nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Isn't this how change happens. One day X is ok and the next day its not. Sometimes there is one big factor that brings about the change. Sometimes it is more an accumulation of things.
Confederate Monuments
- Thread starter Julio3000
- Start date
Isn't this how change happens. One day X is ok and the next day its not. Sometimes there is one big factor that brings about the change. Sometimes it is more an accumulation of things.
sturg33
I
LOL so you're offended, too?
In reality, how does someone in a fantasy auction league "possess them"
And also, I'm pretty sure white guys were auctioned in the fantasy league, too.
The sad thing here is people are finding reasons to get offended, not understanding the intent is completely harmless. I'll add you to that list
sturg33
I
Clearly we need to make anything - monuments, books, films, fantasy football leagues - that hint at what happened in history illegal
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
One of the problems that has bedeviled white southerners is a failure to come to grips with their history. Rather they (and of course I'm not talking about every single white southerner when I say this) have often taken refuge in certain comfortable myths. This failure to look at their own history honestly has led to certain patterns. The patterns I'm specifically referring to have to do with a false historical narrative being used to deny African Americans the basic rights they are due as Americans. An honest assessment of history would have allowed for more rapid (and gracious) progress toward achieving those rights rather than the pattern of "resistance to the last" that we have more often seen. Think of George Wallace declaring "segregation forever." Wallace was not an anomaly. He represented the real views of many white southerners. And those views were buttressed by a false historical narrative.
And all the bitching, whining and complaining they have done has not improved thier lives in any respect. Just imagine if people cared about schools, crime and families as much as they give a **** about a statute or a name on the wall of some building.
It's just something to make people feel better about themselves under the guise of righteousness.
goldfly
<B>if my thought dreams could be seen</B>
no doubt
**** those idiots that spend so much time wanting these dumb things instead of caring about education and crime etc
Pretty well summarized. I contend that we should attempt to evaluate Confederate revisionism using a dual-pronged approach. Certainly, there is a segment of disconcerting size which has, historically and contemporarily, embraced these dishonest interpretations of history for subhuman purposes. These are your George Wallace's and your Strom Thurmond's and your KKK/David Duke types and their 'movements'.
At the same time, I think it's important that we do not forget - or misrepresent - the original reconciliationists. The wives, sons, daughters, and ancestral kin of Southern veterans who were struggling to both a) remember their family in a peaceable light and b) survive in a new world where almost every life-defining Southern institution was changing. We, as a country, granted them license to remember their boys as heroes (despite the causes for which they fought) because it was a common link between both sides upon which progressive unity could be forged. And that unity was imperative to getting on with America.
Where I see us as a country now is wanting to eliminate the reconciliationist era of Civil War history (which would've been represented by something like Gone with the Wind) because it does not give proper ground to the slavery and its atrocities component of the war. And that's a legitimate complaint, but it's seen through a contemporary veil and tends to somewhat overshoot historical context.
Indeed. But all change is not necessarily good change. Especially if it's predicated heavily on emotion.
Of course, this is an area where conservatism and progressivism tend to ... diverge.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Speaking as someone who teaches history in the South I would tend to agree, but as someone who reads all the stuff on this board I think it's pretty safe to say that many northerners haven't really come to grip with quite a bit of history as well.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
I hope you remember that you said that because it applies to a LOT of stuff that goes on in this country and could be one of the pillars of talk radio.
57Brave
Well-known member
oh Hawk, can't let go of that both sides train of thought.
As one raised in the North and lived in the south since the tail end of integration. Drove through S Georgia today and counted 2 Jefferson Davis Highways, 2 full size, car lot full size, Confederate flags on US highways. Witness 2 trucks flying both the stars and stripes and the stars and bars. I won't even tell you about the gas stations
Let me offer this observation that at least Georgia it is long past time for the south to reconcile themselves with the idea of getting over the Civil War
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I find your mention of the reconciliationists to be interesting. I'm not sure if General James Longstreet would be considered one of them. But he was arguably the South's best general in the war and you don't find many statues of him because after the war he endorsed Grant for president and joined the Republican party. For this he was shunned by his fellow southerners. I am actually not for tearing down statues of Lee. But I think more public space (and I'm talking both physically here and about textbooks as well) needs to be made when memorializing the Civil War to allow for remembrance of more complex figures like Longstreet and the over 100,000 white southerners who fought for the North.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Yes. I do not mean to gloss over the problems in racial relations in the north. I did live in Boston for five years after all. Also in terms of individuals, I come to Atlanta a couple times a year and I sometimes find that the southerners whose families have been there for generations are much more enlightened about race relations that people who have moved there from elsewhere. So yes, I am generalizing quite a bit in the post you quoted. There are many fine people in the south. That should go without saying.