Tear down these racist icons

[Julian Englis]

Link to tweet

[Calculating]

1. "Dynamiting history"

Somehow I just don't agree with that. The Germans haven't torn down Auschwitz, instead they use it as an educational piece to remind younger generations of the past.

[Lars39]

3. That was a place where history occurred, monuments are generally homages to people.

[Julian Englis]

4. Auschwitz wasn't put up by the Nazis after they lost to glorify racism & the Third Reich

Auschwitz remains to memorialize the hatred of the Nazis not to glorify the lost cause.

[forgotmylogin]

2. Which is sad. They have a great laser show.

I went there on a family vacation and (at least back in the 80s) it felt like a standard tourist monument. My 14 year old brain didn't feel indoctrinated or get the idea that slavery or bigotry was right. The laser show projected on the side of the mountain at night wasn't solely patriotic jingo - it was entertaining and had parts that didn't even involve the carving. I specifically remember an animated line-drawn music video to "Down Under" by Men at Work (Look it up kids, one hit wonder) and a neat part to the "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" theme. There, of course, were some stirring patriotic parts, including Elvis's "American Trilogy" and a scene where they traced the carving and then animated it, which was mind-blowing technology at the time. What I'm saying is I was enjoying a historical vacation destination and not feeling like I was having ideology pushed on me. I know this isn't true for some people, and I don't know how those presentations there have changed in three decades.

Blowing it up is something ISIS would do. Remember when those centuries old statues were blown up in the desert? It's one thing to take down a statue on public grounds that fits in a truck and relocate it appropriately to a museum, it's another to strip mine a geological formation to remove an incredibly spectacular artwork.

What if they started a project to carve a mirror image of Union soldiers facing them and made it a monument to the tragedy of a nation divided and how far we've come?

I know it won't happen, but blowing this carving off the mountain doesn't seem a practical solution.

[Lars39]

5. If you'd stuck around you could have probably attended a KKK meeting.

[forgotmylogin]

6. I'm sure we wouldn't have gone

even had that been listed as an activity in the brochure.

I hope you're not trying to imply that's something I would do just because I enjoyed one out of many stops on family vacation at a historical monument.

[Lars39]

8. Not implying anything.

I've been there, too. Sure as hell didn't stick around for a light show. I went there with my father who was old enough remembers the heyday of the KKK. The only history it is famous for is the KKK.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain

[Julian Englis]

7. You can still have a fine laser show without a giant racist sculpture.

[Botany]

9. From the Stone Mountain Park's web site's home page

http://www.stonemountainpark.com/Activities/History-Nature/Confederate-Memorial-Carving

"The largest high relief sculpture in the world, the Confederate Memorial Carving,
depicts three Confederate heroes of the Civil War, President Jefferson Davis and
Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson."

3 "heroes" whose goals were:

The continuation of keeping human beings as slaves.

The end of the United States by violence.

BTW Stone Mt. was not finished until after the civil rights movement and anti
discrimination laws were starting to be passed. It like the "Stars and Bars" are
symbols of hate.

[johnp3907]

10. Yeah, time to take out the trash.