Confederate monuments offend, but there is something much worse in Alabama

[yallerdawg]

Source: al.com, by Joseph Goodman

In New Orleans, they are finally removing statues of Confederate leaders in public places. In Montgomery, they send students to public schools named after those same white supremacists.

*****

Children, most of them black, walk past a statue of Robert E. Lee every day at Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery. Across town, another predominately black student body attends Jefferson Davis High School. In 2017, in Alabama, there are public high schools named after men who thought people with darker skin than themselves were subhuman and needed to be slaves forever.





Removing the names of Confederate leaders from public schools is the correct and moral thing to do, and of that there is no doubt. Public statues and memorials commemorating soldiers who fought or died in the Civil War are offensive to many people, but schools named after leaders who believed people of color were inferior, and then sent thousands to their deaths to protect the immoral institution of slavery, are just downright malevolent and wicked.

On Wednesday, with the eloquent and powerful words of New Orleans' mayor still making national headlines, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law a bill protecting the state's Confederate statues and memorials. They cannot be removed.

It's a ridiculous law to score political points and nothing more. Ivey even added an amendment to the bill protecting the names of schools. Let's be clear, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis should be stripped from any public school in the state that bears their names.

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Some people, like present-day elected officials in Alabama, choose proudly to be on the wrong side of history. Then some elected officials, when judged by history, are treasonous war criminals. For example: Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. That the name of Jefferson Davis remains on a high school more than 150 years after the Civil War doesn't remind us of anything other than how grinding institutional racism has held back a state.

Much, much more at: http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2017/05/confederate_monuments_offend_b.html#incart_river_home_pop

[liberal N proud]

1. I was thinking the racists are still in Alabama and other states as well

[Fluke a Snooker]

2. Keep in mind the founding of the US was steeped in the SAME amount of white racist oppression

While the process of defining the vile nature of the white oppressionist south is being enacted through legislative and municipal means, keep in mind the country was founded by whites who oppressed non-white males at the ballot box and kept slaves JUST LIKE THE SOUTH. That conversation is not yet above the radar, but it's definitely on the horizon.

[Hoyt]

3. Exactly. I laugh at white wingers when they bow down to "founding fathers," who talked of liberty

and freedom, then went home to beat and rape their slaves.

[yallerdawg]

4. The point is...

these aren't casual harmless slights, some old vestiges of a bygone era.

This is overt, in-your-face, confrontational, unapologetic, embedded institutional racism that hasn't changed at all!

New Orleans Mayor Landrieu:

"Can you look into that young girl's eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her?" Landrieu said. "Do you think she will feel inspired -- and hopeful -- by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential?"

Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange:

"History is a battleground, and there have been a lot of battles fought, and I'm a historian. My degree is in history, so I have a sense of purpose about history, and I just don't know why you would change history by removing a name from a particular school."

Yep, those are the words of an elected official indirectly defending state-sponsored oppression and institutional racism.

[brer cat]

5. Mayor Landrieu said something else

Mayor Strange needs to contemplate: "There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it."