Nationwide Removal of Confederate Statues

[Going Commando]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Sinister said:

Gotta say, this is an incredible heel turn.

 

Look, I'm going to speak my mind even when I know it's going to turn me into zoony.  I know you guys are almost all Yankees.  I am a white Southerner and I've studied the period formally and have a different perspective and you all wouldn't hear it otherwise.  As someone who has read thousands of documents and letters and diary entries from the people involved in the war, I have a more intimate knowledge of the interbellum world than most.  A knowledge that makes statements about the confederate soldiers being cartoon villains seem absurd.  It's a phrase ripped from a 1930's propaganda poster that demonstrates how completely alien the Confederacy is to Larry.

[Going Commando]

10 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

You are acting like union soldiers weren't fighting with the same feelings and values yet we don't have as many statues for them? 

 

I agree with you, the soldiers and heroes of the Union demonstrated those exact same virtues and they're much more overlooked.  These Confederate monuments were funded and built by private organizations who had personal ties to the Confederacy, and often times were built to honor the Confederate veterans still living in those cities/towns.  There was a lack of charity to the Union that was personal.  But also, there just weren't many Union veterans or their descendants living in cities like Richmond, VA to push for memorialization.

 

But that doesn't mean we can't put up statues for them now.

[Riggo-toni]

45 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

But why does the Klan get to define the purpose and meaning of the monuments?

 

Because it was the Klan that was primarily responsible for their construction. The resurgence of the KKK at the turn of the century was fueled largely by anti-immigration sentiments (Catholics and Ashkenazi Jews watering down our white anglo saxon protestant heritage) along with a backlash on the civil rights advances of African Americans. White supremacist groups are the ones who put these statues up to rally their fellow racists and intimidate Negroes, Jews, Irish and Italians. This is why excellent military men like Longstreet and Mahone got no statues, and were even slandered in revisionist southern "history," whereas incompetent commanders like Robert E Lee were glorified.

This isn't about preserving history - it's about clinging to a set of lies concocted decades after the fact to reinforce white (and protestant) supremacy.

[LD0506]

[Why am I Mr. Pink?]

5 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

How many statues you figure there are in, say, Georgia, of Confederate soldiers?  

 

And how many of Union soldiers?  

 

But please, keep trying to push the notion that they're there to honor virtue and sacrifice, and not to honor the Confederacy.

 

I never thought of it .. but yeah, you dont see nearly as many Union soldier monuments.

 

0 = number of Union monuments in Alabama

107 = number of Confederate monuments in Alabama

 

15 = Union monuments in Florida (12 monuments, 3 schools)

61 = Confederate public space monuments, this number does not include schools, private etc which in included in Union's number

 

8 = Union in Arkansas

57 = at least 57 Confederate, this only counts public spaces

 

1 = Union in Louisianna

91 = at least 91 public spaces

 

4 = Union in Maryland

6 = public and then some private

 

Did you know the Maryland flag gives a nod to secessionist/confederacy? 

 

 

Flag of Maryland (1904). The state flag of Maryland features the red-and-white Crossland Banner, the unofficial state flag of Maryland used by secessionists and Confederates during the American Civil War.^{[465][466][467][468]} The current state flag started appearing after the Civil War as a form of reconciliation. The flag became official in 1904.

 

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If these monuments were about honor, virtue and sacrifice .... seems like the "Daughters of the Confederacy" are only interested in honoring their own racist southern kin .... but we here up North or people who live in the modern age are supposed to honor the Confederate racists?

 

lol .... take the public monuments put up by the Daughters of Confederacy down and replace them with a joint union/confederacy monument. It wasnt about honor or respect when these went up in Baltimore in the 40s. 

 

Just like most of people now who fly the Confederate flag are doing it bc they are racists

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Union_Civil_War_monuments_and_memorials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Confederate_monuments_and_memorials

[Larry]

20 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

A knowledge that makes statements about the confederate soldiers being cartoon villains seem absurd.

 

Then you shouldn't have invented it. 

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

5 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Look, I'm going to speak my mind even when I know it's going to turn me into zoony.  I know you guys are almost all Yankees.  I am a white Southerner and I've studied the period formally and have a different perspective and you all wouldn't hear it otherwise.  As someone who has read thousands of documents and letters and diary entries from the people involved in the war, I have a more intimate knowledge of the interbellum world than most.  A knowledge that makes statements about the confederate soldiers being cartoon villains seem absurd.  It's a phrase ripped from a 1930's propaganda poster that demonstrates how completely alien the Confederacy is to Larry.

 

Are you from Virginia Steve?  Just curious.  Anyhow, I was born and raised in NC, in the foothills.  I don't think your racist by any means and I'm sure you are more knowledgeable on this topic than myself and others on this board.  But dawg, regardless of the intention/reasoning behind those statues/monuments being built, they still are a symbol of racism, especially to African Americans.  

 

I'm sorry, but one meaning trumps the other one, and that is racism.  And living in the south and and hearing some people that support the statues and being against them being removed,  A lot of them are supporting for the wrong reasons and using the "honoring of their ancestors that fought and died in the war" as an excuse.  I'm sure there are some supporters that really only want to support their ancestors and are not racist, but me personally, I just don't see how that support comes in the form of a statue of a Confederate General or flag.  

 

 

[Rocky21]

49 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

They fought for a terrible cause.  But how many of our wars are for bad causes?  How many of our soldiers are responsible for those causes? 

 

This is no place for subtlety or truth, my friend. 

[Mr. Sinister]

43 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Look, I'm going to speak my mind even when I know it's going to turn me into zoony.  I know you guys are almost all Yankees.  I am a white Southerner and I've studied the period formally and have a different perspective and you all wouldn't hear it otherwise. 

 

If you think I haven't heard other "White Southerner's" like yourself speaking of the Confederates in the same tragic, fantastical overtones like you, applying the same logic, you grossly miscalculate how special you are.

 

I and half my family originate from the [Redneck voice] Great State of Florida [Redneck voice], and I'm used to hearing that very uninteresting take. And if it wasn't for the fact that I've spent enough time all across the South, interacting with Aggressors, Sympathizers, and people that just think "Gosh darn it, tough break for them graybacks," and didnt talk to at least 3-5 black people in areas hit hardest by the fallout from those tragic heroes, maybe your words would sound like wisdom (to your credit, they usually do), and not something else.

 

I can understand that not all of them wanted black people horsewhipped, strung up, set on fire, etc. I can understand that not all of them owned slaves. I can understand that not all of them wanted to fight, and that doing so destroyed their families. But I understand that they did it anyway.

 

You are the choices you make, and they made theirs. Tell their stories, do whatever you want. They don't deserve to be commemorated and immortalized the way they are. Their cause terrorized and subjugated an entire race of people (frankly, so did the American one), and it's a cause that still lives on, evidenced by said statues, and the ongoing debate that surrounds them, as well as the rampant, unchecked rise of White Supremacy, and the continued fight by African Americans and other minorities to combat the treatment, laws, etc created as a result of it.

 

I don't care how unfortunate their circumstance was, or what we can learn from them in respecting them as enemies. Every traitor has legitimate claim amidst the mountain of bull****.

 

What they did is not worthy of anyone's respect. Period.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Mr. Sinister

[SoulSkin]

1 minute ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I agree with you, the soldiers and heroes of the Union demonstrated those exact same virtues and they're much more overlooked.  These Confederate monuments were funded and built by private organizations who had personal ties to the Confederacy, and often times were built to honor the Confederate veterans still living in those cities/towns.  There was a lack of charity to the Union that was personal.  But also, there just weren't many Union veterans or their descendants living in cities like Richmond, VA to push for memorialization.

 

But that doesn't mean we can't put up statues for them now.

 

I'm not trying to pile on here, but was curious if you were open at all to the possibility of moving the Davis statue in Richmond to Hollywood Cemetery, or some other designated place off of Monument Ave in Richmond. I do think that if the discussion changes anywhere about some statues remaining, even if just a little bit, it's here. So many people say that they find Jeff Davis particularly offensive, and it's recently been recommended to be moved by the Monument Ave Commission. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with for their ideas of contextualizing statues as a compromise for other statues. I don't hate the idea of outnumbering the current statues with more and more statues reflective of the entirety of our history, which is already happening. It should be happening on Monument Ave, though, IMO. On a side note, these statues are getting vandalized at a rapidly increasing rate. I don't know if a statue of Grant to counter Lee, for example, will stop that. I definitely support at least moving Davis.

[TradeTheBeal!]

I’m a White southerner, born in Greenville, NC and lived my entire life between Springfield and West Palm Beach along the 95 corridor.

 

I think you all know where I stand.

[Larry]

Hey, I assume that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers were not James Bond villains. They were ordinary people, no doubt displaying the range of personality traits present in the population at the time. 

 

I also assume that the same is true of the people in the Nazi army. 

 

But even given the absolute certainty that there were lots of people who, overall, would be judged to be "good people", in the Confederate Army . . .  

 

Being in the Confederate Army is not the aspect of their life that deserves memorialization. 

 

Take some hypothetical person who wore the Grey, who fathered five children, who look loving care of his wife, even when she became ill, who taught himself to read, but sent five kids to college. 

 

If you build a statue statue of him in a Confederate uniform, you're not memorializing his honor and virtue. 

 

Build a statue of Grandpa in his Confederate uniform, and you're saying that in your opinion, serving in the Confederacy was his greatest moment. You're honoring the Confederacy. 

[Dan T.]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

And just where is that?

 

I think that most of the organizations who put up the monuments made explicit statements of intent for doing so.  I think that the narrative "it was to remind black people to watch their step" is something that has been repeated in here a bunch of times to the point where you all have decided it's the truth and only truth.  But you don't get to tell your opponents what they mean, think, and feel.

 

I think we can agree that the choice of who dedicates a statue says a lot about the motivation behind putting it up.

 

Read Klan supporter Julian Carr's 1913 speech at the dedication of the "Silent Sam" statue just torn down at UNC in Chapel Hill... the speech where he praises the Confederate soldiers for saving "the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South," so that  “today, as a consequence the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States — Praise God"  then goes on to brag about horse-whipping a black woman until her dress is shredded for having the audacity to insult a white woman just yards from where the statue stands.

 

http://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html

 

Here's more about Julian Carr, the person chosen to dedicate that statue:

https://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article181567401.html

 

 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

I've studied the period formally

 

It doesn’t matter that you have a PhD in history and specialized in the civil war. 

 

Resident ES knowitalls clearly know better and are here to educate you. 

 

 

59 minutes ago, Dont Taze Me Bro said:

I just don't see how that support comes in the form of a statue of a Confederate General or flag.  

So because you can’t see it, they’re not allowed to think it, and their thoughts become irrelevant. 

 

Remember that next time you’re in an argument about your intentions - that others get to dictate them for you. 

[Going Commando]

5 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

Because it was the Klan that was primarily responsible for their construction. The resurgence of the KKK at the turn of the century was fueled largely by anti-immigration sentiments (Catholics and Ashkenazi Jews watering down our white anglo saxon protestant heritage) along with a backlash on the civil rights advances of African Americans. White supremacist groups are the ones who put these statues up to rally their fellow racists and intimidate Negroes, Jews, Irish and Italians. This is why excellent military men like Longstreet and Mahone got no statues, and were even slandered in revisionist southern "history," whereas incompetent commanders like Robert E Lee were glorified.

This isn't about preserving history - it's about clinging to a set of lies concocted decades after the fact to reinforce white (and protestant) supremacy.

 

You're right that Longstreet got scapegoated after the war, particularly for the loss at Gettysburg.  I feel like Longstreet gets held up as this example of a woke former Confederate in order to attack other Confederate figures but it just doesn't jibe with reality.  He was a racist who believed white supremacy was the natural order of society just like almost everyone else from that time.  The reason Longstreet was such a big scapegoat after the war wasn't because he was this forward thinking advocate for equality but because of his association with the Republican party.  There is no doubt his exclusion from personal memorialization was deliberate and political.  But that doesn't meant that statues to Lee and Jackson and Stuart weren't made to memorialize their valor, because they were great soldiers.  Lee was an excellent general, not an incompetent one.  If you're looking for an incompetent commander, McClellan offers a pretty good example of what that looks like.

 

I see historians and liberal groups trying to make blanket statements of intent behind the construction of the monuments but there are hundreds of these things and they are built throughout the South on a variety of spaces by a variety of groups.  They've got an agenda and they're trying to define their opponents according to their own terms, and this interpretation is agreeable to progressive-leaning media so they've pretty much accepted and promoted it without criticism.  But it's an incomplete picture and they're usually overstating the strength of their source-based evidence in their claims.  Most of these groups had mission statements and made statements of intent when they built the monuments.  They attribute all of these nefarious racist motives to everyone putting up or defending the statues and present them as if they're the only reason they were built, and honestly, it comes off as having a poor understanding of the people they're in opposition to.  There is a pretty large variety of reasons explaining why and when these statues were built, with things as banal as the cost of construction being decisive factors.  People don't get to just say "nope, it was to put black people in their place."

 

But getting beyond intent in creation, what purpose do the statues serve now?  Is it worthy to have statues of past figures who embody service in war, for martial valor, for sacrifice?  Is it worthy to honor the veterans of that place with a statue?  Is it worthy to have a statue to keep the memory of an extremely important event lasting and vital?  Or is even something as simple as having a work of art meant to beautify a public space that has a tangential connection to that place's history worthwhile?  My opinion is yes, those are worthwhile justifications.  And I would go further to say that I'd like to see statuary of Union soldiers who fought against the Confederate veterans built beside them because I think it would do a better job telling and promoting the history of the event. 

 

Yankees don't generally feel the connection to the war that Southerners feel because the memory and story of their participation in it isn't as well preserved.  That isn't happenstance, these Southern groups putting up the statues diligently worked to preserve their side of the story by building the monuments, creating museums, digging up documents and artifacts and preserving them, etc.  There was not an equivalent effort from the ancestors of Union participants.  I don't think that should consign that side of the story to being forgotten, which is why I would support a modern organization's effort to building statuary and dredging up documents and promoting awareness of personal connections to the period.  But nor do I think the lack of equal representation of the black and the Union perspective means that they get to erase and/or redefine the Southern perspective.

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, SoulSkin said:

 

I'm not trying to pile on here, but was curious if you were open at all to the possibility of moving the Davis statue in Richmond to Hollywood Cemetery, or some other designated place off of Monument Ave in Richmond. I do think that if the discussion changes anywhere about some statues remaining, even if just a little bit, it's here. So many people say that they find Jeff Davis particularly offensive, and it's recently been recommended to be moved by the Monument Ave Commission. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with for their ideas of contextualizing statues as a compromise for other statues. I don't hate the idea of outnumbering the current statues with more and more statues reflective of the entirety of our history, which is already happening. It should be happening on Monument Ave, though, IMO. On a side note, these statues are getting vandalized at a rapidly increasing rate. I don't know if a statue of Grant to counter Lee, for example, will stop that. I definitely support at least moving Davis.

 

Ultimately, I wouldn't have a problem of moving the Davis statue to the cemetery and replacing it with another figure of a black hero or even a statue of a Union hero like Grant.  Davis has an immediate historical connection to Richmond justifying his memorialization though.

 

There is going to be a lot of resistance to moving these statues.  And I think it's going to be more intense than proponents of moving them expect.

[TradeTheBeal!]

If you were a child of the South in the 70s/80s, you were repeatedly exposed to/indoctrinated in the various revisionist mythologies attached to Civil War via the public education system.  Northern Aggression, States Rights, “many slaves fought for the South”, “most plantation owners treated their slaves very well”, etc.  The realities of things like the slave trade or Jim Crow were mostly glossed over.

 

As you grow into an adult, it takes a great deal of intellectual courage and personal fortitude to cast that aside and digest the hard truth about the matter.  But it can be done, often incrementally.  Not dissimilar to being raised in a religious cult or similar, I’d imagine.

[Renegade7]

22 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Davis has an immediate historical connection to Richmond justifying his memorialization though.

 

 

No, Steve, no he doesn't. President of the Confederacy, right? I'm stunned you've chosen this hill to die on.

[Going Commando]

23 minutes ago, tshile said:

It doesn’t matter that you have a PhD in history and specialized in the civil war. 

 

Resident ES knowitalls clearly know better and are here to educate you. 

 

 

I appreciate you for this, but I want to clarify that I don't have a PhD.  I realize now that I was misleading when I said I wrote my thesis on a topic of study of the War, but that thesis was just to get my bachelor's degree.  Richmond is unusually rigorous.  I am not some great scholar on the subject.  But I will defend my education by saying this: the history department at Richmond is very good and the Civil War specialists within the department are also particularly good.  Douglas Southall Freeman was our department's most famous alum and our University president at the time was Ed Ayers, who is a pretty famous Civil War scholar himself.  I think he was emblematic of Richmond's commitment to good Civil War scholarship.  We did graduate level work our senior years, but the difference was that it was only for a year and our theses were far less comprehensive than a PhD candidate's would have been.  But I'm pretty sure I've spent a lot more time studying documents from and the historiography of the period than most.  And because of that I bet I have a better understanding and contextualization of the intellectual and social history of the period than most.

[TradeTheBeal!]

3 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

No, Steve, no he doesn't. President of the Confederacy, right? I'm stunned you've chosen this hill to die on.

 

He hung around RVA on and off circa 1861-1865.  Beyond that, he was a Mississippi man.

Edited August 22, 2018 by TryTheBeal!

[Going Commando]

4 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

If you were a child of the South in the 70s/80s, you were repeatedly exposed to/indoctrinated in the various revisionist mythologies attached to Civil War via the public education system.  Northern Aggression, States Rights, “many slaves fought for the South”, “most plantation owners treated their slaves very well”, etc.  The realities of things like the slave trade or Jim Crow were mostly glossed over.

 

As you grow into an adult, it takes a great deal of intellectual courage and personal fortitude to cast that aside and digest the hard truth about the matter.  But it can be done, often incrementally.  Not dissimilar to being raised in a religious cult or similar, I’d imagine.

 

This is a particularly patronizing post man.

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

24 minutes ago, tshile said:

So because you can’t see it, they’re not allowed to think it, and their thoughts become irrelevant. 

 

Remember that next time you’re in an argument about your intentions - that others get to dictate them for you. 

 

Nice try.  I never said they weren't allowed to think a certain way or that their thoughts were irrelevant.  Read what I said and don't just quote one part of my post.  I said that I understand some people really want to honor their ancestors without there being any racist intentions in mind.  I also stated that those statues/flags have also become symbols of racism, especially to African Americans.  

 

There is no monument/memorial/statue that I know of for just regular soldiers that fought and died in the Civil War.  Just ones like Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, etc. and not for the everyday solider that fought and died in the war (both enlisted on their own or drafted against their will).  If I'm not racist and know that the statue/monument I'm honoring my ancestor is viewed widely as a symbol of racism, I'm fine with it being removed and will find another way to honor those ancestors. That is what common sense and human  decency dictates to me at least.

 

And I said I didn't understand why that support (for those with good intentions) would come in the form of a statue/monument that was of Lee or Davis, etc., because those statues were erected for those men, not my ancestor (unless I happen to be their ancestor).  I don't buy into the concept that a statue of a Confederate General is a tribute to my ancestor that fought and died in the Civil War.  

 

I also think that the vast majority of supporters (not anyone on here per say, generally speaking) are spewing a bunch of bull**** when they claim they are supporting the statues/monuments because of heritage or their honoring their ancestors.  And I doubt they did much, if any "honoring" at these statues/monuments sites before they started being removed.  

 

Like I stated in another post.  Remove them, place them in a museum like the Smithsonian or create a freaking new Civil War museum on the Mason Dixon line and put them all in there and allow people to visit and "honor" their ancestors there if they so choose to do.  Just because a statue stood at X spot for X years doesn't mean it can't be relocated to a museum.  

[Going Commando]

6 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

No, Steve, no he doesn't. President of the Confederacy, right? I'm stunned you've chosen this hill to die on.

 

Richmond was the seat of his government.  That's not just a tangential connection, that's a fairly significant historical connection.  But I also don't think Jefferson Davis is worthy of public memorialization in the same way that the great soldiers of the war were because he doesn't offer the same kind of embodiment of a civic virtue that they do.  I think a statue of him has historic value but putting him in such a prominent place on Monument ave feels unworthy.  I personally would put him somewhere else and would reserve places for statuary on Monument ave for figures who do something more than tell a story by also embody a worthy heroic virtue.  I actually think Grant would be fitting.

[Riggo-toni]

Lee was not a great general; in fact he is probably the person most responsible for the South losing.

He had a much higher casualty rate, for example, than Grant, but Southern revisionists tried to claim Grant only prevailed over Lee because Grant was a brute who didn't care about casualties.  He refused to provide needed reinforcements to other areas of the South, a result of both an absence of strategic forethought and an obsession with Virginia over the rest of the South.  He repeatedly led frontal assaults on fortified positions. He gave ambiguous orders that left his subordinates stymied.  His personality may have won him the devotion of others, but he was a lamentable tactician void of strategic thought.

[TradeTheBeal!]

8 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

This is a particularly patronizing post man.

 

It is factually correct and offered to be informative for those who were not brought up in public schools of the south.  Additionally, my affection and respect for you is genuine so that removes any intent to be patronizing.

 

Im sorry you perceived it that way.