All Statues and Monuments must come down

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Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
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More statutes went down.



Who is next?
Christopher Columbus I kind of get despite the cultural ignorance for why we even have Columbus statues to begin with, but George Washington is absurd.
 
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Dec 10, 2005
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Christopher Columbus I kind of get despite the cultural ignorance for why we even have Columbus statues to begin with, but George Washington is absurd.
There's a lot of cultural ignorance around George Washington too. Sure, he was a FF, but he was also slaver and supported a system that perpetuated race based slavery, so I can see why some people wouldn't exactly be pleased with statues of him.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
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There's a lot of cultural ignorance around George Washington too. Sure, he was a FF, but he was also slaver and supported a system that perpetuated race based slavery, so I can see why some people wouldn't exactly be pleased with statues of him.
History is complicated, and so are the people who made it. I have no problem reevaluating historical figures in a different context, but I would prefer an additive approach. We can honor Washington as a founding father with the caveat that he was also a Virginia slave owner. Should we also remove his portrait from our currency?
 
Dec 10, 2005
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History is complicated, and so are the people who made it. I have no problem reevaluating historical figures in a different context, but I would prefer an additive approach. We can honor Washington as a founding father with the caveat that he was also a Virginia slave owner. Should we also remove his portrait from our currency?
Yes, history is complicated. You're being extremely dismissive of people who have been severely hurt by that history by effectively telling them to "deal with it" when it comes to monuments to people that literally enslaved their ancestors.
 
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VRAMdemon

Diamond Member
Aug 16, 2012
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I think someone may have told Trump that the South won the Civil War. He seems confused on that point. Although...He’s always said he was a visual thinker. So when he sees all the Confederate flags and statues of Confederate generals, he reaches the obvious conclusion.

Does Trump have a private slush fund that’s going to pay for this "statue garden", or is he going to have to get funding from Congress? If the latter, his Executive Order isn’t worth the paper he wiped his ass with.

In reality...There’s never going to be a "Garden of Lifelike or Realistic statues". It’s just another glass of juice for The Cult of Followers to get 'em past the election. Trump’s usual move. He makes the promise and gets a bunch of favorable publicity. But then he never follows through on delivering what he promised. Just like when he used to show up a charity events and pledge large sums of money - and then after the story was reported, he would never send the check.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,893
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Does Trump have a private slush fund that’s going to pay for this "statue garden", or is he going to have to get funding from Congress? If the latter, his Executive Order isn’t worth the paper he wiped his ass with.

I believe the EO called for donations from states and private individuals with the understanding that this congress would never appropriate funds for such a park.

I think we would collect all the confederate monuments in the country and put them in a park where a 30 foot fall golden statue of Trump at the head of all of them welcomes you to a memorial of traitorous racist failures.
 

nOOky

Platinum Member
Aug 17, 2004
2,827
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I think someone may have told Trump that the South won the Civil War. He seems confused on that point. Although...He’s always said he was a visual thinker. So when he sees all the Confederate flags and statues of Confederate generals, he reaches the obvious conclusion.

Does Trump have a private slush fund that’s going to pay for this "statue garden", or is he going to have to get funding from Congress? If the latter, his Executive Order isn’t worth the paper he wiped his ass with.

In reality...There’s never going to be a "Garden of Lifelike or Realistic statues". It’s just another glass of juice for The Cult of Followers to get 'em past the election. Trump’s usual move. He makes the promise and gets a bunch of favorable publicity. But then he never follows through on delivering what he promised. Just like when he used to show up a charity events and pledge large sums of money - and then after the story was reported, he would never send the check.

Maybe Trump doesn't know that new York lost almost 1,000 soldiers fighting for the Union in the civil war? That his is from the north, not the south? It boggles the mind to listen to all the people up north sympathize with the southerners that still think they should have won the war. We have idiots running around here with rebel flags on their trucks. Umm, you do know we fought against slavery, right?
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington.

In some ways, it's kind of good and sad that it became a meme that people learned about Tulsa from the HBO show Watchmen. (Good that they leaned about it, bad that it took a fictional TV show to spurn it.) Honestly, I was one of those people, and I can't recall it being mentioned in any textbooks that I had. Although, given that textbooks are usually made for a national audience, that's probably not a surprise given omitting certain events or aspects of events would make them more pleasing to certain folk. It's kind of like an article that I vaguely remember about how certain movements in Texas are pushing for science textbook changes, which would end up affecting everyone.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Yes, history is complicated. You're being extremely dismissive of people who have been severely hurt by that history by effectively telling them to "deal with it" when it comes to monuments to people that literally enslaved their ancestors.
You’re similarly being dismissive of what in many cases is misguided and misdirected anarchy and vandalism.

I am asking them to look at the totality of the person’s character. Washington struggled with the notion of slavery and freed his slaves in his will upon the death of his wife.

Ripping down monuments and statues is easy. It’s a useful distraction.
 
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Dec 10, 2005
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I asking them to look at the totality of the person’s character. Washington struggled with the notion of slavery and freed his slaves in his will upon the death of his wife.
I am fine looking at the totality of his character - I have an issue with you. You're so blithely dismissive of issues that other people who have ancestors who were directly harmed by Washington and many of the other FFs. It's never about the vandalism - that's merely an end result of a racist society shoving its collective fingers in its ears and screaming "lalala" when anyone brings up legitimate points about why we may consider adjusting our insane worship of the FFs. Who we put monuments up to is a reflection of what we value. You may be dismissive of his slave owning, but many see being a slaver as an integral part to who he was: it gave him economic power and he didn't exactly put a stop to his own use of the institution. He may have allegedly struggled with the notion of owning people, but that didn't stop him from continuing to do it, use his power over them to advance his own interests, and chase down people who escaped from bondage. You know what they say - talk is cheap.

As for the idea that he and his wife freed the slaves after death, perhaps you should revisit that assertion: https://www.history.com/news/did-george-washington-really-free-mount-vernons-slaves

And it's not just black people who might take issue with some of the godlike worship of the FFs. Take the indigenous peoples of the US - for hundreds of years, white people waged a nearly unending campaign of terror against them. I'm sure they are thrilled that the faces of their oppressors are carved into their a mountain located on what they considered sacred ground.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
I am fine looking at the totality of his character - I have an issue with you. You're so blithely dismissive of issues that other people who have ancestors who were directly harmed by Washington and many of the other FFs. It's never about the vandalism - that's merely an end result of a racist society shoving its collective fingers in its ears and screaming "lalala" when anyone brings up legitimate points about why we may consider adjusting our insane worship of the FFs. Who we put monuments up to is a reflection of what we value. You may be dismissive of his slave owning, but many see being a slaver as an integral part to who he was: it gave him economic power and he didn't exactly put a stop to his own use of the institution. He may have allegedly struggled with the notion of owning people, but that didn't stop him from continuing to do it, use his power over them to advance his own interests, and chase down people who escaped from bondage. You know what they say - talk is cheap.

As for the idea that he and his wife freed the slaves after death, perhaps you should revisit that assertion: https://www.history.com/news/did-george-washington-really-free-mount-vernons-slaves

And it's not just black people who might take issue with some of the godlike worship of the FFs. Take the indigenous peoples of the US - for hundreds of years, white people waged a nearly unending campaign of terror against them. I'm sure they are thrilled that the faces of their oppressors are carved into their a mountain located on what they considered sacred ground.
I am also aware that the founding of our nation happened at a unique inflection point in history during which monarchies and empires fell, and enlightened thinking introduced the very notion of civil rights.

As for the native Americans, I invite you to also examine what conflict looked like between the various indigenous tribes before the Europeans arrived, and also the roles that indigenous combatants played in the French and Indian War amongst others during the colonial era of the Americas, extending from the Caribbean to Canada. I also invite you to explore the pivotal role that many Confederate officers had in the Mexican War, to which we can attribute our claim to Texas, California and the entire Southwest.

My fingers aren’t in my ears. I just choose to filter emotion through historical context. Tearing down statues is a simple solution to a complex problem. It may feel like progress to you, but its essentially achieved nothing.
 
Dec 10, 2005
23,988
6,791
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I am also aware that the founding of our nation happened at a unique inflection point in history during which monarchies and empires fell, and enlightened thinking introduced the very notion of civil rights.
Yes, a unique inflection point. It still doesn't really excuse race based slavery.

As for the native Americans, I invite you to also examine what conflict looked like between the various indigenous tribes before the Europeans arrived, and also the roles that indigenous combatants played in the French and Indian War amongst others during the colonial era of the Americas, extending from the Caribbean to Canada. I also invite you to explore the pivotal role that many Confederate officers had in the Mexican War, to which we can attribute our claim to Texas, California and the entire Southwest.

Some of that sounds an awful lot like the extremely racist misdirection to Chicago type of argument when people point out police violence against black people. As for the confederate officers and their roles in the pretty terrible (for indigenous peoples) policy of Manifest Destiny, once they became traitors by fighting for a regime founded on the principle of owning people, we should have not been honoring them with statues.

My fingers aren’t in my ears. I just choose to filter emotion through historical context. Tearing down statues is a simple solution to a complex problem. It may feel like progress to you, but its essentially achieved nothing.
No one ever said statues were the be-all-end-all. But perhaps you'd like to try your hand at building another straw man.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Yes, a unique inflection point. It still doesn't really excuse race based slavery.
No one is excusing it, some of us are putting it in historical context. I finally got around to seeing Hamilton on Disney+, which lionizes Washington. Is that wrong?

!Some of that sounds an awful lot like the extremely racist misdirection to Chicago type of argument when people point out police violence against black people. As for the confederate officers and their roles in the pretty terrible (for indigenous peoples) policy of Manifest Destiny, once they became traitors by fighting for a regime founded on the principle of owning people, we should have not been honoring them with statues.
That sounds like the race card some people play when presented with uncomfortable facts. Shootings are on the rise in cities across America, which inevitably shifts the narrative in favor of law and order.

No one ever said statues were the be-all-end-all. But perhaps you'd like to try your hand at building another straw man.
Not building straw men, just asking people to take historical context into account.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,894
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
More statutes went down.



Who is next?

Frederick Douglas down, Ben Franklin down, they are working on Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,003
146
Frederick Douglas has a statue? I thought the president was just talking to him?
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,003
146
it definitely wasn't trump

Yea, lol