BLM, if you want any sympathy don't do this crap.

[ivwshane]

Jefferson was President of a regime which supported slavery (it's called the United States pre-1865) and owned slaves himself. Pretty much anyone prior to Lincoln can be tarred and feathered this way.

It's just futile and useless holding people from the past up to present day standards- rough as that is for some to swallow. Brought out of the past, people you may admire for one reason or another might well crap themselves at the sight of two men being married and holding hands, or any other number of things that have since come to be more accepted.


Hell, anyone remember this?

A top rated show for 6 years and no one shit themsevles over the car's namesake. Doubly humorous to me because some of the A (not quite making it to B) 'thinkers' around here cast Hollywood as the ultra-lib douche capital- but really Hollywood as a machine just makes whatever people want to watch. A mere glimpse of a history book will show that can go either way in terms of conservative/liberal.

But no one made that shit as homage to white supremacists, and I'm willing to bet very very few people took it that way. The culture just simply wasn't quite as stupidly PC-stunted as now.

(By comparison, imagine as show in Germany at ANY time where the main characters drove around in "The Himmler!")

Context is something I swear the right is unable to see.

 

[jackstar7]

PC-stunted = respectful

 

[Victorian Gray]

Sounds counter-productive, definitely. The 3rd President of the United States is entitled to a statue, warts and all, to say nothing of the Declaration.

I'd say if Jewish Americans can take pride in the American space program despite von Brauns role, maybe these BLM folks should take a hint. Supposedly Pill Cosby paid for all the equipment used for MLKs famous speech. History can be ugly, but it's best not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Pick your battles BLM.

re bold, nope, doesn't seem so.

"But the strongest evidence against Chappelle’s claim is that the fact of who paid for the March’s PA system is actually surprisingly well-documented. (This is partly because before the event, the system was sabotaged and the organizers called upon Attorney General Robert Kennedy to fix it. But that’s a story for a different day.) A few pages of Charles Euchner’s book about the March, Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington, is dedicated to the fact. See, the quality of the PA system was a sticking point for Bayard Rustin, one of the events main organizers. “The Lincoln Memorial is here, the Washington Monument is there,” Rustin told the engineers. “I want one square mile where anyone can hear.” His explanation, “We cannot maintain order where people cannot hear.” It was part of his plan to transform “a crowd” into “an audience.” According to Euchner, most big events at the time would rent systems for around $1,000 to $2,000, but Rustin wanted to rent something much more expensive.

Rustin called Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers and David Dubinsky of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. “We expect you fellows to raise the money for a sound system — $20,000,” he remembers telling them. Then he called Jack Conway of the AFL-CIO and told him to make sure Reuther and Dubinsky delivered."

http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/dear-dave-chappelle-cosby-didnt-pay-for-mlks-pa-system.html

 

[PottedMeat]

Tomorrow it will the fruit of the loom guys and Clorox.

And Mr Clean

yesss finally a solution

corporate advertising in newly available heavy traffic public spaces = sweet moneymaking opportunity

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

For you? Okay. Sorry you feel this way.

How many people have to be shot for them to win you back?

Shootings are wrong. This will not fix anything but it will discredit BLM when they do stand against abuse. This does them no favors at all. In fact it vindicates the opinions of others that BLM isn't happy with eliminating Confederate statues, but all of those who had slaves or didn't oppose it. That might not be true however it sure looks to be the case.

Don't alienate reasonable people.

 

[Jhhnn]

Oops I triggered someone. Suddenly he's ok with labeling people racist. Lol

You're the real racist!

 

[woolfe9998]

Jefferson was President of a regime which supported slavery (it's called the United States pre-1865) and owned slaves himself. Pretty much anyone prior to Lincoln can be tarred and feathered this way.

It's just futile and useless holding people from the past up to present day standards- rough as that is for some to swallow. Brought out of the past, people you may admire for one reason or another might well crap themselves at the sight of two men being married and holding hands, or any other number of things that have since come to be more accepted.

Yet we judge Hitler and the Nazis, in spite of the fact that what they did was 80 years ago. Where is the cutoff? Heck, we even judge people like Ghengis Khan for being a butcher, and that was like 800 years ago. We can and do judge people from the past. I think it's fair to give some consideration to shifting cultural norms and morality over time but how much we can excuse depends on how bad their actions were.

I think there's a distinction between someone like Washington or Jefferson on the one hand, and someone like Lee or Jefferson Davis on the other. Washington fought to have a nation independent of Britain. He didn't fight for the right to enslave people.

But let's say you're correct to a point. Maybe Lee wasn't so terribly bad when compared to someone like Jefferson. The fact remains, however, that for black people the confederacy and everything connected to it symbolize oppression, just like for Jews, the Nazi regime and everything and everyone connected to it symbolize oppression. It's insensitive to glorify that regime - and to do it with tax payer funded monuments on public property no less - even IF all the people involved weren't the worst people in the world.

I often think people on the left are being too PC, but I honestly don't think this is one of those cases.

Hell, anyone remember this?

A top rated show for 6 years and no one shit themsevles over the car's namesake. Doubly humorous to me because some of the A (not quite making it to B) 'thinkers' around here cast Hollywood as the ultra-lib douche capital- but really Hollywood as a machine just makes whatever people want to watch. A mere glimpse of a history book will show that can go either way in terms of conservative/liberal.

But no one made that shit as homage to white supremacists, and I'm willing to bet very very few people took it that way. The culture just simply wasn't quite as stupidly PC-stunted as now.

(By comparison, imagine as show in Germany at ANY time where the main characters drove around in "The Himmler!")

I don't think the different reaction today is a function of creeping political correctness, creeping as it may be. It's far more likely connected to two things in the recent past: the 2015 Charleston shooting, perpetrated by a confederate flag waving white supremacist, and the election of Donald Trump, who many people view as at least an enabler to racists. Those developments have gotten people more sensitive and agitated. It isn't just that people weren't calling for these statues to be removed back in the 80's when "Dukes" was on the air. It's that they weren't really calling for it even 5 years ago, or if they were, not to anywhere near the same extent.

 

[Snarf Snarf]

Shootings are wrong. This will not fix anything but it will discredit BLM when they do stand against abuse. This does them no favors at all. In fact it vindicates the opinions of others that BLM isn't happy with eliminating Confederate statues, but all of those who had slaves or didn't oppose it. That might not be true however it sure looks to be the case.

Don't alienate reasonable people.

They didn't ask for the statue to be torn down though? They asked for a plaque next to it that would state while Jefferson's accomplishments as a founding father were worthy of note, that they would acknowledge that he was incorrect in his assertion that the negro was an inferior race and it's rightful place was in submission to the white man.

No one is rewriting history here or trying to hide it. In fact it's quite the opposite, that list of demands wants the dirtier side of history to be acknowledged, and then shunned formally and publicly. Not sure how many of you guys actually took any civil rights courses in college, but these subjects were all covered and discussed in all of my civil rights, African American Studies, and Hispanic Studies courses that I took as electives in school.

There's a reality that a lot of our heroes were overtly racist, I mean like, really overtly racist. Like Jefferson saying that God himself sent the white man to subvert the negro and that is his appropriate place. Conservatives get up in arms about us changing or hiding history but it's completely incorrect. We want you guys to realize what your heroes really were, racists. It doesn't mean we don't love our freedom we have now, and don't appreciate the ultimate price those before us paid, it means that we as a society have to accept that just because a bad person did something noble doesn't mean they were a noble person.

 

[Pulsar]

Yet we judge Hitler and the Nazis, in spite of the fact that what they did was 80 years ago. Where is the cutoff? Heck, we even judge people like Ghengis Khan for being a butcher, and that was like 800 years ago. We can and do judge people from the past. I think it's fair to give some consideration to shifting cultural norms and morality over time but how much we can excuse depends on how bad their actions were.

I think there's a distinction between someone like Washington or Jefferson on the one hand, and someone like Lee or Jefferson Davis on the other. Washington fought to have a nation independent of Britain. He didn't fight for the right to enslave people.

But let's say you're correct to a point. Maybe Lee wasn't so terribly bad when compared to someone like Jefferson. The fact remains, however, that for black people the confederacy and everything connected to it symbolize oppression, just like for Jews, the Nazi regime and everything and everyone connected to it symbolize oppression. It's insensitive to glorify that regime - and to do it with tax payer funded monuments on public property no less - even IF all the people involved weren't the worst people in the world.

I often think people on the left are being too PC, but I honestly don't think this is one of those cases.

I don't think the different reaction today is a function of creeping political correctness, creeping as it may be. It's far more likely connected to two things in the recent past: the 2015 Charleston shooting, perpetrated by a confederate flag waving white supremacist, and the election of Donald Trump, who many people view as at least an enabler to racists. Those developments have gotten people more sensitive and agitated. It isn't just that people weren't calling for these statues to be removed back in the 80's when "Dukes" was on the air. It's that they weren't really calling for it even 5 years ago, or if they were, not to anywhere near the same extent.

I'm not so sure that's the case. I think we're reaping what we've sown. The current young generation was raised in a super-PC, never offend the other person school system that rarely if ever took any kind of responsibility. Sports that have no winners because we aren't allowed to keep score, and bullies who are never punished because they are misunderstood. And so you end up with people who feel the need to remove anything even slightly uncomfortable, because *trigger* *safe space* etc.

 

[Moonbeam]

My position on this is one of complete indifference. When I was young I didn't worship anybody or anything other than life itself. But when I entered the world of ideas and duality I collected lots of sacred ideas and ideals and exemplars I wished I were like. Then I lost everything I thought was sacred and saw in a flash the irrelevance of all of it. You can take all your sacred cows and your arguments about them and do whatever you like. The world is empty of meaning but full of the joy of being. There is only one person I can be and that, my dear idolater, is me. I am the alpha and the omega. It comes of being a nobody.

 

[woolfe9998]

I'm not so sure that's the case. I think we're reaping what we've sown. The current young generation was raised in a super-PC, never offend the other person school system that rarely if ever took any kind of responsibility. Sports that have no winners because we aren't allowed to keep score, and bullies who are never punished because they are misunderstood. And so you end up with people who feel the need to remove anything even slightly uncomfortable, because *trigger* *safe space* etc.

That's actually all true. I just don't think it's applicable to this particular point. As I said before, black people view the confederacy in a manner similar to how Jews view the Nazis, yet I doubt anyone would call a Jew hyper-sensitive for being upset at seeing someone wave a swastika in their face. I think the offense here is a lot more credible than some of this other PC bullshit, like complaining that an Asian comic book character is portrayed by a white actor, or that an American opening a Mexican restaurant is stealing their culture.

Don't you think something like that Charleston shooting by a confederate flag waving white supremacist could cause heightened sensitivity to the display of confederate symbols and monuments? To me, that is the real trigger here.

 

[Zaap]

Yet we judge Hitler and the Nazis, in spite of the fact that what they did was 80 years ago.

People (nitwits) proudly parade around in Che Guevara t-shrits, and he was a murderous, quite racist, asshole dictatorial toolbag only 50 years ago.

We judge Hitler and Nazis because they literally committed one of the most obvious crimes against humanity that people refuse to forget about (with good reason) but other shitbags (and some even MORE murderous) are routinely excused. (For example, how does a portrait of Mao end up on the white house Christmas Tree as it did one year, and an Obama admin official cite a man who made Hitler look like a rank amateur when it came to murdering innocents as her 'favorite philosopher'? I mean, in light of who Mao actually was, those are shamefully astonishing facts, swept under the rug or not.)

So people just pick and choose who they want to hold to some kind of 'standard' based on what's acceptable. (And mass-murder on a grand scale never has been, so it makes the excuse of ever uttering support for someone like Mao even more holy WTF.)

I think there's a distinction between someone like Washington or Jefferson on the one hand, and someone like Lee or Jefferson Davis on the other. Washington fought to have a nation independent of Britain. He didn't fight for the right to enslave people.

But the sad thing is, you're absolutely wrong about the last part. He DID fight for a nation which held the practice of enslaving people. He was a southerner and slave holder himself, and understood full well that was a part of the nation's independence- there was going to be slavery, and men like Washington himself fully gained from it. (Wealthy southern plantation owners.)

The thing is- I and you and most people can see thats that's not ALL Washington was- even though I consider it silly to deny that HE WAS those things, and yes he in a very real way fought for a slave-owning region and nation.

Most are willing to overlook these things as people being products of the times and circumstances they lived in. There's no need to scrub the founders off Mt. Rushmore or our currency because they're viewed as larger than the ugly truths of all they actually were thats's no longer acceptable by society.

A lot of people just see that there's no real reason to be any more harsher against Lee. He fought for a regime that had slavery, yes true. But as I pointed out- it's FACT- the very second before the southern slave states seceded from the union, they were slave states belonging to the United States. The United States was a SLAVE HOLDING COUNTRY, same as the Confederacy sought to become. Many of its founders came from slave holding states and had a personal hand in it.

But let's say you're correct to a point. Maybe Lee wasn't so terribly bad when compared to someone like Jefferson. The fact remains, however, that for black people the confederacy and everything connected to it symbolize oppression, just like for Jews, the Nazi regime and everything and everyone connected to it symbolize oppression. It's insensitive to glorify that regime - and to do it with tax payer funded monuments on public property no less - even IF all the people involved weren't the worst people in the world.

The thing I think you and a lot of people are missing, holding up Lee (for one) as a historic figure ONLY RECENTLY has become some automatically tie with racism, white supremacy etc.

That's my point that he was actually a benign enough figure that "all those libs" in Hollywood saw not a thing wrong with his as the name of the main character's car. Nothing about it had a thing to do with worshiping the confederacy and slavery etc- it's just that people ALL PEOPLE like their regional history and will continue to even if you don't.

It's not just the south- I remember certain neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey where certain mob figures were (probably still are) revered and held up on a pedestal. Not because people were afraid of them- because for whatever warped reason, those are their local heroes. People responsible for shakedowns, rackets, mass murder, etc.

You'll find drug kingpins worshiped in various hoods and places where they've done little more than addict, prostitute and kill the local populace.

People just like other powerful people from the same place they are, and are willing to see nothing but the good side of them.

My point is merely, it's a bit silly to pick and choose. I think Mao is worse than Hitler. NEITHER should be acceptable to ever utter a word of support for by a public figure.

Likewise, I think Washington/Jefferson and Lee (for example) are IN REALITY equally bad in terms of slavery and being powerful figures and active participants in slave owning regimes.

Jefferson WAS a rapist of his slaves- FACT. That alone is a truly reprehensible thing. I don't know if Washington and Lee were equally as bad...

But...

I see all of them as figures that we (for better or worse) overlook their worst traits in favor of their larger status as historic figures. Hollywood naming a car after Lee, or someone not wanting a statue of any of them removed, is NOT just a celebration of their worst traits. Admiring Jefferson doesn't make you a slave-rapist, nor does not wanting to burn everything related to Lee make anyone a white-supremacist supporter.

People can pick and choose which they see as "Oh shucks, so he raped some slaves.." and "OMG he was in the confederacy all they want..." but I just find it stupid and silly to pretend one is infinitely worse and unforgivable than the other.


Oh, and none of it has a thing really to do with Trump for fuck's sake. Trump's an ass, but American History was and will remain whatever it is before him, and long after.

 

[kage69]

re bold, nope, doesn't seem so.

I actually had no idea Chapelle had proffered that, trying to find the interview where I heard it. Was a civil rights writer IIRC. Don't think I bought it 100% though, hence the use of 'supposedly.' But good to know, I'm actually relieved for the civil rights movement to not have that connection with Cosby.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yet we judge Hitler and the Nazis, in spite of the fact that what they did was 80 years ago. Where is the cutoff? Heck, we even judge people like Ghengis Khan for being a butcher, and that was like 800 years ago. We can and do judge people from the past. I think it's fair to give some consideration to shifting cultural norms and morality over time but how much we can excuse depends on how bad their actions were.

I think there's a distinction between someone like Washington or Jefferson on the one hand, and someone like Lee or Jefferson Davis on the other. Washington fought to have a nation independent of Britain. He didn't fight for the right to enslave people.

But let's say you're correct to a point. Maybe Lee wasn't so terribly bad when compared to someone like Jefferson. The fact remains, however, that for black people the confederacy and everything connected to it symbolize oppression, just like for Jews, the Nazi regime and everything and everyone connected to it symbolize oppression. It's insensitive to glorify that regime - and to do it with tax payer funded monuments on public property no less - even IF all the people involved weren't the worst people in the world.

I often think people on the left are being too PC, but I honestly don't think this is one of those cases.



I don't think the different reaction today is a function of creeping political correctness, creeping as it may be. It's far more likely connected to two things in the recent past: the 2015 Charleston shooting, perpetrated by a confederate flag waving white supremacist, and the election of Donald Trump, who many people view as at least an enabler to racists. Those developments have gotten people more sensitive and agitated. It isn't just that people weren't calling for these statues to be removed back in the 80's when "Dukes" was on the air. It's that they weren't really calling for it even 5 years ago, or if they were, not to anywhere near the same extent.

A lot of it is in response to the attempted comeback tour of Jim Crow under the guise of strict voter ID & the voter fraud boogeyman. There's the reality of racist gerrymandering. There's Trump's naked pandering to racist sentiment. There's a growing awareness that we still have a lot of work to do to achieve full racial equality & that we haven't really considered minority perspectives as much as we should.

Southern monuments? There they are, up on pedestals, bigger than life, men whose greatest distinction was to fight to keep black people in chains... raised by White Supremacists during 100 years of racial oppression... And sanctified by all too many White people even today.

Anybody who can't figure it out needs to stand in the other guy's shoes & see how it feels.

 

[Jaskalas]

As part of our Union, Americans decided to come together to honor ALL fellow Americans who served their country.

You are simply wrong.

Even those who fought the Civil War viewed the other side as their fellow American brothers and sisters. Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction was aimed at a conciliatory reunification of the United States. He ever sought to keep the Union whole, never was it towards vengeance or hatred for his countrymen. It is clear that the same cannot be said of Americans today.

 

[kage69]

I'm not so sure that's the case. I think we're reaping what we've sown. The current young generation was raised in a super-PC, never offend the other person school system that rarely if ever took any kind of responsibility.

Heh. I've heard this before. Still find it amusing when the religiously-correct, culturally-correct authoritarian streak within right-wing America thinks it's the youngest of Americans who are bringing this new kind of bullshit to the limelight. With decades of 'war of christianity' (and all the outraged butthurt that comes with it) that is some proposition to hold up.

FWIW I don't see many national figures in the 65 and older crowd taking much in the way of responsibility either. Most of them are running from it.

 

[Jhhnn]

Even those who fought the Civil War viewed the other side as their fellow American brothers and sisters. Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction was aimed at a conciliatory reunification of the United States. He ever sought to keep the Union whole, never was it towards vengeance or hatred for his countrymen. It is clear that the same cannot be said of Americans today.

There are the minor matters of 100 years of Jim Crow, White Supremacy & segregation. It's not like The South lived up to the terms of the deal or that the rest of us did anything about it until Truman integrated the Military & the 60's brought in the civil rights movement.

That's the legacy southern monuments were raised to glorify, make no mistake about it.

 

[UglyCasanova]

This is ridiculous just like the graffiti being painted on Columbus (who was a much worse person by far than Jefferson or Lee).

 

[Victorian Gray]

I'm not so sure that's the case. I think we're reaping what we've sown. The current young generation was raised in a super-PC, never offend the other person school system that rarely if ever took any kind of responsibility. Sports that have no winners because we aren't allowed to keep score, and bullies who are never punished because they are misunderstood. And so you end up with people who feel the need to remove anything even slightly uncomfortable, because *trigger* *safe space* etc.

Yes, modern American conservatives, when *are* they going to grow up.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I actually had no idea Chapelle had proffered that, trying to find the interview where I heard it. Was a civil rights writer IIRC. Don't think I bought it 100% though, hence the use of 'supposedly.' But good to know, I'm actually relieved for the civil rights movement to not have that connection with Cosby.

That was one of the reasons I bothered to look it up although it was mainly, as the article pointed out, that the time frame didn't make sense.

 

[MajinCry]

Replace his statues with ones of Harriet Tubman. Problem solved.

Or even better, replace them with statues of Native Americans that resisted Columbus' sex slavery.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Retard #1: "Who is this guy and why are we covering him again? What was he responsible for"
Retard #2: "I dunno, ask that guy"
Head-honcho Retard: "Don't ask questions, just do it. Obey."

 

[Jhhnn]

Replace his statues with ones of Harriet Tubman. Problem solved.

Or even better, replace them with statues of Native Americans that resisted Columbus' sex slavery.

We don't need to replace one set of divisive symbols with another. White America needs to acknowledge that White Supremacists raised those symbols, to denounce their ideology & its symbols. It's the way we can show Black Americans that we accept full equality.

Unless that's not what we want...

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I'm not so sure that's the case. I think we're reaping what we've sown. The current young generation was raised in a super-PC, never offend the other person school system that rarely if ever took any kind of responsibility. Sports that have no winners because we aren't allowed to keep score, and bullies who are never punished because they are misunderstood. And so you end up with people who feel the need to remove anything even slightly uncomfortable, because *trigger* *safe space* etc.

Partially true - but the main culprit is simply a generation that grew up getting anything and everything they wanted instantly and everytime.

Cry? Here have an iPad and shut up
Don't like dinner? Complain and throw a fit until they get you McDonald's
Don't get what you wanted while at a public restaurant? Complain and throw an embarrassing hissy fit until the parents succumb and give them whatever they want just to quit embarrassing them.
Don't like working with your group in your college course? Complain to the professor until he gives you an A.
Feel oppressed having so much homework? Complain until you get an A.
Don't like a statue and the (inevitable) history that it represents? Complain until someone takes it down.

It was the same then and it's the same now. I'm willing to wager my life savings that a good 80%+ that encompass these groups are all in joke majors with no real future career path - You know the types, liberal arts, psychology, women's studies, etc... I had that mindset to at one time in my life. I kept hoping I could get a degree in videogames and just get a career playing videogames and getting paid for it. Then I put on my big-boy pants and realized no one is going to fucking pay you for that stupid shit. That is the case with these kids - is they didn't put on their big-boy pants, they were told they would get a job in these joke majors.

 

[ivwshane]

Partially true - but the main culprit is simply a generation that grew up getting anything and everything they wanted instantly and everytime.

Cry? Here have an iPad and shut up
Don't like dinner? Complain and throw a fit until they get you McDonald's
Don't get what you wanted while at a public restaurant? Complain and throw an embarrassing hissy fit until the parents succumb and give them whatever they want just to quit embarrassing them.
Don't like working with your group in your college course? Complain to the professor until he gives you an A.
Feel oppressed having so much homework? Complain until you get an A.
Don't like a statue and the (inevitable) history that it represents? Complain until someone takes it down.

It was the same then and it's the same now. I'm willing to wager my life savings that a good 80%+ that encompass these groups are all in joke majors with no real future career path - You know the types, liberal arts, psychology, women's studies, etc... I had that mindset to at one time in my life. I kept hoping I could get a degree in videogames and just get a career playing videogames and getting paid for it. Then I put on my big-boy pants and realized no one is going to fucking pay you for that stupid shit. That is the case with these kids - is they didn't put on their big-boy pants, they were told they would get a job in these joke majors.

Are you talking about baby boomers or millennials?