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Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

bruto said:
In what I thought a pretty well written piece, she goes on to point out that though she can count no white ancestors for several generations back, she is genetically more than half white, descended from a notorious racist general, and asserts that she is not an outsider in the issue - that her very existence entitles her to speak against Confederate monuments with authority.
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It is interestingly written.

Curious that she is the great granddaughter of Arna Bontemps, who was descended from free people of color and French colonists. I have no doubt that she has ancestors who were slaves and were raped, but it does appear that she is also descended from free black people and French people (who are, traditionally during that time period, white).
 
JoeMorgue said:
I don't care what anyone's ancestor did to anyone else's ancestor. I am not culpable for what some dead white man who shared my DNA and my last name did a hundred or two hundred or a thousand years ago. That's why the whole "Oh why my ancestors didn't own slaves, my family didn't come here until the 1920s!" thing is just so goddamn droll to me. Did you personally own slaves? No? That's the only distinction that matters.

I get that this puts me at some weird crossroads but there's a huge difference between trying to fix the actual lingering effects of slavery and colonialism that are actually happening to people now in the real which (which the discussion we are having has to do in order to be anywhere near intellectually honest) and playing the "You owe me because 200 years ago your great great great grandaddy did something to my great great great grandaddy" card.

America needs to address the current problems of racism that slavery and colonialism are still causing. But slavery and colonialism aren't sins we should just be expected to pay for forever with our ledger never moving from red to black especially since all the slaves, all the slave-owners, all the colonialist, are all dead.

Trying to pretend racism and colonialism doesn't inform racism today is bigoted nonsense. But that's context to actual problems being faced today being done by people who are still alive to other people who are still alive. Constant little call backs to stuff people who are dead generations over did to other people who are dead generations over is nonsense
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Yup.
 
Mike! said:
When will the New American Taliban be satisfied?
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I find it difficult to imagine that ugly statues put up by descendants of the Confederacy in the 1960s and 1970s will be of much use to archeologists in a couple of thousand years - unless somebody needs to refer to one in an argument:
'See?! I told you so! Racism didn't stop in 1865!'
But I assume there will be easier ways to find out by then. They can just log on to whatever the descendant of the internet is called in 4320.
 
Mike! said:
It couldn't be simpler. Extremists taking it upon themselves to destroy something they hate and not making the world a better place for it.
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I must have missed the part where these Budhha statues were put up to reinforce Muslim inferiority and the decades of reasonable petitions being ignored to have them altered or moved to a more appropriate site to acknowledge that pain. I have also somehow overlooked the fact that pulling statues down with some ropes and chains obliterates it as effectively as explosive charges, preventing any human from ever gazing upon the artistic magnificence of it again.

I am ashamed of my ignorance, thank you for helping me to see the truth.
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
I must have missed the part where these Budhha statues were put up to reinforce Muslim inferiority and the decades of reasonable petitions being ignored to have them altered or moved to a more appropriate site to acknowledge that pain. I have also somehow overlooked the fact that pulling statues down with some ropes and chains obliterates it as effectively as explosive charges, preventing any human from ever gazing upon the artistic magnificence of it again.

I am ashamed of my ignorance, thank you for helping me to see the truth.
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:rolleyes:
Well, since the current wave of destruction goes well beyond statues that "glorified" the confederacy, and the Taliban destroyed far more history than the just Buddhas, the comparisons are worth noting.
 
Mike! said:
:rolleyes:
Well, since the current wave of destruction goes well beyond statues that "glorified" the confederacy, and the Taliban destroyed far more history than the just Buddhas, the comparisons are worth noting.
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Which statues have been destroyed?
 
Mike! said:
It couldn't be simpler. Extremists taking it upon themselves to destroy something they hate and not making the world a better place for it.
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It would seem that is what those people campaigning for removal and even those taking direct action are claiming.
 
I realize that the Taliban did a bunch of terrible things, and that there are, as always, stupid and destructive people who latch on to an idea and pervert it. Vandals will use the long overdue toppling of racist statues as an excuse for vandalism, racists will use the long overdue demonstration of frustration as an excuse to foment a race war, and so on.

But whose responsibility is that? If people want to demolish a statue of Stonewall Jackson, must they continually remember that doing so might invite a comparison with the Taliban? Must they always keep in mind "what if some idiot decides to do something similar that is idiotic?" Even if a person doing one thing could codify it and define its boundaries, would it keep stupid people from doing stupid things?

Nearly everything we do, good or bad - a restriction or a right, an expression or a suppression, a law or a loophole - will be distorted and misused by someone somewhere. Whatever good we try to do, someone somewhere will piss on it. Must we, foreseeing that, never undertake to do anything?
 
bruto said:
I realize that the Taliban did a bunch of terrible things, and that there are, as always, stupid and destructive people who latch on to an idea and pervert it. Vandals will use the long overdue toppling of racist statues as an excuse for vandalism, racists will use the long overdue demonstration of frustration as an excuse to foment a race war, and so on.

But whose responsibility is that? If people want to demolish a statue of Stonewall Jackson, must they continually remember that doing so might invite a comparison with the Taliban? Must they always keep in mind "what if some idiot decides to do something similar that is idiotic?" Even if a person doing one thing could codify it and define its boundaries, would it keep stupid people from doing stupid things?

Nearly everything we do, good or bad - a restriction or a right, an expression or a suppression, a law or a loophole - will be distorted and misused by someone somewhere. Whatever good we try to do, someone somewhere will piss on it. Must we, foreseeing that, never undertake to do anything?
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In answer to your first two queries, yes, and yes.

If I allow myself to destroy anything that offends me on my own authority, I have no standing to tell you that you may not do the same.
 
Distracted1 said:
In answer to your first two queries, yes, and yes.

If I allow myself to destroy anything that offends me on my own authority, I have no standing to tell you that you may not do the same.
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Who asked for such standing? The question is whether every action must be justified on the basis of what might be done by others who misuse or misunderstand it.

The tearing down of Confederate statues is based, at least publicly, on the idea that they represent systemic injustice and racism, and that prior, peaceful attempts to have them removed have been resisted. I do not think that this constitutes an unspoken justification for anyone to tear down anything they don't like, even if those who do pretend it is.
 
bruto said:
Who asked for such standing? The question is whether every action must be justified on the basis of what might be done by others who misuse or misunderstand it.

The tearing down of Confederate statues is based, at least publicly, on the idea that they represent systemic injustice and racism, and that prior, peaceful attempts to have them removed have been resisted. I do not think that this constitutes an unspoken justification for anyone to tear down anything they don't like, even if those who do pretend it is.
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Nonsense.
If the channels that are appropriate for getting the removal are used (as, for example, they were in the removal of the confederate flag from South Carolina https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/10/confederate-flag-south-carolina-statehouse ) and they fail, then another attempt is what's warranted.

If I petition the State for something, and cannot get enough popular support to get the state to grant my petition, what happened is that I lost my attempt, from there I am allowed to try again- not to just decide that I do not like losing and will therefore take the action I deem appropriate. That is what a mob does.

EDIT.
Sorry, answered a point you did not make. Mea culpa.

A more Germaine response to you post is that, yes, I must consider my actions in a society based upon wether or not they adhere to a principle.
Throwing a small amount of trash out of the window of my car has very little impact on anything. Yet, I am obligated as a citizen in a community to consider the ramifications if everyone adopted my attitude, and act accordingly.
 
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Distracted1 said:
Nonsense.
If the channels that are appropriate for getting the removal are used (as, for example, they were in the removal of the confederate flag from South Carolina https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/10/confederate-flag-south-carolina-statehouse ) and they fail, then another attempt is what's warranted.

If I petition the State for something, and cannot get enough popular support to get the state to grant my petition, what happened is that I lost my attempt, from there I am allowed to try again- not to just decide that I do not like losing and will therefore take the action I deem appropriate. That is what a mob does.

EDIT.
Sorry, answered a point you did not make. Mea culpa.

A more Germaine response to you post is that, yes, I must consider my actions in a society based upon wether or not they adhere to a principle.
Throwing a small amount of trash out of the window of my car has very little impact on anything. Yet, I am obligated as a citizen in a community to consider the ramifications if everyone adopted my attitude, and act accordingly.
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What if the inaction on the petition is motivated by nothing but pure, racist spite and the inaction continues to perpetuate an ongoing injustice and imposition of inferior status upon a class?

"Gosh that's too bad"?

"Continue politely asking for permission to be treated like a decent human being"?

If a government won't be accountable or responsive to its citizens, it has no legitimacy.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
What if the inaction on the petition is motivated by nothing but pure, racist spite and the inaction continues to perpetuate an ongoing injustice and imposition of inferior status upon a class?

"Gosh that's too bad"?

"Continue politely asking for permission to be treated like a decent human being"?

If a government won't be accountable or responsive to its citizens, it has no legitimacy.
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There is a little daylight between "being treated like a decent human being" and "destroying things that I find offensive", no?

As an example, there was a statue commissioned in my hometown back in the eighties that was to many clearly a thinly veiled "black power" statue.
It remains unmolested in spite of a substantial minority of the city residents finding it offensive, and in spite of attempts to use "the system" to have it replaced.

It would be okay to simply form a mob and destroy it because proper channels failed to get it removed??

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Joe_Louis
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
What if the inaction on the petition is motivated by nothing but pure, racist spite and the inaction continues to perpetuate an ongoing injustice and imposition of inferior status upon a class?

"Gosh that's too bad"?

"Continue politely asking for permission to be treated like a decent human being"?

If a government won't be accountable or responsive to its citizens, it has no legitimacy.
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Your objections sound so reasonable, and they're logical and make sense.

However, it was quite predictable that once Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee started coming down, so would George Washington. Maybe you think that's a good thing, so you might think it's great. Maybe you think Ulysses S. Grant was undeserving of a statue. And Junipero Serra. And Columbus. And Francis Scott Key and...........Ghndhi and The Little Mermaid, and ....wait...what? Well, they only got painted, not torn down, so it's a little unfair, and if a few more had come down then Martin Luther King would go because there would be retaliation.

I think democracy is the best way to go, even if you don't always get what you like.
 
Meadmaker said:
Your objections sound so reasonable, and they're logical and make sense.

However, it was quite predictable that once Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee started coming down, so would George Washington. Maybe you think that's a good thing, so you might think it's great. Maybe you think Ulysses S. Grant was undeserving of a statue. And Junipero Serra. And Columbus. And Francis Scott Key and...........Ghndhi and The Little Mermaid, and ....wait...what? Well, they only got painted, not torn down, so it's a little unfair, and if a few more had come down then Martin Luther King would go because there would be retaliation.

I think democracy is the best way to go, even if you don't always get what you like.
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And Elk. Can't forget the Elk.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/07/...moving-elk-statue-after-protesters-burned-it/
 
Meadmaker said:
I think democracy is the best way to go, even if you don't always get what you like.
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It would at least introduce a period of contemplative deliberation, during which we could ask ourselves whether Hans Christian HegWP was heroic or villainous.
 
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