On the recommendation of a trusted friend, I recently subscribed to the Andrew Tobias blog. I have not been disappointed. It does not appear every day, but when it does, it is always interesting. Tobias recently posted this:
He writes:
A lot of good folks think we should leave the statues where they are. (The numbers may surprise you.)
Our very own Jim Burt may have come up with the perfect solution:
“My wife and I are both originally from Memphis,” hew writes. “Close to the downtown area, the city has a park now called ‘Health Sciences Park’ – because of the proximity of the University of Tennessee medical school – which used to be called ‘Forrest Park.’ It features a large equestrian bronze statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest. The City of Memphis has been trying to remove it, but its efforts have been frustrated by a state historical commission empowered by the Republican state government to prevent such removals. This is what I wrote to the city’s most prominent newspaper (for which my father worked for many years):
“I am a white former resident of Memphis and have fond memories of playing as a toddler in Forrest Park. I did not at that age appreciate that the park was named after a monster.
“Since the Tennessee Historical Commission is performing its assigned racist task of frustrating the removal of racist monuments, I suggest that the next best action — which should be entirely within the authority of the City of Memphis — is to correct the historical record on the Forrest statue. The name on the pedestal should have the word “Traitor” added in large letters, and the account on the pedestal of his deeds should be supplemented prominently with the information that he was a slave merchant, war criminal, and founder of the terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan. It should also note that the statue was erected in 1904 as an expression of the power of Jim Crow and the subjugation of African Americans.
“After all, the supporters of keeping these statues claim that they’re about “history, not hate.” Just get all the history out there where it can be seen.”
☞ What say you?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
LOL. An excellent suggestion.
LikeLike
Perfect, Jim, just perfect. We shouldn’t run away from history. We should embrace its entirety.
LikeLike
Forrest actually attempted to disband the KKK when it became violent, but he learned that the genie he had helped to create was out of the bottle. His statue was the result of the entrenchment of self-justification after the fact. People are always different through the lens of history.
LikeLike
Shall we do the same then with the statues of Washington? Jefferson? And the rest of the “Founding Fathers? They, too, were considered traitors by the LEGAL government. So stop celebrating July 4th, because it came about as an act of traitors.
Take away George Custer statues. Take away Christopher COlumbus statues – and definitely cancel Columbus Day.
Where does the insanity stop?
We shout people down when they disagree with us. We insult people who think differently – no matter WHAT the topic is (Again, “listen” to some of the comments on this list!)/
And then YOU ask the question about why we cannot be a united nation?
LikeLike
The distinction historians make is Washington and Jefferson had admirable accomplishments besides that fact that they were slaveowners.
The Civil War generals are only remembered for fighting to retain slavery. That is the “cause” they are memorialized for-no other.
I think one could make another distinction too- Washington and Jefferson’s accomplishments applied to the whole country- they were seeking a United States, not a new nation created by destroying the United States.
The difference is that between a civil war (2 factions of one nation at war) and a foreign occupier. One is inherently unifying and the other is inherently divisive.
This was a CIVIL war. Brother against brother. That’s much different than US residents fighting what they considered an occupying army.
LikeLike
I wrote that we can’t be a united nation because there are too many who wear Nazi and KKK symbols. They want to kill people like me. How can I “unite” with them or they with me?
LikeLike
It goes way beyond the Neo-Nazis etc.! When Republicans and Democrats cannot have a civil conversation, what do you EXPECT the rest of the nation to do? When we have had presidential candidates from BOTH sides used disparaging terms about constituents, what does the nation learn?
A Republican candidate uses terms for his opponent that are downright crude, and when the opponent slanders an entire group of republicans (not just the noise makers etc., but ALL Republicans as ‘deplorables,” what kind of reaction do you expect?
When one of your writers in this blog thinks it is acceptable to shoot those whom he disagrees with, what did YOU say about that?
Change of behavior starts with YOU (and me)…
LikeLike
“Take away George Custer statues. Take away Christopher COlumbus statues – and definitely cancel Columbus Day.”
Even though I know perfectly well you meant that sarcastically, all I can say is amen. The sooner the better. Both should be considered war criminals, not heroes.
LikeLike
Custer was a fool, not a hero.
LikeLike
Hindsight is indeed perfect vision, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Columbus was DEFINITELY a criminal. A profoundly evil man.
LikeLike
Nothing “hindsight” about it, Kinyon. Columbus’ own biographer recognized him as a profoundly evil man. It’s only through white supremacy that we’ve ever been able to believe otherwise.
LikeLike
Nothing so painful as to read the memoirs of the priest who accompanied the explorers. Natives roasted on a spit. I couldn’t go on.
LikeLike
One sometimes hears the argument that disparaging folks like Columbus is anachronistic, that he was simply a product of his times. But Barolome de las Casas was a contemporary of the genocidal Columbus and wrote eloquently and persuasively of the horrors perpetrated against the indigenous peoples of the Americas. So it’s definitely true that not everyone at the time condoned and practiced, as Columbus did, mass enslavement, torture, pedophilia, and genocide. Columbus had the blood of many, many thousands of people of all ages–the blood of babies–on his hands.
This is not the sort of person who we should be honoring with statues and with a national holiday. He was one of the most despicable people who ever lived. We won’t be erecting any statues to Stalin or Pol Pot, so why do we have them to this other genocidal maniac?
LikeLike
cx: WHOM we should be honoring
LikeLike
Thank you, Bob. Bartolomeo de las Casas. That’s the priest who wrote about Columbus’ voyages with graphic drawings on Taino Indians roasting on a spit like wild boar.
LikeLike
http://www.columbia.edu/~daviss/work/files/presentations/casshort/
LikeLike
Oh. How many statues of Washington and Jefferson and Custer and Columbus are there in England again?
LikeLike
Move them to history museums. Put them in curated context.
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/nathan-bedford-forrest
LikeLike
Absolutely. The fact that there are no Hitler, Mussolini, etc. statues hasn’t erased them from history. I’ve read many very good books about them, as I have about the so-called Confederacy. In fact one of the most interesting museum exhibits I’ve ever seen was one on the art and advertising propaganda of Nazism.
(Un)interesting factoid: the first statue ever erected in Europe that was not of a member of a the military or royalty was one of Beethoven in his birthplace of Bonn. It was funded by subscriptions. Perhaps, if we must have statues at all, we should focus on those who have made cultural or social contributions to the world as well as those who powerful forces have sought to extinguish.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. Yes. Yes. More statues to those who have lifted the human spirit through their art. Statues to Katherine Dunham and Aaron Copeland and Aaron Douglas and Lanford Wilson and hundreds more.
LikeLike
Agree, Bob. We have many statues of warriors. How many statues of scientists, artists, humanitarians? Put Dr. Martin Luther King on Stone Mountain. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Dr. Jonas Salk. Thomas Edison.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Every time I walk by the statue of Samuel Gompers on Mass Ave in DC, it puts a smile on my face (even though he was a bit tough on socialists).
LikeLike
Replace Robert E. Lee statues with Thomas Meghear statues.
LikeLike
And we shouldn’t shy away from the truth about our heroes, even when, as in the cases of Columbus, and to a lesser extent, Jefferson, those truths are very ugly. I am a big fan of the early work of Jean-Paul Sartre. I despise his later fellow-traveling with the Stalinists and Maoists. People are complex and leave complex legacies.
LikeLike
About these memorials. One of my own personal heroes is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. If you visit his grave Maine you find a very modest gravestone. This medal of honor winning hero of the Civil War was a teacher, governor of Maine, and College President.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a war criminal who murdered Union POWs.
You would think after the movie Forrest Gump the local residents of this city would have changed the name of their park and gotten rid o this statue!
LikeLike
How about a statue of Horace Mann?
LikeLike
Commemorative markers do not have to be statues. Some of the most moving and recent commemorative artistry can be found in the work of Maya Lin. Here is a refresher on some of these projects. https://www.biography.com/people/maya-lin-37259
LikeLike
Laura, I mentioned these in an earlier post, but if you missed it, here’s what’s being done in Germany to remember the victims of the Holocaust: http://www.stolpersteine.eu/en/home/
It’s very a very impressive and touching type of commemorative marker. They are also in the Czech Republic and Austria. Whenever I’m there, I stop and read every one I come across. The artist’s schedule to install them is booked until next year.
LikeLike
If it’s about history then why do they have them in places like Arizona and why are people in Ohio flying confederate flags? I see them all the time in rural areas. I never used to see that.
Can you imagine? The descendants of union soldiers flying the confederate flag. Their ancestors must be rolling over in their graves.
LikeLike
Statues memoralizing those who fought to protect slavery in the USA should have plaques stating how they undermined human rights, their precise role and the date the statue was erected by whom. Keep the history accurate so that we never forget nor repeat the evil of our past.
LikeLike
I have to conclude, rightly, that the Union side won and the Confederates lost, but that does not make them traitors. Folks need dictionaries.
Maybe California will attempt to secede, and will lose the ensuing war. Schwarznegger will then become a traitor.
LikeLike
If taking up arms against your country isn’t traitorous, then what, exactly, is?
LikeLike
trai•tor (ˈtreɪ tər)
n.
1. a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust.
2. a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.
LikeLike
And to see how traitors sometimes head governments, see Quisling.
LikeLike
See also: Jefferson Davis.
LikeLike
If California takes up arms against the USA, then yes that’s treason.
LikeLike
The civil war was not about slavery, but about the south’s right to leave the United States and become it’s own government. If those individuals are to be “branded” as traitors, consider the consequences to those in California that are currently pushing for that state’s separation from the United States. By default they would now be traitors.
This is a complex issue that takes a clear minded discussion by local entities, not an en masse emotional response. This is a teaching moment … that should include all angles of the history involved. Not all of the confederate statues were erected with good intentions. I am sure Nancy Pelosi, whose father was responsible for a number of them, could shed some light in this area. The discussions should also include statues of individuals such as Lenin known for his death by starvation of 5,000,000 and others.
Lots of questions we should be asking, but are not. Instead we see a hyper emotional and uninformed temper tantrum taking place. As educators, shouldn’t the idea be to educate and promote understanding?
LikeLike
Linda,
Do you believe that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War? Nothing at all?
LikeLike
Only as a point in the “state sovereignty” vs “federal authority” arguement.
LikeLike
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/causes-of-the-civil-war/
Interesting
LikeLike
There is a pesky little historical occurrence and fact called “The Cornerstone Speech” given by the vice president of the so-called confederacy, Alexander Stephens, on March 21, 1861. It’s not meant for short attention spans, but it is, so to speak, an example of the cliché about the horse and his or her mouth.
Here are some gems:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
“With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.”
“The principles and position of the present administration of the United States the republican party present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed principle with them never to allow the increase of a foot of slave territory, they seem to be equally determined not to part with an inch ‘of the accursed soil.’”
Should it interest either of you, here’s a link to the entire speech: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/
You might find some of its “points” to be very “interesting.” And to think that we can learn this history without statues!
LikeLike
John C. Calhoun believed that slavery was a”positive good,” not a “necessary evil”
LikeLike
Calhoun: The Library of America recently published a two volume set of John Quincy Adam’s diaries. Their website featured this excerpt that might interest you:
“February 24, 1820: I had also some Conversation with [Secretary of War John C.] Calhoun on the Slave question pending in Congress. He said he did not think it would produce a dissolution of the Union, but if it should the South would be from necessity compelled to form an Alliance Offensive and Defensive with Great Britain—I said that would be returning to the Colonial State; he said yes—pretty much; but it would be forced upon them—I asked him whether he thought, if by the effect of this alliance, offensive and defensive, the population of the North should be cut off from its natural outlet upon the Ocean, it would fall back upon its rocks bound hand and foot to starve, or whether it would not retain its powers of locomotion, to move Southward by Land. Then he said they would find it necessary to make their communities all military. I pressed the conversation no farther; but if the dissolution of the Union should result from the Slave question, it is as obvious as any thing that can be foreseen of futurity, that it must shortly afterwards be followed by the universal emancipation of the Slaves. . . . Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union; and it is a contemplation worthy of the most exalted soul, whether its total abolition is or is not practicable. If practicable, by what means it may be effected, and if a choice of means be within the scope of the object, what means would accomplish it, at the smallest cost of human sufferance. A dissolution, at least temporary of the Union as now constituted would be certainly necessary, and the dissolution must be upon a point involving the question of Slavery and no other. The Union might then be reorganized, on the fundamental principle of emancipation. This object is vast in its compass—awful in its prospects, sublime and beautiful in its issue. A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed. This Conversation with Calhoun led me into a momentous train of reflection.”
LikeLike
Thanks,GregB
LikeLike
Oy vey. Why don’t you read the actual secession documents before you spout off? Every single one of them explicitly states the right of states to decide to own human beings as slaves as the major reason for secession. If you can’t believe the Confederacy in its own words, where the hell are you getting your history?
LikeLike
I am slowly becoming convinced that our two commentators are performance artists and not real people (not that performance artists aren’t real people). Kind of like perverse amalgamations of Dada, Don Rickles, and the antithesis of Spalding Gray.
LikeLike
NO, the Civil War WAS about slavery. The “state’s rights” and “economic” reasons all lead back to slavery. The states wanted the rights to keep and expand slavery. The economy of the states (as well as much of the North) were tied to slavery. Most historians today acknowledge that the cause was slavery.
LikeLike
And not only is the “Cornerstone Speech” proof that slavery was the cause, so do the Confederate states’ articles of secession, and Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address.
LikeLike
Linda Giffin
Disparaging and minimizing protest as “temper tantrums”, how Republican of you. Oddly though, state Republican politicians are drafting laws to prohibit “temper tantrums” which must mean they take them seriously?
The nation’s honor would have benefitted from protests in the Jim Crow era when the statues were erected but, better late than never.
LikeLike
Linda,
Do you think that black people were allowed to protest in the Jim Crow era? Have you ever heard of lynching?
LikeLike
Agree, adding.
Protests are strengthened when they include citizens from all walks of life.
Fast forward to an alternative scenario – a White CEO, a prominent evangelical minister who is an apostle for Christ, and Heather, mowed down by the supremacist’s car in Charlotte…
LikeLike
If there is so much resistance to removing such statues, then, yes, put the FULL history there where everyone can learn it.
I also think that each statue and monument to slave masters and racists should be accompanied by a statue or monument to the abolitionists and/or the Underground Railroad (where applicable).
Let the true heroes – those who opposed slavery and did what they could to help slaves escape – be celebrated as the slave masters and racists are shamed.
One more point: there are no statues of Nazis in Germany, and no swastikas are allowed there either. Why must we continue to put up with statues of traitors and human rights violators and their flag? Put those reminders of our shameful history in museums. instead of out in public spaces.
LikeLike
The lack of Nazi statues and the fact that displaying the swastika in Germany has been outlawed has not, unfortunately, stopped neo-Nazi groups from forming and marching to promote themselves and their hatred. However, the towns where they’ve been marching in don’t want them and one town devised a very clever way of undermining them, which other towns are copying.
Basically, what the town did to fight back is they created a pledge drive where donors contribute money for every meter marched by the neo-Nazis which supports an “organization that helps neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists escape radicalism and build new lives.”
To drive home the message to the neo-Nazis, the town residents “marked the path of the march with milestones thanking the neo-Nazis for how much money they’ve raised so far — including a big banner at the end of the march announcing that the marchers raised a total of €10,000 to fight Nazism.”
An initiative should be created across our nation that does something very similar because this approach has been effective in deterring neo-Nazis marches in Germany.
https://thinkprogress.org/german-town-pranked-neo-nazis/
Anyone know the name of an organization in the US that helps to rehabilitate right-wing haters?
LikeLike
Might be the same as the one for the left-wing haters???
LikeLike
Are there statues for left wing haters?
I suggested statues for artists, scientists, inventors, humanitarians, crusaders for justice. These are not left wing haters.
LikeLike
My note was in response to, “Anyone know the name of an organization in the US that helps to rehabilitate right-wing haters?”
LikeLike
No. Huge difference between the two groups. Right-wingers love to hate people who differ from them and fight to promote their hatred. Left-wingers detest hatred which targets historically marginalized groups and fight to stop it.
LikeLike
L. Kinyon – I await with bated breath your list of “left-wing haters”. Please don’t bother with Stalin, Mao, etc. They were totalitarian, not actually Communist (nothing they actually carried out bears any resemblance to anything Marx actually wrote). Totalitarianism is right-wing no matter what particular label it wears. Not a lot of daylight between Hitler, Franco, Mussolini on “one side” vs. Stalin, Mao, etc. on “the other side”.
LikeLike
Here are a couple initiatives in the US that follow on the heals of the German response to neo-Nazi marches mentioned above: https://thinkprogress.org/lawyers-organize-adopt-a-nazi-fundraiser-198ae39f8813/
LikeLike
Sorry, meant heels not heals
LikeLike
The problem with saying the Civil War wasn’t primarily about slavery is that isn’t what the states themselves proclaimed when they seceded:
“While later claims have been made after the war’s end that the South Carolinian decision to secede was prompted by other issues such as tariffs and taxes, these issues were not mentioned at all in the declaration. The primary focus of the declaration is the perceived violation of the Constitution by northern states in not extraditing escaped slaves (as the U.S. Constitution required in Article IV, Section 2) and actively working to abolish slavery (which South Carolinian secessionists saw as Constitutionally guaranteed and protected). The main thrust of the argument was that since the U.S. Constitution, being a contract, had been violated by some parties (the northern abolitionist states), the other parties (the southern slave-holding states) were no longer bound by it. Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas offered similar declarations when they seceded, following South Carolina’s example.”
They THEMSELVES declared the reason was slavery.
It’s true that it was about “state’s rights” but the right they were claiming was the right to keep slaves and the right to have law enforcement return slaves as property when they escaped.
LikeLike
Thank you and well said.
LikeLike
Agreed
They were monuments erected to re-invent history . To remind slaves in the Jim Crow South that they were still slaves and that the South may have lost the war , but the racist South shall rise again.
The attempt to compare Columbus or Washington or Jefferson memorials to the traitors of the south is a straw-mans argument . For starters the people who erected those monuments were not celebrating the deplorable deficiencies of these historical figures but their accomplishments . Not celebrating Columbus for killing Native Americans . Nor Washington for being a slave owner but for being an American hero .
Monuments to traitors responsible for deaths of unwilling draftees in the South, and other Americans from the North were erected to celebrate their treason. Those that erected these monuments only had one regret like those they celebrate they were and are LOSERS
LikeLike
If the definition of “traitor” holds, Washington et al DID deserve that label, no matter how you look at it! If the British had won, we would not see their statues, either!
But one thing I notice on this topic:
We are bringing TODAY’S values to bear on events that happened 150+ years ago. Judging them by current standards is incorrect.
“Violators of human rights?” Really? Anyone remember when “Human Rights” were declared? They certainly did not exist in the 1800’s! If so, let’s give all the lands back to the native inhabitants, apologize, pay them reparations and move out of the way!
The whole land grab was one big violation of today’s human rights. The genocide of the native population would be a war crime in the 21st century.
So, in order to look at this with less prejudicial and biased eyes, both the Revolution and Civil War MUST be placed in their historical context. But, to the victor go the spoils – and the writing of history.
Was the Revolution an act of treason? You bet – ask King George.
Did Union soldiers commit what could today be termed “war crimes?” Yes – just like the Southern military.
For that matter, a good like at the behavior of the American Army as an occupational force in post-war Germany would be a good exercise as well…
LikeLike
The Founding Father’s knew slavery was wrong. The word is never mentioned in the Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the new territories and it was written by the Founders.
LikeLike
ReallY????
They had a strange way of showing that…
“Slavery is seen in the Constitution in a few key places. The first is in the Enumeration Clause, where representatives are apportioned. Each state is given a number of representatives based on its population – in that population, slaves, called “other persons,” are counted as three-fifths of a whole person. This compromise was hard-fought, with Northerners wishing that slaves, legally property, be uncounted, much as mules and horses are uncounted. Southerners, however, well aware of the high proportion of slaves to the total population in their states, wanted them counted as whole persons despite their legal status. The three-fifths number was a ratio used by the Congress in contemporary legislation and was agreed upon with little debate.”
https://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_slav.html
Apart from that, several of the “Founding Fathers” were slave owners themselves. Jefferson’s slaves were sold after his death – not from a humanitarian motive, but to pay the debts of the estate.
It’s history. Not pretty, but there it is. We cannot whitewash the evils of the past, no matter whose evils they were. Deal with them, face them, acknowledge them, learn from them and become better people because of that.
LikeLike
The word “slave” does not appear in the Constitution.
It does appear in the Northwest Ordinance of 1785, prohibiting it in the new western territories. Of course, there were slave owners among the Founders. But unlike John C. Calhoun, they knew that its days were numbered. The importation of slaves was banned in 1808.
LikeLike
And the “other persons” are???
I’m surprised that someone of your stature has to resort to such a denial! There is no doubt that “other persons” was a “euphemism” for slaves. Not for immigrants, legal or otherwise. Not for temporary residents. Not for people who were no longer mentally stable enough to vote. “other persons” is a reference to slaves.
LikeLike
The Revolution was treason against Britain. But we don’t live in Britain. If the Revolution had failed, Washington and the other leaders would have been hung for treason. They knew it.
LikeLike
To Diane’s point, see the paragraph of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence that begins “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself”
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html
“he [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
LikeLike
That excerpt of the Declaration brings to mind St. Augustine: “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet!”
LikeLike
GregB: LOL!
LikeLike
L. Kinyon
We are not using today’s values to judge the events 150 years ago. But to judge those who erected those monuments only 100 years . To put that in a more understandable time frame . Some of them erected In the lifetime of some on this board . . Certainly In the life time of my living aunt a centenarian. So that is not ancient history . Those monuments were erected as a symbol of repression. At about the same time daddy Trump was marching with the Klan.
LikeLike
And that is STILL before the “Human Rights” were invented as a standard to judge by.
Very few developed countries have a history that is not “questionable.” And few of those have actually learned from their past and are able to stop such things from happening again (Japan and Germany are a good example).
And yet, like the U.S., they have people who want to repeat the past.
LikeLike
Germany has done a superb job of confronting its past. There are no monuments to Nazis. There is a moving Holocaust Museum in Berlin.
LikeLike
It took them decades. And yet… There still are Neo Nazis walking around, showing “the” flag, shouting “the” slogans, making “the” salute.
No matter what one tries, people will always adhere to strange philosophies/
For me, personally, I don’t understand how one can support a movement like “Planned Parenthood,” But people do, out of some misguided idea that it is not a human life being ended.
As long as people have a brain (provided it is not “1984”) people will support whatever suits their fancy. And as long as there is that pesky amendment in the U.S. Constitution, we have to put up with their pronouncing their adherence.
LikeLike
Say what you want, that’s the First Amendment. But We don’t erect statues to KKK Founders any more or to Charles Manson or to Benedict Arnold.
LikeLike
LK, please quit spewing about things of which you obviously have no knowledge whatsoever. “Human rights” is not an “invented” concept. The notion that it took Germans decades to come to terms with Nazism is too simplistic and it would take me far too much time and wasted energy to try to explain it to you. And if you think neo-Nazis are “walking around showing the flag” in Germany today—or at any time since 1945—you are clearly living in an alternative universe. I’ll leave you alone from now on. This is as much time as I can waste on you.
LikeLike
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948”
During the 2 centuries of the existence of the States, there were no such rights. The Constitution set some steps in that direction, giving American Citizens (but not the “other persons”) the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From the early 1700’s until the early 1800’s, slavery was seen by the majority of the people as ‘normal.’ Few people thought about “rights” for the “other persons.”
Just because YOU seem to have little grasp of history does not mean others are hampered by the same.
And really??
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/06/26/confederate-flag-debate-echoes-germanys-postwar-struggle-over-swastika.html
2015…
LikeLike
The swastika is banned now on Germany.
LikeLike
See link sent earlier – Germany, 2015. It may be banned – but so are a lot of other things. It really does not stop people from reading it – even in countries where it is banned.
LikeLike
Note the language: “The German neo-Nazi demonstrators will only be allowed to gather under the strictest of conditions.
They are forbidden from displaying Nazi paraphernalia or swastikas and wearing Nazi uniforms. They will not be allowed to sing Nazi songs or chant Nazi slogans. They will not be allowed to quote Hess, play recordings of his speeches, display his image, or even use certain phrases that venerate him, such as, “His faith was stronger than prison and pain.”
They are forbidden… And THAT really helped…
LikeLike
What to Do with Those Controversial Statues? Uh, plowshares, maybe. Or better they could be melted down to make markers for all of the Blacks lynched in the South. How about that?
LikeLike
How about a statue of Emmett Till? A three-part statue of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner? A statue of Medger Evers? Statues of those who died defending Civil Rights and the Constitution?
LikeLike
yes
LikeLike
I personally think if the statues “have” to stay up, then a statue dedicated to slaves, or victims of lynching, or famous minorities from that area.
LikeLike
Should be built in the same location. Stupid fragment sentence.
LikeLike
Why, the Trump children are preparing a nice home for these statues in Cleveland, Mississippi at a property included in the new “Scion” brand of hotels, which are intended to appeal as a destination for supporters of their dad. The property will be styled after an antebellum Southern plantation home, with many of the meeting halls resembling cotton gins. Doesn’t this put all the statements by a Trump, a New Yorker, about our “beautiful Southern culture” in a whole new context? Whether it’s steaks, wine, ties or racism, its OK as long as it helps sell the brand.
http://www.salon.com/2017/08/23/trump-hotel-scion-cleveland-mississippi/
LikeLike
After the revisions to the info on the plaques, I think all the statutes of these traitors and racists should be moved to one location and used to build a wall around the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Harrison, Arkansas. Line them up shoulder-to-shoulder and weld them together with no gates. We can use catapults to throw crates of Spam over the wall so they won’t starve.
No way in and no way out.
In addition, Fake President Donald Trump will have to live inside that wall so the rest of the world will be safe from him and his most ardent Clucker, Nazi supporters.
But I can’t decide if all those statues of traitors and monsters should all face in or face out.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-most-racist-town-america-9328501
LikeLike
Are statues art? Is there a justification for destroying art? Even the art of the Nazi era in Germany and the soviet era in Russia has merit. We move art. We reinterpret art. But the only people in history to tear down art are people like the taliban and their blowing up of the Budda. To this I add the people who deface mountains by carving human images into them, with apologies to the Mt Rushmore four and crazy horse.
I say move and interpret. Never destroy. We need to recall that all our forefathers were convinced of their righteous nature, regardless of how they viewed slavery, inequitable wage distribution, or any other form of human domination. We need enough guilt to go around. What are we going to do when the time comes for us to revise our view of MLK or Churchill?
LikeLike
If the time comes when someone decides MLK was a bad guy, this will be a totally depraved society.
Not every statue is art. I don’t favor destroying them. Put them in a museum or a graveyard. They should not be symbols of reverence if their one big idea was to fight for dissolution of the nation to defend the evil of human enslavement.
By the way, I went to Albert Sidney Nohbston Jr Bigh, named for a Confederate general. The school no longer exists. Good!
LikeLike
After all, when we can have an exhibition of Nazi propaganda posters (In the Holocaust Museum, of all places) and look at them for their persuasive value rather than their message…
LikeLike
The Nazi posters are in the Holocaust Museum not an object of veneration.
Good idea!
The Confederate statues should go to the new African American museum in DC!
LikeLike
Concerning what was written about the statue. My concern is that writing traitor or anything to that effect however righteous it might b will inflame an already divided nation. We must think through this very carefully. I do not have an answer that would work but we are as divided a nation as we have been in a long time. Dialogue between opposing parties would be a beginning. There are very strong feelings on both sides of these issues. If these feelings continue to grow we are in ever deeper trouble. It is not necessarily who is right but about how best to solve or at least diminish the tense situation. Now it is a matter of emotion not necessarily logic or who is right.
Cooler heads are necessary now and viewing intelligently the emotions of the other parties is the only way I see to a path of solving a very difficult situation. To further exacerbate the situation now is the last thing we need.
LikeLike
The real problem with removing many of these statues is not that it will divide the places wherein they are found, but rather that the people who live in these places are often being prevented from removing them by others who do not live there. The example given above shows this perfectly. In Tennessee (as it is here in my own North Carolina) a GOP legislature has given power over the removal (but not the construction) of monuments to a state historical commission that they control. Cities where these monuments are found cannot remove them on their own, no matter how much the citizens may want to do so. That’s what led to a protest right here in Durham tearing down the city’s Confederate monument from in front of the old County Courthouse building, since the state commission would never give approval for its removal by legal means. The local citizens have been after this for a while (Durham is a famously liberal city, was a center of the civil rights movement, and is the home of the NC NAACP) but a 2015 law took away their power to do what the vast majority of the citizens wanted.
So how do cities respond without doing what we did? The alteration of monuments to reflect a more truthful version of history may not be enough. I’d suggest instead that a statue like Forrest’s in Memphis (where, like Jim Burt, I was born and bred) should be encased in a solid box “for it’s own protection” and the box decorated with suitable artwork for the location, like murals celebrating medical professionals in Health Sciences Park. There’s no question of needing approval for removal or alteration, since the monument remains entirely intact under its covering, but it will never again need to be seen by the public that doesn’t want it.
LikeLike
Diane, any views on Columbus? The Columbus question discussed by a few commenters here was flaring up in NYC today.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/08/24/nyc-christopher-columbus-statue-rally/amp/
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A rally was held at City Hall Thursday in support of keeping the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said the statue should be considered for removal as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s review of what he called “symbols of hate” on city property.
LikeLike
NYC Italian population will protect Columbus
LikeLike
Yes, but do you think it should be removed?
LikeLike
Honoring Columbus by erecting a statue to him or naming a rotary after him is like doing that for Pol Pot. You’ve read de las Casas, right? Very, very interesting:
http://www.columbia.edu/~daviss/work/files/presentations/casshort/
LikeLike
Sort of. Where and when matter, I think. Not sure erecting a statue of Columbus in 1890 is the same as erecting a statue of Pol Pot in 2017. But anyway, would you say the Columbus statue should be removed and Columbus Circle renamed (perhaps something like “Freedom Circle”)?
Or would I be justified if I took a sledge hammer to it tonight?
LikeLike
I strongly urge you NOT to take a sledge hammer to it tonight or any night. If the elected representatives of the people of New York choose to rename Columbus Circle, that’s their right.
LikeLike
I’ll heed your advice about the sledgehammering. But I am renaming it myself this weekend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL!
LikeLike
Or we could just leave it up in honor of the MYTHOLOGICAL character, Columbus, as opposed to the real one.
LikeLike
Let’s suppose that Columbus Circle were to be renamed and the statue removed. That, in itself, would be an historical event of some note. People would be able to say, “At one time, people were so ignorant of history that they erected a statue, here, to a genocidal maniac, slave trader, torturer, and abettor of child rape. But then their grandchildren learned something and were aghast and corrected to problem.”
LikeLike
Or the people of New York could choose to leave it up in honor of the mythological character “Columbus” as opposed to the real-life one. People like their mythological heroes.I myself, when I was eight, was a big fan of Spiderman.
LikeLike
Will the District of Columbia become the District of Trump?
LikeLike
Similar- the colony of the Gates and Bezos families which mocks its namesake, George Washington?
The state of Washington has the most regressive tax system in the nation.
LikeLike
If you got to remove all the confederate statues across the nation, or adjust them in a some way, would it be worth it if the cost were having the Orange Vulgarian as president for another four years?
Because those are the stakes that we’re playing for.
LikeLike
I don’t understand your logic.
LikeLike
All right, I’ll try to explain.
Every time a statue comes down, it is good for Donald Trump. Every time the news talks about someone thinking about taking a statue down, it is good for Donald Trump. The fact that people are now considering taking down the Columbus monument is really, really good for Donald Trump.
The Republicans are pushing a narrative that Democrats are leading us towards a Totalitarian future, and this association between Democrats and statues falling feeds that narrative. I’ve seen statues come down in my lifetime, usually on the news. I have a strong associations between statues falling and violence: Revolutions. Most recently, Isis. And now I also associate that with the Democrats.
You can talk about the history of the monuments, and while I find it fascinating, I also find it completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the statue should come down.
I at first liked the idea of putting up a plaque with additional history, but I can see now that will not be well-received, because it feeds the narrative that Democrats are trying to rewrite history by changing what is already there. Probably the most effective strategy that I’ve seen is the idea of erecting other statues and monuments. Let’s add another layer to our history, instead of bringing down the part of our history that is already standing.
This push to take down statues is only strengthening Donald Trump – not by making his base more ardent, but by bringing “moderates” back into his fold.
LikeLike
How do you feel about the statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK, which murdered thousands of black Americans?
Are you okay with the statue honoring Justice Roger Taney, whose only distinction was that he wrote the Dred Scott decision, which helped precipitate the Civil War and the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers?
How about relabeling them so their role in history is clear? General Forrest, founder of a terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, which lynched thousands of black people.
Justice Taney, who wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision.
From History.com
“On this day in 1857, the United States Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, therebynegating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party.
“At the heart of the case was the most important question of the 1850s: Should slavery be allowed in the West? As part of the Compromise of 1850, residents of newly created territories could decide the issue of slavery by vote, a process known as popular sovereignty. When popular sovereignty was applied in Kansas in 1854, however, violence erupted. Americans hoped that the Supreme Court could settle the issue that had eluded a congressional solution.
“Dred Scott was a slave whose owner, an army doctor, had spent time in Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory at the time of Scott’s residence. The Supreme Court was stacked in favor of the slave states. Five of the nine justices were from the South while another, Robert Grier of Pennsylvania, was staunchly pro-slavery. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the majority decision, which was issued on March 6, 1857. The court held that Scott was not free based on his residence in either Illinois or Wisconsin becausehe was not considered a person under the U.S. Constitution–in the opinion of the justices, black people were not considered citizens when the Constitution was drafted in 1787. According to Taney, Dred Scott was the property of his owner, and property could not be taken from a person without due process of law.”
Please remind me why Taney deserves the honor of a statue.
LikeLike
Are you going to erase the names of the judges on the Supreme Court who made the decision? Where does it end?
At the time, it was legal. We may not like it. We may strongly disagree with decisions of the Supreme Court (Roe v Wade seems to be one of those decisions). But when the decision is made, it IS the law of the land.
And judging history by today’s prevailing standards is never a good way to look at the past. I wonder what people will say a century from now about decisions like Roe v Wade…
LikeLike
No, Kinyon. Are there any statues to other judges who ruled against Dred Scott? Does Taney deserve to be honored? For what?
LikeLike
I guess you are not seeing the whole picture. You want to erase part of history (whether or not you realize that). Where does that stop?
The fact that you are partial in that desire is obvious: Keep Washington, Jefferson and the other slave owners and legal traitors (no matter how you look at it, those who rose against the king WERE traitors according the the legal definition – we have the same standards today for one who rebels).
Who gets to pick what to get rid of and what to remove?Will a future generation get to remove Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon for the Vietnam war? What about Truman, the first and ONLY leader to date to set off nuclear bombs against civilians?
Roosevelt for allowing the bombing of German cities during WWII, killing thousands of civilians and NO military targets?
And we DO have statues… even Nixon!
What you (and others) seem to advocate is a pick ‘n choose view of history. Hide the parts we do not like, take down reminders.
You measure with two standards. You look at Lee one way, but totally overlook the murder committed by Sherman during his rampage throughout the South.
LikeLike
So by your reasoning, when LBJ said that by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 he would be losing the South for the Democratic Party for a generation, he should have vetoed it for political expediency? I couldn’t possibly twist myself into the semantic pretzel logic to which you seem to adhere. To do the wrong thing for fear of reaction it might create among one’s most narrow- and wrong-minded opponents seems, to me, to verge on a convenient cowardice.
LikeLike
Well said, Greg.
LikeLike
Off-topic. Chicago media report that 4 members of Ill. Gov. Rauner’s communication team resigned over a statement they issued in response to a political cartoon from the conservative, Ill. Policy Institute. The cartoon reportedly shows a White guy with bulging pockets of cash, telling a Black child, who is begging for money for schools, the lie that he is broke.
LikeLike
GregB, thanks for the wonderful links. Learned quite a bit from you today. Great stuff!
LikeLike
Am I the only non-Nazi, Trump-hating yankee who is not entirely comfortable with the idea of 100-plus-year-old statues and monuments being removed because some commission has determined it to be a “symbol of hate”? Nobody else has any misgivings about where this leads?
LikeLike
It is not “some commission [that] has determined [them] to be ‘symbol[s] of hate'”. What we should seek is an accurate, verifiable history that has been willfully forgotten and obscured by the proponents of these statues and monuments, not some artificial, arbitrary standard based on manufactured history. Their existence is inextricably bound to the post-Reconstruction (or Restoration) legacy of Jim Crow. These statues and monuments were erected at the same time that lynchings were terrorizing African Americans, especially in the South. These events were intentionally related by the architects of Jim Crow.
Compare, for example, the map of American lynchings (https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore) with a dynamic map of erection of Civil War monuments in the U.S. and focus on the timing and number of monuments in the former so-called confederacy (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/07/civil_war_historical_markers_a_map_of_confederate_monuments_and_union_ones.html). There is a remarkable correlation.
This is not, as ill-informed and willfully ignorant proponents of this red herring of an issue will have us believe: that it is about honoring heritage. It is, if history is to be studied accurately, about putting the descendants of slaves back in their place. Jim Crow, lynchings, and the monuments are part of the same, divisive narrative.
As Douglas Blackmon, in his book “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” concluded “it is nonetheless true that hundreds of millions of us spring from or benefit as a result of lines of descent that abided those crimes and benefitted from them.” An honest, truthful debate today would teach about and acknowledge this history; learn and act upon it. By accepting and validating the ignorance of the vicious proponents of Jim Crow and its legacy, by wishing to ignore the reality of history, the ghosts of Jim Crow’s fathers and mothers will have won and extended their goals and hate well into the 21st century. We are in a position to do something about it and right the wrongs of history. So, to answer your question, we should not have any misgivings whatsoever to face up to the truth. We should be asking why anyone has misgivings and what the sources of those opinions are. If we did, we would conclude that we have been wrong to accept them.
LikeLike
Maybe I am the only one.
I’m thinking forward, beyond the Confederate monuments. Columbus is just one example. There are a whole lot of statues and monuments that are not inextricably bound to Jim Crow but which represent men of dubious moral character and, by some, are considered symbols of hate. The truth commissions will sort it out.
LikeLike
Paring down the number of ubiquitous Jim Crow-era statues commemorating a venal enemy of the U.S. is certainly in order. No schools should bear the names of segregationists,….
Statues to commemorate American goodness, for example Diane Ravitch, Jimmy Carter, Dayton’s Tony Hall, Hubert Humphrey, etc. should outnumber those for men who threatened, debased and enslaved their fellow Americans.
There may be a time when people like Linda Bean, erect statues for men like Jamie Dimon, Mnuchin, Dan Loeb, Whitney Tilson, Erik Prince, etc. If she succeeds, I hope future generations pulverize the statues.
LikeLike
I have misgivings, FLERP. It’s important not to hide or run away from our history in all its alternating ugliness and beauty. I support the right of people to express ugly and stupid ideas in a free public forum where those ideas can be argued down.
However, people’s beliefs–and what they choose to celebrate–change, and so it seems normal and natural that what they memorialize would change as well.
I like the idea of removing the statues to museums where they can be curated and placed into context. Let me ask you a question, FLERP: did communities in Russia have a right to tear down Lenin statues after the collapse of the Soviet Union?
LikeLike
Or, more to the point, did people in the former Eastern Bloc have the right to tear down those Lenin statues?
LikeLike
I would say yes. That opinion is informed by my own values as well as my great distance — temporally, culturally, geographically — from that situation. The further away I am, in any of all of those senses, the more likely I am to defer to local decision-making.
Yet I didn’t defer to the Taliban when they were blowing up Buddhas. I suppose I liked something about those Buddhas, and I felt some kind of ownership in their fragile, ancient majesty. So to some extent it’s personal.
I have no hard and fast rules. I just know that I don’t like the idea of commissions or councils subjecting monuments that, although the subjects they depict may have been repugnant, were not erected for the purpose of intimidation, terror, or even giving insult, to an ideological or moral test. Just want to go on record that I have some misgivings.
LikeLike
I was sick about the Taliban blowing up those majestic Buddhas. I can’t compare them, however, to Justice Taney or Gen Forrest, founder OF the KKK
LikeLike
Yes, but those are the easiest imaginable cases. So you think Columbus’s statue should be removed from Columbus Circle (presumably Columbus Circle would have to be renamed, too) because it is a “symbol of hate,” as Melissa Mark Viverito says?
LikeLike
I go for the easy cases, not the hard ones
LikeLike
Fair enough. The Columbus case is already here, though. You have no view one way or the other?
LikeLike
How about to Truman, who was responsible for the death of between 126,000 – 226,000 people, about half of which were killed on the FIRST day?
I’m sure you will find a way to justify that. But Truman’s decision killed more in a single day than Taney or Forrest in their entire life time.
Don’t get me wrong. BOTH actions were horrible. I think your value system is prejudiced,, though.
LikeLike
I would erect a statue to Truman. He never betrayed his oath to his own country
LikeLike
But he did make the decision to drop atomic bombs, killing hundreds of thousands, causing untold suffering for the next generations – some of which is still going on. That is okay in your thinking?
Roosevelt ok’s the firebombing of Dresden. Thousands of civilians got killed. That’s okay in your thinking?
Are you aware of current rules of engagement of the American Military? How when even a dozen (or less) civilians get killed as “collateral damage” there are investigations and court martials? None of that existed in WWII – obviously.
LikeLike
Is this what you are reading in the Alt-Right media, that Truman was a monster just like the southerners that owned slaves and the racist, hating Kluckers, and Nazis of today, because he decided to use two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II to save millions of lives.
The U.S. was at War with a country that attacked us first without warning. Truman’s decision to drop those atomic bombs on Japan actually saved millions of Japanese lives not counting the number of American troops that would have died.
It was predicted that at least 2-million Japanese would have died if the United States invaded Japan’s home islands in a conventional war without using the two atomic bombs. Millions of more people died from conventional bombing during World War II than those who died from 2 atomic bombs. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more than 150,000 in one night. The allies also firebombed cities in Germany killing tens of thousands of people each time.
Do you know anything about the history of World War II?
LikeLike
Alt-right?? No, historical data. And if you would READ, you will have seen that I pose the question: Who decides what gets “tossed?” Now we have a movement to toss all the Confederate statues. We keep the Sherman statue, because, after all, he was a here (Never mind he committed what would be termed “war crimes”).
But two generations down the line, people will want to toss Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Truman, Roosevelt for the horrible things THEY were responsible for (And fire-bombing Dresden, carpet bombing Vietnam, dropping nukes in Japan WERE horrible things!).
What are the guidelines, objectively, to decide which statue gets to stay, and which one has to go?
LikeLike
War crimes for Sherman? LOL
General W. T Sherman died in 1891. His march to the sea with 62,000 men to break the back of the slave owners resistance took place in 1864.
“The establishment of an international tribunal to judge political leaders accused of international crimes was first proposed during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 following the First World War by the Commission of Responsibilities. The issue was addressed again at a conference held in Geneva under the auspices of the League of Nations in 1937, which resulted in the conclusion of the first convention stipulating the establishment of a permanent international court to try acts of international terrorism. The convention was signed by 13 states, but none ratified it and the convention never entered into force.”
How do you try someone that died before the 20th century for war crimes that wasn’t even a discussion until 1919 where nothing was resolved and wouldn’t exist for several more decades?
Sherman was fighting the same type of people that Trump supports and admires.
Truman was also fighting the same type of people that Trump supports and admires.
racists
haters
authoritarians
tyrants
white supremacists
dictators
If we learn anything from history, we learn that to defeat Trump and his supporters we will have to eventually do what Sherman and Truman did, because you don’t stop extremists without extreme measures.
I don’t care what they do with those statues. Statues get torn down all the time. Remember what happened in 2nd Gulf War when Saddam fell and so did his statues.
LikeLike
Oh my. This is a hot button for sure. I woke up this morning (8/26/17) with even more statue news and a thought came to mind.
When I was in college I studied in Italy. There was a movement there at one time to remove male genital parts from statues, carefully catalog them, and to cover the area with a artfully created leaf so not as to offend the delicate women of the time. As the story was told, during the war the library of the parts was bombed and later when it was decided to return the statues to their full glory, the people charged with the task had quite the time.
I laughed back then at that story. This current situation isn’t a laughing matter.
LikeLike