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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOK, non Confederate leaders statues coming down.
They pulled George Washington's statue down and people are bitching. Do these people realize that George Washington was a slave owner? Confederate or not he supported slavery.
FreeState
(10,553 posts)However this brings up a couple things. Should Washington State and D.C. change their names? Is that even possible?
killaphill
(212 posts)I won't be around to see it, but in, say, 100 years, I think we'll see the following:
-- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and some of the other leaders of the Revolutionary War will no longer be seen as "heroes" and "founding fathers". They will be viewed largely the way Confederate leaders are viewed today, and their images will be removed from the public sphere. This won't be a problem with currency... in 100 years there will be no paper currency.
-- Washington, District of Columbia will be renamed. The name is problematic on both ends.
-- Many of our national monuments will evolve. Perhaps the Washington Monument won't come down, but will be repurposed, and no longer honor one (flawed) man
The country will be vastly different. White people will be a shrinking minority (perhaps 30-40% of the country), and their voices will be largely drowned out by the evolving majority.
Again, I wish I was, but I won't be around to see it (barring some sort of medical breakthrough )
LeftInTX
(24,560 posts)Get rid of any city named after a saint.
Look this stuff happened in the 70s...It was 50 years ago...Nothing much has changed at all. I don't know of any major US city that changed their name. The big thing was that African Americans changed their names. Other than that, the confederate flag has blown up all over the place. Now it's showing up in Wisconsin and Michigan. (This was unheard of up there in the 70s). The American Indian Movement didn't accomplish a whole lot. There were no walls or fences on the southern border 50 years ago. Not many people were deported unless they were true criminals. It has gotten worse, not matter.
Just because protesters are mad, doesn't mean it's going to happen.....
misanthrope
(7,405 posts)The bedlam resulting from climate change will eventually topple our system of governance and what we recognize as our civilization. That's something I don't think you'll want to be around to witness.
2naSalit
(86,071 posts)It's probably best to let go of our idolatry and move forward, finally. They're only statues when it all comes down to it, they are just things and most are misrepresentations anyway.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Be awful if that 70% gets split away on various narrower interests, wannabe leaders, etc.
That is pretty much what happened in the later 1960's, with Dems pretty much also rans for 40 years.
As Maher conjectured, do they get together and try to do stupid?
HotTeaBag
(1,206 posts).
Mme. Defarge
(7,982 posts)to be king.
UTUSN
(70,497 posts)that she only got that from Black Studies (not standard schooling), that he chased down escapees and tortured his slaves.
CTyankee
(63,771 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I am amazed at the breadth of topics on YouTube, for example. I'm learning stuff I did not know I did not know.
Black studies was a new thing when I was in colleg, at the University of Washington yet, where lots of "leftist" courses were taught, God bless the 70's.
It's taken awhile for my generation to recognize all the brain washing we got from the average schools in the 50's/60's, etc.
If monuments must, why not Booker T. Washington, or Sojourner Truth, or Elizabeth Blackwell, Florence Nightingale,
etc?
why can't we create monuments to anything but praise for the plundering heroes of malignant capitalism?
Stallion
(6,473 posts)you don't take statues down of the Father of the Country, or the designer of the Declaration of Independence or the Emancipator of the Slaves
Keep your eye on the ball
stillcool
(32,626 posts)I wouldn't worry about Democrats. There are a lot of young people out there doing amazing things...including taking down objects that glorify the worst traits we humans possess. Get rid of the old, and get ready for the new. If a statue is removed, and you don't know anything about it, does it still burn you?
Stallion
(6,473 posts)No one on this thread has articulated any semblance of a reasonable argument why the Father of our Country, the writer of perhaps the most significant legal document in the history of the world or the General who literally emancipated the slaves should have memorials taken down
I smell a skunk
stillcool
(32,626 posts)how, and what is portrayed
misanthrope
(7,405 posts)The Age of Reason has ended.
The U.S. Constitution was written by these same people being canceled. I'm guessing it's bound for the chopping block soon.
jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)Cancelling the constitution would boomerang on Progressives in about three seconds. RW'er's love strongmen and authoritarianism. They only care about free speech when they're taken to task for their vile hate speech. Even without the 2nd Amendment they'd still have their military grade weapon's caches.
But us? We should be clinging to the constitution like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. That's the only thing separating us from having to live under whatever cruel, Christo-fascist regime their tiny brains can conjure up.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)Reasons abound. Keep these flawed white men in the history books - do not idolize them with monuments.
Just imagine being a young African American and seeing a damned statue of a slave owner. Yeah, a founding father, but still a slave owner. Maybe even one who raped one of your ancestors.
maximusveritas
(2,915 posts)In 2016, they pretended to be both black lives matter and white supremacist groups and get them to fight each other.
No doubt they are involved in things like this now as well since they know this only hurts Democrats.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)don't do it.
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)Plenty of time to blow it...smh
unblock
(51,974 posts)the confederacy was created for the express purpose of perpetuating slavery, it was expressly a rebellion against the united states, it was armed treason and it is directly responsible for the death and suffering of a huge number of americans.
moreover, the statues were made and placed, and buildings named after them, not merely to remember some random historical figures, but to perpetuate a system of racial inquality. these people and their names symbolize oppression.
washington, jefferson, and others stood for many things, most of which we're happier to commemorate. freedom from england, founding of the nation, establishing our democracy (such as it is). they did things that were objectionable, but that's not why we name things after them, that's not why we remember them.
people have different attitudes towards famous people with problematic aspects of their history or private lives. personally, i grew up listening to richard wagner (among other classical composers). i'm jewish, and he was a virulent anti-semite, and his music as used by the nazis. but to me, it was just music. i wasn't listening to his anti-semitism, just his music.
but plenty of jews will never listen to his music.
on the other hand, i'm not watching anything with kevin spacey in it again, so maybe i'm not very consistent about this....
Put the Confederate monuments in a museum and replace them
with statues of contemporary heroes in civil rights, medicine, politics, music, etc.
Hell, even abstract art would be OK.
Go back in history a few dozen generations and we all had ancestors who did whatever was necessary to survive. They were reflections of and actors in the society, times and place in which they lived. We exist to be "PC" because they weren't. Destroying things is easy, building bridges is hard and forgiveness seems impossible.
tritsofme
(17,325 posts)George Washington was a great man, flawed like the rest of us.
The people pulling down his statues and their apologists are almost the dictionary definition of stupid, its like they want Trump to win.
CTyankee
(63,771 posts)good sign. These statues are propaganda not art.
tritsofme
(17,325 posts)CTyankee
(63,771 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)they all did things that cancel culture will deem unacceptable.
CTyankee
(63,771 posts)I don't think you meant to insult me, just to tell me I'm not with it, which I'm not. I did think that being an owner of slaves was a bad thing but that's taking into consideration the different era in which our founders lived. Slaves were beaten, raped and often killed by their owners or those acting in their behalf.
Just sayin'.
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)#19, #43 and #65 here on this thread speak for me.
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)Hope Joe can rise above this absurdness
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)doc03
(35,148 posts)I am a Democrat. I can see Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis but Columbus, Washington and Grant. Believe me there will be a backlash on this and I can't support it myself. They want to change the name of Ohio's capitol, it ain't gonna happen. My ancestors came from what was Virginia at the time I don't know maybe they had slaves too so I guess I should chance my name now. This is just getting ridiculous.
Polly Hennessey
(6,747 posts)Next, anyone named
Lee, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Colombo, White, Davis, etc., will have to change their name. Something that made some sense is now being hammered into stupidity.
doc03
(35,148 posts)for them we may not have been a democracy. Stuff like this is what will drive millions of independent or undecided voters to Trump.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)If a statue can't tell the whole story, should we have statues?
And wait, did you just say you support statues of Christopher Columbus?
doc03
(35,148 posts)ANY president. Confederate traitors no.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)edhopper
(33,208 posts)There is a world of difference between the founders and the Confederates.
Grant owned a slave, and helped free them. Destroy his monuments too?
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)edhopper
(33,208 posts)Aslo fought the KKK.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)edhopper
(33,208 posts)Confederate traitors and men who did great things for our country, like found it and save it.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)and men of their time. There's something in every one of the founder's biographies some will be outraged about. So blow up Mount Rushmore, lol?
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)Never gonna happen. So should we destroy Mount Rushmore? How do you think that'll go over with most Americans?
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)If anything seeing the extreme direction cancel culture is going most Americans will want Mount Rushmore protected now.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)What do you mean by "extreme cancel culture"?
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)but not if they destroy Mount Rushmore. My wish, and I've thought about this a lot, is they include more faces to represent Native people. MLK's face should be there. Cancel culture is purity tests and if not met the journalist/politician/actor/historical figure is cancelled out, career ruined and now statue spray painted and pulled down. It's a form of vigilantism and it's already bitten us in the ass politically, but in a bigger sense it's dangerous.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,150 posts)But it was built on land taken from them illegally and desecrated by the faces of those who facilitated the colonization of those lands. Carving up the actual land itself is an abomination. So to deed it back to them might mean they let the elements reclaim it, or they eliminate the faces in some way. Would you support that?
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)confederate traitors to this country and our founding Fathers will likely elicit a firestorm of controversy and recriminations. To state there is just such a difference is NOT to defend their failures to address the sin of slavery--both personally and in creating the framework upon which our country was founded. But, how long will it be before Lincoln is likewise a focus of derision and disdain because of his own compromises vis-a-vis slavery? He surely fails if one expects a complete and perfect record on this score...
Slavery is our nation's disgrace. No one should glorify the institution nor those who sought to perpetuate it in any way. On that, we can surely agree. But is there no room to judge gradations of culpability and failure on this score--against the totality of the record? Is George Washington really no different than Jefferson Davis or Stonewall Jackson or even Robert E. Lee? Should Thomas Jefferson be judged no differently than Confederate General and KKK Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest? Should U. S. Grant, who defeated the Confederacy and went on to fight the KKK's attacks on freed slaves be assessed no differently than Andrew Johnson, who fought to end reconstruction and to turn back all Lincoln's efforts to bring civil rights to black people in the South? (and yes, for the moment I am not addressing Grant's history on Native American issues for which we could/should have an entirely separate discussion and accounting).
I'm still trying to sort these issues out for myself, so please recognize that much of my post is rhetorical. But, like my sigline, I think we need to both appraise and "reappraise" with a full understanding of the record and history.
ProfessorGAC
(64,427 posts)Great post!
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Shaun King
✔
@shaunking
Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down.
They are a form of white supremacy.
Always have been.
In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went?
EGYPT!
Not Denmark.
Tear them down.
.
"In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down," he added.
"Yes. All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down," he explained in a second tweet.
That'll be fun! Talk about race wars....it'll be carnage.
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(14,848 posts)There was also slavery in Europe long before the USA was a colony of England. And even when the serfs weren't called slaves during feudalism, it's not like they were free to go anywhere without their lord's permission.
It's an ugly part of history, but it goes back far longer than the African slave trade... a continent where slavery was also practiced.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)He was dead long before the confederacy was a thing.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Show any support for pulling down statues to the father of our country and the man who wrote one of the most important political document in history.
That the tickets to winning. Folks, we can easily lose this election, especially if we make stupid mistakes.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)I'm a staunch liberal and I am not for this overreach. Cancel culture is going too far and will indeed lose us voters.
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)I know a few progressives who would be for cancelling it all out. Yet another example of the horseshoe theory...
frazzled
(18,402 posts)This is starting to be a distraction. What is needed is laser focus on current abuses by police, the criminal justice system, and other institutions such as banks, etc. ... and on the legislation needed to end this abuse.
Bronze and stone are way secondary.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)SharonClark
(10,005 posts)Seems to be the case here.
Polybius
(15,239 posts)I don't judge people by what they did in 1780, and I'm black. Washington almost single-handedly founded the country. Thankfully, Biden shares this view.
Music Man
(1,181 posts)Many presidents owned slaves. There's another thread in GD right now that speaks to flaws such as FDR locking up Japanese-Americans in internment camps.
But seceding from the country to preserve the institution of slavery puts you on a specific side of history from when the country was literally at war over THAT PARTICULAR ISSUE. Being a Confederate means being pro-slavery is the totality of your legacy.
Gandhi is well-known to have been racist toward black South Africans. It's not a joke to say "is he next?" because that conversation has already started in regards to his statues.
MLK was no saint either, having a reputation for being a womanizer, and there have been suggestions of spousal abuse (and abetting a sexual offender). In the Me Too era, are we going to tear down MLK's statue too? I joke, but seriously, is that where we're headed?
I get that attitudes change, but Washington, Jefferson, Grant, and others are ridiculous targets. If not ridiculous, they're at least unproductive targets. It's born of passion and not clear thinking.
SharonClark
(10,005 posts)tinymontgomery
(2,584 posts)World War II monument defaced with paint at Charlotte cemetery
http://coronavirus.1point3acres.com
This is going to really help us.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - A 20-foot-tall memorial at a Charlotte cemetery appears to have been defaced with paint covering the names of more than 500 Mecklenburg County residents who died in World War II.
The memorial at Evergreen Cemetery on Central Avenue is covered with the words Glory to the day of heroism June 19, 1986. The phrase appears to correspond to the Peruvian prison massacres of 1986, when 224 people died in a series of riots.
The memorial pays tribute to 5,170 people whose bodies rested at the depot on their way to other cemeteries, and it lists the names of 507 Mecklenburg County residents who gave their lives in World War II.
The hammer and sickle symbol of communism was also painted on the memorial. Yellow paint covers a passage reading, Dedicated to the memory of the Mecklenburg heroes of World War II who made the supreme sacrifice that you might live in liberty, freedom and peace.
The vandalism is similar to paint left behind on Memorial Day at a memorial in Lawrenceville, Pennsyvlania, according to WPXI. The same phrase was painted onto the National World War I museum in Kansas City, Missouri, last year, according to the Northeast News.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police said they hadnt gotten a report about the incident. A call to the City of Charlottes cemetery division went unanswered Sunday.
http://coronavirus.1point3acres.com
Ex Lurker
(3,808 posts)The ringleader of that kind of nonsense on my campus was a kid who wore a Che Guevara t shirt and stood in the quad every day haranging passersby. His father was CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Gothamyst
(3 posts)Provocateurs?
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)I'd say probably not.
More likely it's well meaning people getting carried away, and potentially risking the upcoming election, sadly.
Ex Lurker
(3,808 posts)My guess is entitled rich kids rebelling against the parents paying their $60k tuition by playing at being revolutionaries.
hardluck
(634 posts)Given the opinions in this thread. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
rockfordfile
(8,682 posts)It will be replaced with GW statue again
LeftInTX
(24,560 posts)This stuff happened in the 70s. They hated anyone associated with the "man in charge", "PWTB". They called everyone "pigs"...hated everyone "over 30". ..
Alex4Martinez
(2,180 posts)They win when we aren't watching what they're doing.
misanthrope
(7,405 posts)Is all this energy and these resources should be channeled toward constructive goals. The protests are the glamorous stuff but a fraction have the patience or focus for the harder tasks that actually make a bigger difference in the long run.
ansible
(1,718 posts)Anyone supporting destroying these statues is being very dumb right now, this just enables Trump's supporters even more
Polybius
(15,239 posts)I was hoping many Trump supporters would just not be bothered to vote in November. Now I think there's no way they're staying home.
SpazzTheCat
(69 posts)If we are going to judge historical figures by what they did in earlier times and hold them to today's standards we appear extremely anti-American to the undecided voter.
Biden has an undeniable history of saying things that by our current standards should exclude him from being the nominee of the democratic party. Tearing down statues of great historical Americans like Washington, Jefferson, etc... because of what they did and said while ignoring more recent examples because of political expediency just makes the Democrats look VERY anti-American.
In the last two weeks I've had 3 friends, solid Democrats, bemoan the current optics of the Democratic party. None of them would ever vote for Trump, but they are wavering on voting at all because they do not support the direction we are moving as Democrats.
I'm very concerned about the effect of all of this on the election. Will it drive moderates to stay home given the choice between Trump and the current radicalization of the Democratic party, we better hope not.
Sugarcoated
(7,707 posts)My SIL and her husband. He comes from a big NE Philly family of union Democrats, love Biden and will vote for him no matter what but not all Philly Dems will be okay with this latest extreme move from cancel culture. We need to win big in Philly to win PA.
totodeinhere
(13,037 posts)If we want to lose the 2020 election then by all means tear down all of the statutes of the founding fathers.