Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

[Gilbert Syndrome]

We haven't seen what the post Uncle Ben (and other examples) branding is going to look like. It could just be that or it could be a full top down rebuild of the whole branding.

It might or might not amount to more than "just hiding the black guy."

Well, let's be honest, what else are they gonna do? Stick a white bloke on there? I doubt they'll replace him with another black guy.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

I cannot for the life of me muster even a modicum of concern over statues being taken down, by legal means or otherwise.

Could any of the people wringing their hands about it explain why vandalism should even crack the top ten of things to be concerned about with the current state of the world?

That's exactly my position regarding food mascots getting the middle-class folks up in arms. None of it matters to me, really, it's simply funny to witness so much contradictory behaviour from people who want so badly to be seen as being renegades for justice on the interwebs.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Yeah, I think theres a whole spectrum of activity between Twitter posting and looting Wal-Mart that many kind of gloss over. That's where the real work goes down.

Not as cray cray as a selfie against a cop car someone else torched though.

I'm not a big social media user, really, but every time I've gone on there lately, all I've seen is those if you don't agree with the BLM movement then please unfriend me now, thanks! and they honestly just make me cringe because they're generally always posted by some random twenty-something white kid with a quiff who so obviously wants people to go wow, Ollie, you're a legend! It just feels so false to me, like a circle jerk of self-congratulatory high-fiving.

It's as silly as posting "God, I just HATE racism! Like if you agree! lol.

 

[Meadmaker]

*Sighs* Stop playing games, at least ones you're not even good at.

The black communities want those statues gone. This isn't about what statues you (pretend) you're super concerned about.

Stop screaming "All statues matter"

(emphasis added)

The bolded part is extremely offensive to me.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well, let's be honest, what else are they gonna do? Stick a white bloke on there? I doubt they'll replace him with another black guy.

Full honesty I'd wager the future the brands overall is probably in question.

This is all educated guessing for the most part but most of these products are, in their current form, owned by large conglomerates. Uncle Ben is owned by Mars Inc which owns dozens of brands, Aunt Jemima is owned by QuakerPepsiCo which owns hundreds of brands, Cream of Wheat by B&G Foods (Jolly Green Giant, Ms. Dash, Chipita, man others), Eskimo Pie by Froneri the second largest ice cream company in the world which maintains multiple brands of ice cream... none of these are one product businesses or marquee brands the companies need to survive. Nor is rice, pancake syrup, porridge, or ice cream markets that will suffer if one maker goes away. Log Cabin, Minute Rice, Malt o Meal, and Drumstick can maintain our strategic reserve of these products just fine.

I'd wager most of them will just quietly go away.

 

[JoeMorgue]

(emphasis added)

The bolded part is extremely offensive to me.

Fine. I'll put up a statue to it and you can stare at it every day while other people pretend to have a complicated moral crisis about taking it down while other statues stay up.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Full honesty I'd wager the future the brands overall is probably in question.

This is all educated guessing for the most part but most of these products are, in their current form, owned by large conglomerates. Uncle Ben is owned by Mars Inc which owns dozens of brands, Aunt Jemima is owned by QuakerPepsiCo which owns hundreds of brands, Cream of Wheat by B&G Foods (Jolly Green Giant, Ms. Dash, Chipita, man others), Eskimo Pie by Froneri the second largest ice cream company in the world which maintains multiple brands of ice cream... none of these are one product businesses or marquee brands the companies need to survive.

I'd wager most of them will just quietly go away.

I dunno, Uncle Ben's is a pretty big brand over here, well, in terms of its place in the rice/sauce market. I'd be surprised if they faded into obscurity. I just think they'll keep going but will find themselves being confused about who they are, brand-wise. Unless they can spin it into being less negative, but still keep the Uncle Ben character.

 

[johnny karate]

That's exactly my position regarding food mascots getting the middle-class folks up in arms. None of it matters to me, really, it's simply funny to witness so much contradictory behaviour from people who want so badly to be seen as being renegades for justice on the interwebs.

To what contradictory behavior are you referring?

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

To what contradictory behavior are you referring?

The outrage culture we see these days is hilariously contradictory, guys like Bill Burr made a good career out of commenting on it in front of an audience.

People being outraged by monuments to slavers is fair play, obviously, but people being outraged on behalf of other people is just funny, it's the ultimate in Chris Crocker behaviour.

 

[JoeMorgue]

People don't have to be consistent before they are allowed to do good.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

People don't have to be consistent before they are allowed to do good.

I'd just be bowled over to see more people actually doing even half of the good they speak about. There's nothing wrong with yelling about taking action all day, as long as you're actually sometimes willing to take that action, yourself.

As Joey Keithley once said: Talk Minus Action Equals Zero.

 

[johnny karate]

The outrage culture we see these days is hilariously contradictory, guys like Bill Burr made a good career out of commenting on it in front of an audience.

That doesn’t answer my question.

People being outraged by monuments to slavers is fair play, obviously, but people being outraged on behalf of other people is just funny, it's the ultimate in Chris Crocker behaviour.

Why is people being outraged on behalf of other people (otherwise known as “empathy”) funny?

 

[Meadmaker]

I cannot for the life of me muster even a modicum of concern over statues being taken down, by legal means or otherwise.

Could any of the people wringing their hands about it explain why vandalism should even crack the top ten of things to be concerned about with the current state of the world?

That's a very difficult question to answer. It's a case where I know the answer, but expressing it is difficult. It can come off as incredibly sanctimonious, but it's not meant to. I'll try to explain it.

First, I don't think the statues themselves are all that significant. If I have a choice between a vaccine and a statue, you can break all the statues you want. The statues are not incredibly important. However, it is what we are talking about here and now. There's a thread. We discuss. I have strong opinions on the subject. That isn't the same thing as saying it's incredibly important. Some people think the statues are important enough to pull them down with ropes. Others, like me, think they are important enough to complain about pulling them down with ropes.

On to the reasons why I don't like statue destruction.

First, there's democracy. Now that is something I think is incredibly important. Very, very, important. So, any time I see democracy subverted, I think it's bad. Statue destruction is a case where people reject the official decision of people, through their elected officials, and override that decision by a group of unelected people with ropes.

I'm not totally adamant about that, because I understand that civil disobedience has a long history. Most of the time, in democracies, most people are pretty complacent. It's not that the majority necessarily want a statue, or don't want a statue. They just don't care. Sometimes, the people who do care have to do something drastic just to call attention to the problem. In this case, I'm referring to a mob pulling down a Confederate statue. In some of these cases, there are a large number of people who really, really, want the statue down, and a small number of people who really, really, want the statue to stay, and a much larger group that isn't too fussed about it one way or another, but if they gave it some though, would probably want the statue removed. In that case, pulling one down can be an agent to nudge that democracy toward doing what they would do, if they gave it some thought.

Therefore, I have some sympathy with a small set of the statue destroyers, but it is a very dangerous route to take. It might be that they are expressing the true will of the people that have been stymied by a bureaucracy controlled by a minority, but that doesn't happen often. I'm more inclined to believe that the statue vandals are more like self indulgent adolescents demonstrating their power through random acts of destruction. When statues of Cervantes get thrown into that mix, it really reinforces that opinion for me.

Second, there's history. A community is more than just a group of people residing in the same general vicinity. I think the history of a nation, a town, a state, are significant. Statues really are a link to that past. If we tear them down, we are basically saying that we wish to disown that part of our past.

There's nothing inherently wrong with disowning part of the past. It's perfectly understandable why someone would want to disown the Confederacy, for example, but again I would say use caution. Make sure you understand what you are disowning. Sometimes, it will even go back to that first point. Some people might want to disown the history, but others not. In that case, democracy is the best way to settle the argument.

Finally, there are the people who are represented by the statues themselves. I think there are people who are part of our history that I very much do not want to disown, even if they are not perfect. I very much look at Columbus as part of a tradition that stretches toward Neil Armstrong. I look at Washington and see someone who chose to be called "Mr. President", instead of the more conventional "Your Excellency". Grant was instrumental in ending slavery. Yes, Columbus was a tyrant, and Washington owned slaves, and Grant wasn't exactly nice to Indians and it doesn't bother me. I want my kid to think of Columbus and say, "I want to find what's over the horizon, just like he did." Yes, I do look up to Columbus, even if he was a product of his time.

So, in the grand scheme of things, they're just statues, but they do say something about what we want to be as a people. They say something about what we want to tell the next generation is worthy of emulation. And if we only want the next generation to emulate some aspect of their deeds, I hope the children are wise enough to see that the statue is for the thing that the person did that made him different from the rest of his generation, and not get too wrapped up in what was the same about him and the rest of his generation.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

That doesn’t answer my question.

I've actually answered this question many times throughout this thread. I stand by my statement that most people who harp on about change aren't even actively involved in any of it beyond posting about it. Year after year there's a decline in volunteers within many charity groups here, for instance.

Why is people being outraged on behalf of other people (otherwise known as “empathy”) funny?

There's nothing wrong with empathy, but there's a lot wrong with being so ridiculously care-free in life that you've got multiple hours every day with which to post about being outraged about X and Y on behalf of others. Considering the fact that being offended doesn't amount to much, being offended on behalf of others is so far away from amounting to anything that it's on the minus scale.

 

[trustbutverify]

People don't have to be consistent before they are allowed to do good.

Said every future iron-fisted tyrant.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Said every future iron-fisted tyrant.

Yes. If we don't force black people to provide us a complete breakdown of their philosophical stances on statues before the racist traitor statues come down, they'll turn into tyrants.

 

[johnny karate]

I've actually answered this question many times throughout this thread. I stand by my statement that most people who harp on about change aren't even actively involved in any of it beyond posting about it. Year after year there's a decline in volunteers within many charity groups here, for instance.

An expression cynicism does not support the claim that there is contradictory behavior taking place. Nor does an alleged participatory decline in some hypothetical charity.

To support your claim, you’d actually have to provide an example of someone saying or doing one thing and then behaving in opposition to what they said or did.

And if you have already addressed this in a previous post, a simple link to that post should suffice.

There's nothing wrong with empathy, but there's a lot wrong with being so ridiculously care-free in life that you've got multiple hours every day with which to post about being outraged about X and Y on behalf of others. Considering the fact that being offended doesn't amount to much, being offended on behalf of others is so far away from amounting to anything that it's on the minus scale.

Cool.

How many hours have you spent posting about this phenomenon which you seem to find so offensive?

 

[johnny karate]

Said every future iron-fisted tyrant.

Also said many, many more people who didn’t turn out to be tyrants of any kind.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

An expression cynicism does not support the claim that there is contradictory behavior taking place. Nor does an alleged participatory decline in some hypothetical charity.

To support your claim, you’d actually have to provide an example of someone saying or doing one thing and then behaving in opposition to what they said or did.

And if you have already addressed this in a previous post, a simple link to that post should suffice.

There's plenty of contradictory behaviour taking place, not just here, but on social media and in society in general, again, I've spoken about it before. The fact that you can't be arsed to look and simply want me to satisfy your laziness by sending you some kind of link in which I literally name a person being contradictory and then elaborate on why they're being contradictory is just a weird kind of reaction to what I'm saying.

Cool.

How many hours have you spent posting about this phenomenon which you seem to find so offensive?

Not many, I get on here for a couple of hours every couple of days, the rest of my time is taken up with work and actually bothering to help my community out in person rather than blathering about it on the internet. Who said I was offended? Are you feeling outrage on my behalf?

 

[johnny karate]

That's a very difficult question to answer. It's a case where I know the answer, but expressing it is difficult. It can come off as incredibly sanctimonious, but it's not meant to. I'll try to explain it.

First, I don't think the statues themselves are all that significant. If I have a choice between a vaccine and a statue, you can break all the statues you want. The statues are not incredibly important. However, it is what we are talking about here and now. There's a thread. We discuss. I have strong opinions on the subject. That isn't the same thing as saying it's incredibly important. Some people think the statues are important enough to pull them down with ropes. Others, like me, think they are important enough to complain about pulling them down with ropes.

On to the reasons why I don't like statue destruction.

First, there's democracy. Now that is something I think is incredibly important. Very, very, important. So, any time I see democracy subverted, I think it's bad. Statue destruction is a case where people reject the official decision of people, through their elected officials, and override that decision by a group of unelected people with ropes.

I'm not totally adamant about that, because I understand that civil disobedience has a long history. Most of the time, in democracies, most people are pretty complacent. It's not that the majority necessarily want a statue, or don't want a statue. They just don't care. Sometimes, the people who do care have to do something drastic just to call attention to the problem. In this case, I'm referring to a mob pulling down a Confederate statue. In some of these cases, there are a large number of people who really, really, want the statue down, and a small number of people who really, really, want the statue to stay, and a much larger group that isn't too fussed about it one way or another, but if they gave it some though, would probably want the statue removed. In that case, pulling one down can be an agent to nudge that democracy toward doing what they would do, if they gave it some thought.

Therefore, I have some sympathy with a small set of the statue destroyers, but it is a very dangerous route to take. It might be that they are expressing the true will of the people that have been stymied by a bureaucracy controlled by a minority, but that doesn't happen often. I'm more inclined to believe that the statue vandals are more like self indulgent adolescents demonstrating their power through random acts of destruction. When statues of Cervantes get thrown into that mix, it really reinforces that opinion for me.

Second, there's history. A community is more than just a group of people residing in the same general vicinity. I think the history of a nation, a town, a state, are significant. Statues really are a link to that past. If we tear them down, we are basically saying that we wish to disown that part of our past.

There's nothing inherently wrong with disowning part of the past. It's perfectly understandable why someone would want to disown the Confederacy, for example, but again I would say use caution. Make sure you understand what you are disowning. Sometimes, it will even go back to that first point. Some people might want to disown the history, but others not. In that case, democracy is the best way to settle the argument.

Finally, there are the people who are represented by the statues themselves. I think there are people who are part of our history that I very much do not want to disown, even if they are not perfect. I very much look at Columbus as part of a tradition that stretches toward Neil Armstrong. I look at Washington and see someone who chose to be called "Mr. President", instead of the more conventional "Your Excellency". Grant was instrumental in ending slavery. Yes, Columbus was a tyrant, and Washington owned slaves, and Grant wasn't exactly nice to Indians and it doesn't bother me. I want my kid to think of Columbus and say, "I want to find what's over the horizon, just like he did." Yes, I do look up to Columbus, even if he was a product of his time.

So, in the grand scheme of things, they're just statues, but they do say something about what we want to be as a people. They say something about what we want to tell the next generation is worthy of emulation. And if we only want the next generation to emulate some aspect of their deeds, I hope the children are wise enough to see that the statue is for the thing that the person did that made him different from the rest of his generation, and not get too wrapped up in what was the same about him and the rest of his generation.

Statues are monuments to a person or event, not historical records of that person or event. We have libraries and museums for that.