If you think that was implied in my response, you are revealing a poor grasp of reading comprehension (no offense). I merely stated he was trying to down play the number of people there.
Thoughts on Confederate Removals?
- Thread starter carolinablue34
- Start date
who said we could eradicate racism?...i simply stated that watching that garbage go down on a college campus reminds me of the 1960's...it was a general statement of how much more we could do...not necessarily taking down statues(before that's implied from my poast).
you guys should chill on injecting our supposed thoughts in our own poasts.
So how long until North Carolina is forced to stop referring itself as "The Tar Heel State" and UNC is forced to change its team name?
Just a quick scan of that link shows no concrete evidence that the statues were built to disrespect blacks. You and the author of that piece can assume that all day long. I won't. So unless you can raise the dead and have them come tell me theat's why the statues were erected, I won't believe it.
I'm downplaying it because they don't matter. That's how you get over shit - you don't give it any merit. Or that's the rational way to get over shit.
Well then tell me...if we can't stop it, then what is the likely outcome by focusing on it? Serious question.
Sure thing buddy
No, because you refuse to look at data that does not comport to your world view.
Rational isn't how we do things these days. The new way to cope with something is to extrapolate the actions of a few out over the entire population. A white cop kills a black man? All cops are racists and all whites are racists.
I'll answer.
You take down those statues and you will have hundreds more erected on private property. You take down battle flags, you will have thousands more on private property. You keep focusing on the wrong doings of whites in the past, you will have a lot more wrong doings to come. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Completely agree. And what guilty liberal dummies don't understand is that when you do that, you are worsening race relations. But if in the end you can always blame white folks, it's ok.
This right here is what I'm afraid of. You start pulling those statues down and things will get ugly. People not from the South or not from the rural South do not realize how much pride folks take in their Southern heritage (read: lineage from Confederate states and soldiers). Some take pride in it for noble/healthy/non-racist reasons. Some take pride in it for evil reasons.
You start pulling down statues and shitting on what a lot of folks take pride in.... it's gonna get ugly.
Exactly. Before this event, half the country probably had never heard of a "neo-nazi", now everyone is aware of them, and their ideals. Sure, this added prominence has probably gotten them a lot more opponents that never knew about them, but it's going to get them more supporters as well.
Giving them air time and focusing on them is giving them power. As they say, "any publicity is good publicity". I know personally, I had never heard of Antifa before this event. I now know them to be a vicious hate organization, but I'm sure there are people out there that learned about Antifa for the first time and said "hey, that's something I want to be a part of".
Not giving all these crazy assholes (on both sides) the time of day is the way to suppress their message and get them to go away, not propping them up on every media outlet and keeping them as the topic of conversation around the country for weeks at a time.
I believe the statues were erected for multiple reasons. I think they were erected to show that the resolve of the South's population was intact and intended to persevere despite it's military surrendering and the entire landscape being in ashes and the way of life destroyed.
Another reason, I believe, was to THANK the military for fighting-off "the Yankee enemy" that posed a threat to their homes and their families- that thing that War really is for those who live in the wake of the battles. The Southerners were proud of those generals and soldiers.
But, those generals and those soldiers surrendered. They capitulated. And, they were literally fighting for the rich plantation-owning elite to continue to profit from the institution of slavery and that the white race was superior. I'm not embellishing when I say there was an instinctive belief that the white race was superior. I think history, since then, has proven that to be true. There are still a few that believe that. People like you and I don't subscribe to that same delusion, so we're not offended by the statues because we never think like that. We're also not black, so we never feel an affront because our great-great grandparents were treated as cattle. So, since we're in a unique situation, we have to make an effort to teach those who do think that whites are "better", that their ideology is not acceptable and no longer works. And, we show our black friends that we're empathetic to what they might experience.
ETA: And, if more ignorant white people want to build statues on their property and fly flags in their yard, then they self-identify as being ignorant and we take that into consideration.
Where is this sentiment coming from? I haven't seen anyone make the leap that all whites are racist based on this past weekend.
So don't do the right thing for fear of repercussions? Seems cowardly to me...
You kinda lose me with this paragraph. Virtually everyone in the country, including Lincoln and General Sherman, believed blacks were an inferior race to whites. So what's your point? The country has changed since then.
perfect...you ask me a question, then answer it...sounds about right.
proving you're right is entirely a different mountain to climb, though.
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Then fvck Sherman and Lincoln, too, for thinking that stupid shit! You're still picking sides. "If they did it, then it wasn't wrong when my team did it." It was an excuse that white people believed that allowed them to continue to use a race of people as animals.
Just because white people were under the illusion that blacks were animals back then, regardless of their uniform or station in life, doesn't mean I want that to linger.
So, if these symbols are helping to justify present-day thinking that whites were superior then, and now, then it's time to take them down. And, if Nazis are using them as flashpoints to spread their hate, then it is DEFINITELY time to take them down.
Enough people wanted it down so it's coming down. If enough people decide to band together and get the town to change it's kind, that's fine too.
That's a good poast. I don't agree with all of it but it's a really good poast. If I may:
True. But most black folks I know didn't take it as an affront...until they were told they should be offended by it. They saw it like I did - a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, small number of old angry white dudes that are pissed that minorities are seen as equal these days.
No we don't. The only effort I have to make to feel good about myself is to treat people the way I'd want to be treated regardless of what they look like, what kind of religion they subscribe to, who they like to have sex with, etc. It is not my responsibility to change other people.
Right. And I won't give it any more thought than to say, look at the ignorant dude over there flying his flag and being a jerk.
He managed the farm and he did not own the slaves himself. Nor did he support the institution. Nice try.
You shouldn't apologize for inferring something. That's done every single day, just listen to the news.
So that's what we base decision making on - if enough people want it? What if enough people wanted to change the name of the country because United States of America is offensive to them? We should do that too? Well, look out Mt. Rushmore. You're next.
What it seems to you is insignificant. Things will get monumentally worse. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Yes I totally agree! Up until here...
Confederate statues are not providing fuel for alt-right's fire. You could take down every single statue and they would still hate blacks.
That is my point. It accomplishes nothing and it will accomplish nothing. All it might do is piss more people off and turn them violent.
Well, we live in a Republic that largely employs democracy to make decisions. If enough people decided they wanted to change anything, it is gonna happen. The will of the people rule.
First of all, I'm sure the original story isn't as clean as the now PC National Parks department would have us all believe but for argument's sake, let's say he "really didn't own any slaves and just managed the farm". That's better? He was ok with managing a farm that beat slaves or even killed them even though he didn't actually own any of them? Is that better than owning them? I don't know. I don't have any personal experience with owning people or managing farms that owned people.
He directly owned a slave, but nice try. But so what if he did? It was a different time. No one from history measures up to modern society's views.
The only evidence that Union general (and later United States President) Ulysses S. Grant ever owned any slaves is a document he signed in 1859 that emancipated “my Negro man William” (i.e, William Jones), whom Grant stated in the document he had purchased from Frederick Dent (his father-in-law). Little is known about William Jones; as even Grant’s biographers note, “exactly when and how Grant acquired ownership of a slave remain something of a mystery.” There is no other evidence showing that Grant ever owned more than this one slave, much less “several.”
http://www.snopes.com/confederate-history-slave-ownership/
What if enough people were behind owning slaves again today. You would support the Republic, right? I mean, the will of the people and all...
I agree with that, even though I don't have an identical response as you do to each part.
I would love for people to be able to embrace their own color and culture and also not be a threat to others that are different. It's getting there.
I think the turning point for me, recently, has been the way Neo-Nazi/white supremacists are using them to try and push their agenda. There's a part of me that wants to say "Leave our history alone and go away." But, they won't do that, and it would be nearly impossible to keep the monuments and achieve that. And, I doubt it would be worth saving these monuments to do that because it's made me more aware of what the monuments symbolize to most people and what they are glorifying, at least in some way. We don't need them anymore.
And that would be what?...6 years before the end of the war? But I thought @carolinablue34 said no one in the North owned slaves just a few years before slavery was abolished?
Slavery in every northern state was illegal before the war. That is indisputable.
This is an exceptionally stupid argument for us to be focusing on. You want to make life better for minorities in the US? Legalize marijuana so that police won't be able to disproportionately incarcerate blacks for non-violent, victimless crimes... And create tons of new jobs in the process. That would improve life for everyone in the US, but it would also help to bridge the gap of one of the most unquestionably inequitable racial divides in this country.
Instead, we're now debating the morals of civil war generals. Makes for a great history discussion, but it isn't going to help us move forward.
Instead, we're now debating the morals of civil war generals. Makes for a great history discussion, but it isn't going to help us move forward.
I never argued otherwise. My original comment was asking why we are supposed to look at Grant like he's some kind of hero when he owned slaves just 6 years before slavery was abolished?
