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

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by ScolaIsBallin, Dec 17, 2015.

  1. ScolaIsBallin

    ScolaIsBallin Member

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    http://www.nola.com/politics/index....te_monuments_lee_circ.html#incart_river_index
     
  2. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    Stay classy republicans...

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/statues-ms-lawmaker-lynching/
     
  3. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    I think its a waste of money.
     
  4. DaDakota

    DaDakota If you want to know, just ask!

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    Time to move on, those guys lost the war, you don't see statues of Hitler around these days.....

    Time to join the modern world.

    DD
     
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  5. ROXTXIA

    ROXTXIA Contributing Member

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    Very parenthetically, I read "Gone With the Wind" for the first time two years ago. I'd avoided it, thinking, "Well, you know what happens and how it turns out." But if you really want a portrait of the South and how Southerners were shaped by the Civil War, look no farther. The film erased some horrifically racist passages from the book. Mammy was at least twice compared to an ape; there is a lot of Klan justification. The story was really watered down for the film. But it's a fascinating slice of history. But I recommend it only for the social/history lessons. The victor writes the histories so often, but we can learn from the other side, even if it isn't palatable.

    Civil War history and its combatants on both sides.......fascinating stuff, and shouldn't be forgotten at all. I can understand (without condoning) why so many might be against taking down the monuments in New Orleans; right or wrong, it's something to do with heritage, which staples stubborn pride to its backside. And when you lecture someone on their faults, in this case, racism or prejudice, that someone will just dig in his heels. Lynyrd Skynyrd reacted to Neil Young's "Alabama" (or "Southern Man", depending on whom you ask) with "Sweet Home Alabama."

    I don't mind tearing down those monuments. They remind us of something that shouldn't be celebrated. If you need to remember New Orleans is a Southern city, just go there in August and melt your ass off. It'll be a quick reminder.
     
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  6. DonnyMost

    DonnyMost not wrong
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    The confederacy belongs in books and museums, like all the other failed societies.
     
    REEKO_HTOWN likes this.
  7. dmoneybangbang

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    I understand the debate. I am more on the side that history shouldn't be erased or forgotten. Now, renaming schools due to Confederate figures is something I could care less about.
     
  8. Major

    Major Member

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    What is a waste? Tearing them down or the money spent annually maintaining them?
     
  9. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    Confederate statues - the ultimate participation trophies.
     
  10. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Something I've been thinking about recently is how under-educated we are as a country on Jim Crow racism. People have a vague understanding about riding in the back of the bus, segregated schools, etc, but the extent to which state and even federal policy was enacted to ensure the preeminence of whites over blacks is underappreciated, imo. These statues are just statues, but much like the schools and roads named for Confederates, they are a manifestation of the political power of southern Democrats who were actively oppressing blacks through the organs of government. I don't want to erase this history, but putting it on them on major thoroughfares is a repeated indignity toward the city's residents rendered by racists from beyond the grave. They should go in a museum about Jim Crow, so people can be educated about the lengths to which the Democrats had gone to in order to debase and disenfranchise black citizens.
     
  11. jo mama

    jo mama Contributing Member

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    i think there is a difference b/t acknowledging history and celebrating it. those stupid statues are a celebration and tribute to a bunch of traitors who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the fight to keep black people enslaved. they were funded and constructed by a bunch of racists and sore losers in the late 19th/early 20th century as a way to not-so-subtlely pay tribute to their "war heroes". celebrating racism and oppression through statues, street names, public schools. its past time to stop pretending like its ok to have that garbage out there.

    if you have ever been to berlin you noticed that they have reminders of WWII and the holocaust everywhere. what they dont have is statues of hitler and herman goering. they dont have streets and schools named after joseph goebbels.

    as for lee personally, he was overrated as a general and even though he knew the war was unwinnable by 1863 (post-gettysburg), his "honor" prevented him from surrendering and ended up getting hundreds of thousands of more needlessly slaughtered. f*** him.
     
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  12. wouldabeen23

    wouldabeen23 Contributing Member

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    Great post, but the nuance and logic is completely lost on any confederate symp.
     
  13. Newlin

    Newlin Member

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    Elected officials voted to remove the statues. Not much to debate really. I suspect that the officials wouldn't have had the statues removed if the people they represent wanted the statues to remain. Basically, the people are getting what they want. Good for them.
     
  14. Space Ghost

    Space Ghost Contributing Member

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    I can understand how some would find these historical names offensive. However not everything needs to be associated with slavery and racism. Much of the southern support was due to pride. To many, Lee was a hero who fought to keep the North out, not as one fighting to keep blacks in bondage. Sometimes its good to remind us where we came from. Should New Orleans be offended by pirate names?

    That said, Im less bothered by change the names and more concerned about neo-politic agenda's taking their places.
     
  15. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    No doubt, there's an element of southern pride, but I think you're extending a very generous interpretation here. This isn't just about the sovereignty of the State of Louisiana; white supremacy was explicitly part of the rationale. One of the 4 monuments removed was remembering a Reconstruction-era insurrection. The inscription added in 1932 said:

     
    FranchiseBlade likes this.
  16. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    Now we can add Confederate apologist to your resume. Impressive.
     
  17. dmoneybangbang

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    All good points. The bolded is where I will expand on my thoughts as here in 2017 these statues aren't so much a celebration but a part of history, a dark part of history. The statues were built in a time of segregation and that time has passed. Racism still lives on today, but we have come quite a bit of ways in the last two generations since segregation. There was legislated segregation in the "South" and mostly voluntary segregation in the "North", desegregating Boston schools required the National Guard. I don't just want our nation's mistakes to be told in history books.

    Now, a statue of Governor Wallace, the Alabama governor who vehemently opposed de-segregation, would be a slap in the face considering there are still many who have lived through it.

    Frankly, I think what Hitler and co did and believed in was an order of magnitude worse. Hitler used slaves extensively as well shortly after starting the military campaign. The South never had aspirations for world power and slavery was an economic system that required your average white southerner to hold some misguided belief about racial superiority in order to keep it going.
     
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  18. dmoneybangbang

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    I agree. None of this gives me pause to not keep travelling to New Orleans to enjoy one of the best cities in America to visit.
     
  19. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Contributing Member

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    The statue of Lee wasn't erected :D due to Harper's Ferry or some non-Civil War event. However, there is a statue of Andrew Jackson, which was erected to commemorate the Battle of New Orleans. I think that is different, much in the same way that places are named after George Washington, than the monuments and statues dedicated to Lee.
     
  20. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    People are responding to this thread as if if the people who wanted to hold on to symbols have no connection to us

    When I was in HS in the early nineties there were still a lot of people who would fight this move
     

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