New Orleans City Council Votes to Remove All Monuments/Statues With Confederate Figures

Fight? sure. Would it mean they would be right? no.

 

Im just saying antebellum and definitely Jim.Crow aren't ancient history

Regardless of morals people felt close to their forefathers who died in war

For instance the monument Juanveldez mentions, the government didn't handle Reconstruction well

They set blacks up for brutal period where whites took revenge on blacks for the Union putting them in charge immediately after the war then leaving blacks to fend for themselves

It was a revengeful joke to the north that did not have blacks in elected positions

 

I'm not defending the south, just making a point that for a long time the anger of this period was handed down generation to generation

 

Watching Ken Burns civil war right now ironically

It's on pbs

 

I don't think anyone looks at those men on the memorials with anger. Robert E. Lee hated slavery but his reason for fighting was to defend his homeland Virginia. He was set to be the leader of the Union Army.

The monuments don't represent those men. Those monuments used their images as a smokescreen to hide the hatred behind them. They were erected as a middle finger to the United States and the African Americans that were freed. They were giant reminders to those Blacks that they may be free in the eyes of the law but their State and local governments had the last say.

one of the monuments was inscribed with:

"United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state."

These were not memorials to the men. They were memorials to a traitorous failure of a movement that thankfully was brought to it's knees. They should put up statues of Lincoln and thank him for not executing (would have be legally justified) their ancestors for treason and war crimes.

 

Absolutely seems like the right move to get rid of these statues, and monuments to the confederacy. If it helps bring about any healing and moving forward from one of the worst periods in our nation's history, then it's even better.

 

I'm black I understand the monuments are insulting

I'm commenting on the thread. The posts are disconnected from the history and we are direct descendants of this history

I have no problem with their removal but really I don't care. I just don't carry the anger of this part of my history like I used to. It has improved my life

 

As a admirer of the field of history , I think they should be kept up.

I don't know much about which specific statues are to be torn down and when said statues were built ... It still doesn't effect my answer .

Even if a statue says "here stands sir so and so , he hates blacks and for that we are proud." I still wouldn't tear it down . It serves as a visceral reminder of that particular era.

I don't think "rascist statues" encourage racism... And maybe it's a fair point to say otherwise , but even if it did encourage hatred , I would likely still value its historical education more and wouldn't want to tear it down.

I think you learn much more from the presence of statues than you do from a history book . Reading something in a book is one thing , seeing that people actually built a statue to "represent something" gives you a sense of how much importance that particular society placed on its beliefs.

Plus I think there is a slippery slope argument . Where does the retrofitting of American history stop ? Are we going to remove statues of TJ because he had slaves and our modern views don't conform to that ?

I err on the side of protecting history ... In its fullest extent.

 

There's a reason there are holocaust museums and not statues of Nazi's gassing Jews in a public square.

Those statues are not being destroyed but moved outside of public parks. They will end up in a confederate museum.

 

Sorry for grunching this thread (will read later), but I just wanted to chime in with a little story: have a few buddy's born and raised in Nola so this has been an ongoing big deal to people in their world. This isn't a new issue and was actually discussed by the city for years now, and my buddy used to work for the city. All his co-workers in the historic preservation council or whatever administration that was deciding on the statue moves a while back got death threats and ranting letters like crazy. He told me that situation was the point in his life where he went from the camp of "southern heritage has legitimate points" to "there are way too many hateful racists out there." I mean, the former can still have legit claims, but man, you should hear the stuff that was written and sent...some freaking psychos out there.

 

I love New Orleans for history

I can get drunk here and we have attractive women

 

I have been on this personal crusade that black people have to drop our anger

It is destructive

 

So I'm still watching Civil War

On topic I wonder what Nathan Bedford Forrest's family feel about his usage in Forrest Gump. His bumbling is what he is remembered for

 

I was very annoyed at blacks not supporting 12 Years A Slave because of the mindset, "we don't want another slave movie"

The Hitler's analogy doesn't work. That would be like celebrating a serial killer.

Our history shapes us. I really feel blacks collectively are holding on to misery

There are many self destructive habits we don't realize we have come from slavery

 

Blacks on my Facebook were saying they got up and walked out of 12 Years minutes into the movie

I'm like WTF did you expect

 

Those statues weren't put up for history's sake and there'll be no history destroyed by removing them.

 

I also don't buy the history preservation argument. I mean, I would favor preserving the statues and putting them in a different context. But, even destroyed, the history of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow are in no danger of being lost. Even amateur historians debate it on internet forums. It doesn't change the history but the present. As long as it stands there it says the racist defiance of our forebears of a century ago still has our tacit approval today. @pgabriel, I'm glad you can be not angry about it, but being cool and rational you can still see there is no good reason to continue to extend this tacit approval.

 

I have a bad habit of ranting on related issues

Really I just wish we had a better understanding of how history shapes us

I feel like blacks are trying to erase slavery from our past and a lot of internal problems would be better understood embracing our history

But that really is a separate topic

One of the more ironic things about this is the black population of New Orleans is here in Houston since Katrina

Seriously, for the better the blacks that had to leave have no reason to return.


It's a different city. I was there two years ago. I hadn't been since 2000.

In the wards it's really a different place

 

Glad you're back here posting!!

 

What you're looking for is a museum, not a cultural monument devoid of any deep historical context to children and non-locals.