Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

Meadmaker said:
Fair enough. I am in agreement that the state override was appalling. A state government stepping in and telling local governments how to decorate their parks seems pretty bad.
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Only if you think this is about decorating parks.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Well look at all the celebration photos taken at Auschwitz. Should that be a reason to tear it down?

It is pretty easy, everything stands on its own merits. Statues unlike building tend to not be historically significant, and the ones being talked about are not artistically significant either. They were put up to memorialize and generally celebrate a specific group or individual, and as such we can determine if that individual or group is one that deserves celebration.

I am still waiting for people to start funding a museum of acres and acres of such public statuary. You could have all kinds of fun wings/regions for various political movements dictators and the like.
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Ironically, many of these statues were designed specifically to ignore history - Christopher Columbus was, um, whitewashed into an Italian hero that "discovered" America so that Italian immigrants could lay claim to whiteness. And many Confederate statues are cheap garbage conveniently placed in city squares, courthouses, and other government facilities specifically to celebrate how those good, white Southerners treated the Negro race so well, and lost a war by the evil Northerners (when they weren't used as an explicit embrace of white supremacism - there's a reason so many schools, roads, etc. were renamed after Lee, Forrest, and other such slavers and terrorists after Brown vs. Board).
 
Mumbles said:
Ironically, many of these statues were designed specifically to ignore history - Christopher Columbus was, um, whitewashed into an Italian hero that "discovered" America so that Italian immigrants could lay claim to whiteness. And many Confederate statues are cheap garbage conveniently placed in city squares, courthouses, and other government facilities specifically to celebrate how those good, white Southerners treated the Negro race so well, and lost a war by the evil Northerners (when they weren't used as an explicit embrace of white supremacism - there's a reason so many schools, roads, etc. were renamed after Lee, Forrest, and other such slavers and terrorists after Brown vs. Board).
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And please don't replace Columbus with Leif Erikson (Wikipedia). Many white supremacists would love to see that.
 
I believe MShed, a museum about Bristol and coincidentally right next to where Colston tripped and fell is going to keep the statue. "The symbolism of his graffitti’d body has been preserved and the significance it has for us will be an important story to tell." from their Twitter
 
Mumbles said:
Ironically, many of these statues were designed specifically to ignore history - Christopher Columbus was, um, whitewashed into an Italian hero that "discovered" America so that Italian immigrants could lay claim to whiteness. And many Confederate statues are cheap garbage conveniently placed in city squares, courthouses, and other government facilities specifically to celebrate how those good, white Southerners treated the Negro race so well, and lost a war by the evil Northerners (when they weren't used as an explicit embrace of white supremacism - there's a reason so many schools, roads, etc. were renamed after Lee, Forrest, and other such slavers and terrorists after Brown vs. Board).
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I think you would find that the District of Columbia was named long before Italian immigrants got into the act. Columbus wasn't a 19th century invention. Maybe a little bit of rebranding took place at the time.

On the Confederate things. Yeah. True.
 
There are demands by aboriginal groups in Australia to tear down statues of Captain James Cook (Australia’s “Columbus” for those who don’t know).

He never owned slaves or had any role in governing the new colony. Yet is hated by many indigenous people. (I don’t know of a better coloniser in those days than the Brits, by the way).

Should the will of the aggrieved prevail, even though it is certain the majority would not support tearing down the statue?
 
I was thinking a while back about the problem for statues in states like Virginia which have a state law protecting statues, and it occurs to me that this might be a good place for what I've seen referred to as "malicious compliance." The law obligates the locality to protect the statue, and since that statue is subject to possible vandalism, perhaps the best way to protect it would be to enclose it in an impenetrable covering. A concrete sarcophagus, perhaps. Just cast a huge monolith over the sacred statue, and it is protected forever. If that's too great a threat to the surface of the statue, a big tough wooden box would do. On the monolith one can put a little note saying what's inside, and the content of that message can be tailored to whatever historical viewpoint is prevalent. But it too becomes a statue, with some degree of protection.

It would probably be cheaper than moving the statue, and for those who lament what they see as insults to history, it would serve as a nice in-your-face reminder of the important historical events that are happening right now.
 
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lionking said:
There are demands by aboriginal groups in Australia to tear down statues of Captain James Cook (Australia’s “Columbus” for those who don’t know).

He never owned slaves or had any role in governing the new colony. Yet is hated by many indigenous people. (I don’t know of a better coloniser in those days than the Brits, by the way).

Should the will of the aggrieved prevail, even though it is certain the majority would not support tearing down the statue?
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Why not follow “due process”?
 
trustbutverify said:
He was seriously injured. Witnesses reported part of his skull was exposed, and he was experiencing convulsions. No arrests were made. Obviously, murder charges would depend on if those injuries result in death, but I think the people pulling the statue down should have been arrested in this case.
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I just read that he was in a medically induced coma. His heart stopped, twice, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I have a feeling he's dead, but they just haven't made it official yet.
 
Meadmaker said:
I think you would find that the District of Columbia was named long before Italian immigrants got into the act. Columbus wasn't a 19th century invention. Maybe a little bit of rebranding took place at the time.

On the Confederate things. Yeah. True.
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Hey we can make statues to honor him and king Leopold. Just put up the piles of chopped off hands of those not working sufficiently hard for their betterment. Though throwing in some 8 year old sex slaves could be useful for columbus.

Oh wait if you successfuly destroy the ethnic group the crimes then never matter, so that is why columbus gets the pass and Leopold get slandered as some kind of monster.
 
Darat said:
Indeed why not? Shouldn’t people today make their own decisions?
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By “people” what do you mean? A group of demonstrators offended by old monuments? Religious fanatics who demand destruction of things their religion outlaws?

If you are talking about a majority of people in a liberal democracy called the UK, then the decision has been made. Churchill’s statue stays.
 
I've found myself wondering in the last few days, why is a courthouse a place to have statues of people who furthered powerful interests?

So often this involves acts of injustice, tyranny, and oppression on innocent people.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Loving v. Virgina decision. There should be a statue of the Lovings at the Richmond courthouse.

Petitioners who stood down the government (and assorted violent intimidation) and won rights for the masses against power with the pen and with words should be seen in places of honor. Not some general on a horse, not a profiteering merchant on some crown-backed exploitative enterprise, not some fat judge who rubbed shoulders with the local gentry.
 
Meadmaker said:
I just read that he was in a medically induced coma. His heart stopped, twice, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I have a feeling he's dead, but they just haven't made it official yet.
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If so, that's murder, in my opinion.
 
bruto said:
I was thinking a while back about the problem for statues in states like Virginia which have a state law protecting statues, and it occurs to me that this might be a good place for what I've seen referred to as "malicious compliance." The law obligates the locality to protect the statue, and since that statue is subject to possible vandalism, perhaps the best way to protect it would be to enclose it in an impenetrable covering. A concrete sarcophagus, perhaps. Just cast a huge monolith over the sacred statue, and it is protected forever. If that's too great a threat to the surface of the statue, a big tough wooden box would do. On the monolith one can put a little note saying what's inside, and the content of that message can be tailored to whatever historical viewpoint is prevalent. But it too becomes a statue, with some degree of protection.

It would probably be cheaper than moving the statue, and for those who lament what they see as insults to history, it would serve as a nice in-your-face reminder of the important historical events that are happening right now.
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Some of these are too blasted big, like Lee, for this to work. It would still dominate the view, and would probably be equally annoying those who want to see it there and those who want it gone.
ETA That would work pretty well for smaller statues, probably.
 
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lionking said:
By “people” what do you mean? A group of demonstrators offended by old monuments? Religious fanatics who demand destruction of things their religion outlaws?

If you are talking about a majority of people in a liberal democracy called the UK, then the decision has been made. Churchill’s statue stays.
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It is not so simple. Liberal democracies recognize that minorities have rights too. The views and rules by the majority cannot, and morally should not, violate those rights. Beyond legal rights alone, the majority should seek as much as possible to respect minorities and their legitimate viewpoints and ideas.

The honoring of an individual responsible for the enslaving and murder of a people is abhorrent. Abhorrent not only to the people whose ancestors were subjected to these evils, but also to the majority whose ancestors inflicted them.

A statue to a slaver and murderer is a daily insult to those descended from his victims, being not only a constant reminder that they were one considered property rather than human beings, but also a constant reminder that even now the majority does not recognize this past as ugly and evil enough to question the morality of the person responsible.

A statue to a murderer and a slaver should be abhorrent to all, including those in the majority. If the majority fail to see this or just don’t care it is their moral failing. IMO they have lost the moral right to impose their will over the objections of the minority.
 
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