Confederate Monuments

[tdawg87]

8 hours ago, AngelsLongBall said:

Is that the artist's interpretation of @Adam fighting 4 year old's?

The statue doesn't have an erection, so no.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

I am descended from Confederate soldiers and slave owners. One undeniable fact is that the statues of Confederate generals were mainly erected in the early 1900s, not during or immediately after the war. IMO there was an underlying subtle message to former slaves and their descendants that they were still inferior. The statues were not the only way in which this was manifested. For many years, schools throughout the south were named after Confederate generals and many athletic teams bore the nickname Rebels (both of which applied to my junior high school). I noticed in a search a few years ago that the athletic teams at my old school are now called the Comets, but the school is still named after Confederate General Edmund Kirby-Smith. My first year at Kirby was the first year of court-ordered desegregation for Duval County Public Schools, a time when it became the most bused school district in the country. For the first time I attended school with black students, and I got to know them as individuals rather than the racial stereotypes so prevalent at the time. My first year there, the Ku Klux Klan held a march in front of the school to protest the integration of the formerly "white" school. For the first time, I saw first hand how blatant racism affected blacks. My attitude toward race and toward people in general was largely formed during my final six years in public school, not by the "liberal" professors I encountered in college (very few of whom expressed an opinion about any political topic, even in political science classes).

I agree with the suggestion to place Confederate statues in Confederate cemeteries and in museums directly connected with chronicling the Civil War. The time when they should be on open display in public parks is past. 

[arch stanton]

Chronicling and remembering the Civil War is one thing, honoring the generals who led them to defeat is another altogether. I haven't been to DC lately but I don't remember seeing a statue of Westmoreland next to the Vietnam Memorial

[red321]

https://twitter.com/Reetae27/status/899018562647375872

[Tank]

9 minutes ago, red321 said:

https://twitter.com/Reetae27/status/899018562647375872

that's great.

[halomatt]

6 hours ago, red321 said:

https://twitter.com/Reetae27/status/899018562647375872

Best thing I saw on Twitter all day. 

[Spirit]

On 8/18/2017 at 10:15 PM, fan_since79 said:

...and the latest lunacy. They're going after Traveler the horse. Yes, the USC mascot. It turns out that Robert E. Lee's horse was also named Traveler.

Saphia Jackson, co-director of the USC Black Student Assembly...reminded (students) that “white supremacy hits close to home” and referenced the name of the Trojans mascot at a recent rally on campus. There have also been calls on social media to change the horse's name.

This is getting out of hand.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-usc-traveler-20170818-story.html

 

Changing the horse's name is a good idea.  It needs to be something the loving people at USC can rally around. 

May I suggest:  Orenthal

 

 

[Tank]

6 hours ago, Geoff said:

 

Changing the horse's name is a good idea.  It needs to be something the loving people at USC can rally around. 

May I suggest:  Orenthal

I vote for Juice.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

11 hours ago, Geoff said:

 

Changing the horse's name is a good idea.  It needs to be something the loving people at USC can rally around. 

May I suggest:  Orenthal

 

 

O. J. should be on parole by the time that the homecoming game rolls around. Perfect time for the dedication.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

[krAbs]

Vox has a pretty well defined left slant, but this is kinda why I scoff at the "preserving history" rational of keeping the monuments:
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/8/23/16189008/slavery-memorial-confederate-statue-whitney-plantation

A monument to a confederate general tells a very different story about history than the museum above.

[Thomas]

4 minutes ago, krAbs said:

A monument to a confederate general tells a very different story about history than the museum above.

Not today. Not remotely. But maybe it would in time? It's tough. On one hand who wants to support the continued celebration of an individual for their participation in a struggle for an abhorrent cause? This is the easy straight forward answer. On the other it may be incredible useful to point at something in 500 years and say look, we were a people that did celebrate this kind of of evil just as we would point at a preserved plantation or a Nazi concentration camp. And to point out that the statues were not locked away in a closet or museum but presented proudly and unabashedly in a town square or at an institute of higher learning. Perhaps place a statue a slave in bondage next to this statue? Much like a statue of Albert Pujols hugging Josh Hamilton while both burn $100 bills should be put in Arte's office as a constant reminder of his own personal shame.

[krAbs]

4 minutes ago, Thomas said:

Not today. Not remotely. But maybe it would in time? It's tough. On one hand who wants to support the continued celebration of an individual for their participation in a struggle for an abhorrent cause? This is the easy straight forward answer. On the other it may be incredible useful to point at something in 500 years and say look, we were a people that did celebrate this kind of of evil just as we would point at a preserved plantation or a Nazi concentration camp. And to point out that the statues were not locked away in a closet or museum but presented proudly and unabashedly in a town square or at an institute of higher learning. Perhaps place a statue a slave in bondage next to this statue? Much like a statue of Albert Pujols hugging Josh Hamilton while both burn $100 bills should be put in Arte's office as a constant reminder of his own personal shame.

I could get behind that, actually. My issue is that the current arrangement feels a lot like glorifying some pretty bad stuff in the name of preserving history. I heard someone on the left saying that this debate would look interesting if it was proposed that the plaques under the statue were changed to read something like "here stands a traitor who fought and died for the right to torturer and enslave other human beings." Which like...feels harsh, but...I mean...I guess its a compromise?

We NEED this. I'm just picturing a statue back to back, Hamilton and Pujols looking smug with their bats, standing on a pile of money. Making the flames out of statue may be tough, but feels worth it here.

[UndertheHalo]

I just want to point out that while tangentially addressing this issue last night the Donald didn't actually say anything about confederate statues.  Instead, in typically honest form made the entire argument about potentially tearing down George Washington statues.  An idea with no substantive support that he has impressively linked to the confederate issue. 

Edited August 24, 2017 by UndertheHalo

[Thomas]

If only to properly shame QHHS
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mccormick-antelope-valley-confederate-20170824-story.html

Quote

I’m sorry to say the Rebel was, in some ways, an entirely appropriate mascot. We were white — abnormally white, even for the standards of Antelope Valley. When I graduated in 2005, just 8% of students at QHHS were black, while I was among the 70% that were white. By contrast, Antelope Valley High — the local public school without the esteemed International Baccalaureate program — had more black students than white: 33% to 25%. At Quartz Hill, equipped with our superior collegiate training and emboldened by our rebellious mascot, a common joke was that the A.V. in A.V. High School stood for African Village.

 

[Vegas Halo Fan]

Quote

I’m sorry to say the Rebel was, in some ways, an entirely appropriate mascot. We were white — abnormally white, even for the standards of Antelope Valley. When I graduated in 2005, just 8% of students at QHHS were black, while I was among the 70% that were white. By contrast, Antelope Valley High — the local public school without the esteemed International Baccalaureate program — had more black students than white: 33% to 25%. At Quartz Hill, equipped with our superior collegiate training and emboldened by our rebellious mascot, a common joke was that the A.V. in A.V. High School stood for African Village.

Immediately before my sophomore year at Andrew Jackson High School, from which my father had graduated in 1937 from an all white school, the federal court stepped in with both feet. One of the consequences was that traditionally black Matthew Gilbert High, the alma mater of "Bullet" Bob Hayes of the Dallas Cowboys, was turned into a junior high school and its student body was combined with Jackson's. Because the school now had twice the number of students that it was designed for, we were on double sessions throughout my high school career. We had already held summer band camp and prepared for the season opener. I had never done a marching halftime show before, and now everything that I had just rehearsed was useless. We were supposed to play Gilbert in the first game, and now we were all on the same side. The band essentially doubled in size literally overnight, and everything had to be re-planned an re-rehearsed. We held a very uneasy meeting just before the school year started in the band room with both groups present. The Gilbert kids didn't want to be there, and we didn't want them there. The Gilbert seniors had paid for prom tickets and yearbooks for a school that now didn't exist. The first season was tense, and there was a lot of distrust. At one point there was a walkout by the black students (save for one sousaphone player who stayed), because they wanted more of a say in what went into our shows. Somewhere along the way, someone came up with the idea of a black vs. white football game, to be played on our practice field during our bye week when we weren't preparing for a halftime show. On the face of it, it sounds racist, but it was a stroke of genius. We all bled and sweated on the same field, when we left the field that day there were a lot of hugs and handshakes afterward, and the atmosphere in rehearsal was much different after that. The second year brought a new director, who was a more of a taskmaster than his predecessor. By my senior year we were a totally cohesive unit, and we achieved the school's best ranking in decades at regional band contest.

Years later, one of my black classmates said that they should have made a movie about what we all went through over those three years. "We should be given trophies just for surviving it all", he said.

[Tank]

Remember the Titans sounds pretty similar to your story, Vegas.

[Jason]

you can't make this stuff up

[Thomas]

Damn cons muddying the waters. 

[floplag]

im really rather scared where this is going to end.  

[Jason]

8 minutes ago, floplag said:

im really rather scared where this is going to end.  

If it ends

[Vegas Halo Fan]

On 8/24/2017 at 6:32 PM, Tank said:

Remember the Titans sounds pretty similar to your story, Vegas.

I couldn't watch that movie without having flashbacks to high school.

[Thomas]

1 hour ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

I couldn't watch that movie without having flashbacks to high school.

That may have also been the LSD from high school.

[Rico]

7 hours ago, Jason said:

you can't make this stuff up

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.”

[Blarg]

So the poem of the battle was to keep people from persecution, loss of their homes or death by British invasion. Sounds provacative.

Only fools believe that theirs is the times of true righteousness. The inclusion of all in this poem points to a country that was developing new insights in freedom. Thinking well ahead of it's time but still over two and a half centuries ago in a world none of us know outside of written histories.

In 1775 the United States banned slave trade from the Atlantic. By 1800 the United States prohibited the involvement of slave trading of any kind by US citizens or the importing of slave by foriegn countries. 7 of the 13 colonies had banned slavery altogether and passed legislation leading to the imacipation of slaves. 

So even before the Constitution was written and the first war for freedom began, slavery was in the process of being eliminated. Even Thomas Jefferson called for criminalization of slave trade within their borders of America before the second war with England. By 1820 it was illegal to own slaves in all northern States of the union.

It was a slow process. But it wasn't ignored before the Star spangled banner was written. It was just part of American Life during that time period of Reformation and Revolution. That one word now stands out but without context no one understands the importance of inclusion. The British were not fighting to abolish slavery but to enslave an entire peoples to a non representative monarchy. The newly formed United States was fighting for the right to democracy and it's slow march to betterment of the lives of all. It took nearly a century for that war for emacipation of all to take place. During that time period the Democratic process fought the thinking of the time period and finally won out at a terrible cost of life.

History isn't something for the weak minded to pick apart. Hopefully we can get through this time period and come out the other side with respect for what came before us.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Blarg