I thought this deserved its own thread, since we're discussing it in one that's ostensibly about the Trump presidency. It seems like there's an interesting diversity of opinion on the issue.
I thought this deserved its own thread, since we're discussing it in one that's ostensibly about the Trump presidency. It seems like there's an interesting diversity of opinion on the issue.
Hawk (08-17-2017)
I'm ok with individual cities wanting to get rid of them if that's what the city councils decide. Move them to a museum where people can learn the history. All proceeds go to some charity.
I'm personally not offended by Stone Mountain. Been there thrice. It would be cool if we go this though:
Forever Fredi
Julio3000 (08-16-2017)
The Chosen One (08-16-2017)
The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...al-lee/529038/
When two of his slaves escaped and were recaptured, Lee either beat them himself or ordered the overseer to "lay it on well." Wesley Norris, one of the slaves who was whipped, recalled that “not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”
.................................................. .................................................. ............................
This article is chilling
Last edited by 57Brave; 08-16-2017 at 12:48 PM.
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make sure he doesn’t get a gun.
And what might the rest of you have done if you were born at the time and owned slaves? There were abolitionists but they were hated so much their meetings were often attacked by angry mobs. Everyone wants to think they would have been the abolitionist when reality is most would be the angry mob.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
"And what might the rest of you have done if you were born at the time and owned slaves?"
Not laid claim to other human beings.
**** I feel funny laying claim to land
..
I am sorry but I don't feel the moral ambiguity some here feel . Few things in life are black and white - right and wrong
seceding from the USA then fighting a war over slavery is clearly a wrong.
Participating in that war is unimaginable. Being a leader to uphold slavery is --- I dont even have a word
150 years later trying to rationalize the morality of that war to obtain tax cuts for the 1% is --- again. I dont have a word
That word hasn't been invented yet
Last edited by 57Brave; 08-16-2017 at 01:29 PM.
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make sure he doesn’t get a gun.
shouldn't we also have a thread for the southerners who stayed loyal to the country
I think that's an important historical fact which is easily glossed over in Lost Cause mythmaking. There was a choice. It's fair to say that choosing loyalty to the republic might have meant dispossession and disconnection from family and friends, but let's not forget that the choice existed.
I just caught Free State of Jones late the other night.
Forever Fredi
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to make sure he doesn’t get a gun.
The comment about Teddy Roosevelt in the other thread brought to mind a local controversy.
Clemson University (40 min up the road from me) has a prominent building named Tillman Hall. It's named in honor of Ben Tillman, a SC governor and senator (and, of course, a populist Democrat), postbellum paramilitary leader, and a founding trustee of the university.
Upon the occasion of Teddy Roosevelt's dining with Booker T. Washington at the White House, Ben Tillman said this:
"The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that n***** will necessitate our killing a thousand n***** in the South before they learn their place again."
He's also the author of such gems as:
"We of the South have never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him." (on the Senate floor, no less)
...and many, many others just as vile.
The building was originally known as Main Hall or Old Main Hall until 1946, when it was renamed for Tillman. Why is it considered to be an unconscionable revision of history to rename the building in 2017, but not in 1946?
What was happening in 1946? I can think of a few things. Black Americans were returning from Europe to a country that denied them basic rights. The germ of the modern Civil Rights movement was coalescing. White supremacist voting practices were being challenged in court, and blacks were being killed and menaced for attempting to vote. That year, President Truman established the Commission on Civil Rights. Within two years he ordered the desegregation of the army.
In that context, in South Carolina, what did naming a prominent public building after Pitchfork Ben Tillman signify? Why is it an unforgivable sin against history to consider undoing it?
You're not open-minded, Julio... any opinion you've heard that doesn't coincide with yours has been met with usual diatribe of racism and nazism.
Was talking to a colleague of mine... white guy.
Was talking about disgusting everything was and Trump's press being so bad. He told me he was from the south and grew up idolizing Lee... He has a framed portrait of him in his living room. Told me he has decided to move it to the back room, because he's afraid of how people will react coming to his own.
He said he didn't approve of the slaves, but that it was a different time. Also reminded me that he can't speak completely objectively about it because he has no ancestors who were slaves, but that he thought people probably shouldn't be as upset about it as they are if they knew the history and more about Lee.
I can definitively say this guy is NOT racist and his reasons for liking Lee were thoughtful. Yet, he now he feels the need to hide his own belongings in his own home. How sad is that?
Alright now what are your thoughts for not removing the statues?
Forever Fredi