstreet's statues? Why is there one confederate general left out of all of this soldierly commemoration? https://cnn.com/2017/08/23/opinions...-general-longstreet-opinion-holmes/index.html Why? Because after the war, he supported reconstruction. Where are the monuments to Confederate Gen. James Longstreet? Steven Holmes writes that the relative lack of statues of Longstreet, who favored Reconstruction after the Civil War, shows that Confederate history is seen through a political lens. It was never about generalship or leadership, these statues were always about hate and Longstreet didn't hate quite enough for the hateful people who put these statues up. That's the *value* they communicate. Hate.
So when evaluating a statue, ask yourself, "What values was this statue created to communicate? Are they good values? Are they values I believe in?" And if the answer is "no" - remove that statue and replace it with one that *does* represent our values."

 

[laughing dog]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

First, as others have pointed out as well as I have, asking nicely did not work. Second, until the 1970s, asking or protesting against those statutes in the South was likely to get one lynched or beaten. But in many places, requests have been made to move them, but those requests were ignored.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

First, as others have pointed out as well as I have, asking nicely did not work. Second, until the 1970s, asking or protesting against those statutes in the South was likely to get one lynched or beaten.

70’s? Very clearly, the timeline is up to and including today.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The reason some have been destroyed is because they have not been moved to museums or more appropriate settings.

And it took up to a hundred years or more for the outrage to build to the point of mobs in the street tearing down monuments without consideration of the rule of law or due process?

First, as others have pointed out as well as I have, asking nicely did not work. Second, until the 1970s, asking or protesting against those statutes in the South was likely to get one lynched or beaten. But in many places, requests have been made to move them, but those requests were ignored.

It's good that more people are becoming aware that these statues glorify slavery. Public monuments that glorify slavery should be removed. It's pretty simple, has nothing to do with history.

 

[DBT]

The problem is that often mob mentality leaps beyond issues of slavery or 'black lives matter' and becomes unreasonable. like when reasonable protest turns into mob violence and looting.

Churchill, for instance, is honoured for his role in the war, yet was targeted. In Australia, James Cook, former Prime minister's of Australia because of their policies, etc.

So the mob mind, beginning with reason, becomes both irrational and unreasonable, tearing down or defacing whatever does not conform to an ideology.

 

[J842P]

The problem is that often mob mentality leaps beyond issues of slavery or 'black lives matter' and becomes unreasonable. like when reasonable protest turns into mob violence and looting.

Churchill, for instance, is honoured for his role in the war, yet was targeted. In Australia, James Cook, former Prime minister's of Australia because of their policies, etc.

So the mob mind, beginning with reason, becomes both irrational and unreasonable, tearing down or defacing whatever does not conform to an ideology.

Yes, when it gets to the point of the mob all bets are off.

I will say, many "moderates" in the USA are to blame for continuously refusing to bring down these monuments to the Confederacy through legal channels.

It's not just monuments, either. I grew up in the South, and lived off of Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway. Named after two Confederate generals.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The problem is that often mob mentality leaps beyond issues of slavery or 'black lives matter' and becomes unreasonable. like when reasonable protest turns into mob violence and looting.

Churchill, for instance, is honoured for his role in the war, yet was targeted. In Australia, James Cook, former Prime minister's of Australia because of their policies, etc.

So the mob mind, beginning with reason, becomes both irrational and unreasonable, tearing down or defacing whatever does not conform to an ideology.

It's worth considering whether it was the mob mentality that erected theses statues in the first place.