Current Events > Can someone explain to a Brit the drama surrounding the confederacy statues?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

Same way southerners hold the statues of the Confederacy in high regard. At the time a lot of people thought he was a good man for bringing such prosperity to the city, despite it being on the backs of slaves.

TBH it's still a contentious issue in Bristol and there is, funnily enough, talk about having it removed by some people but hasn't gained the tractions that the confed statues in the US has.

do you have large populations of slave descendents in Bristol who families were sold by this man?
---

ClunkerSlim posted...

And let's keep in mind that the Union didn't exactly fix the issue even after they won the war. It's not like black people suddenly became equal rights citizens. So let's not paint the Union too heroically. They definitely had the moral high ground, but they certainly weren't Saints.

I think Lincoln could qualify for sainthood actually.
---

darkphoenix181 posted...

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

Same way southerners hold the statues of the Confederacy in high regard. At the time a lot of people thought he was a good man for bringing such prosperity to the city, despite it being on the backs of slaves.

TBH it's still a contentious issue in Bristol and there is, funnily enough, talk about having it removed by some people but hasn't gained the tractions that the confed statues in the US has.

do you have large populations of slave descendents in Bristol who families were sold by this man?

I don't believe so no. Most of the outrage is by SJW just looking for something to moan about.

Why do you ask?

Basically, in the US, we had a civil war. The driving cause of the civil war was primarily about the southern states' claimed rights for their citizens to own, mostly, black slaves. The southern states formed what would be called the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy for short, and they waged war with the northern states, the Union.

The Confederacy lost the war and, with it, the rights to continue the slave trade. After the war, a number of statues of Confederate figures, like Robert E. Lee, were constructed to honor them as heroes of the southern Confederacy.

We currently live in a more...socially conscientious...time than then and keeping these monuments that honor those men are increasingly seen as being in poor taste for two primary reasons:

1. These are men who fought for the rights to maintain a slave trade. They fought to keep slaves, especially black slaves, in chains and at the service of well-to-do white plantation owners. Honoring these men with monuments is increasingly considered immoral because of their evil motivations.

2. These monuments are honoring figures who were, essentially, traitors to the American Union. They attempted to secede from the United States to maintain the slave trade. Many don't support monuments honoring traitors who cost millions of American lives.
---

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

Same way southerners hold the statues of the Confederacy in high regard. At the time a lot of people thought he was a good man for bringing such prosperity to the city, despite it being on the backs of slaves.

TBH it's still a contentious issue in Bristol and there is, funnily enough, talk about having it removed by some people but hasn't gained the tractions that the confed statues in the US has.

do you have large populations of slave descendents in Bristol who families were sold by this man?

I don't believe so no. Most of the outrage is by SJW just looking for something to moan about.

Why do you ask?

because in America we do, especially where these statues usually are
---

ClunkerSlim posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

ClunkerSlim posted...

and people who thought it would end when God declared it (this was actually a pretty big movement where people believed that slavery was destined to end but only by God's hand)

and how would God do this?

That's a good question but I'm not an expert on Civil War era religious beliefs. I know that it was a popular belief. But I'm not sure how they thought that God would intercede.

"And lo, the clouds did part and the horn did sound! And the archangel Gabriel did descend upon the field. And upon them did he speak the words of the Lord 'Hark! Cut it out, ye assholes!' "
---

Blackstar110 posted...

ROBANN_88 posted...

Blackstar110 posted...


i see. very well.
does this extend to other symbols that nazis and racists use?
they do have a tendency to just take over shit all willy nilly.

Probably WOULD, but it's kind of a hypothetical.

i'm just gonna take this to its final conclusion.
even though i hate it when people take an american concept and just putting it on the Sweden, assuming it's the same, i'm doing that right now.

here in Sweden, the king Karl XII has for some reason been used by racists now and then. he was never a racist himself. never anything that even suggested that (hell, he lived in Turkey for a while). he was just one of the guys who ruled during our geographical, military and political height, and that makes him attractive to these people.
should his statue be taken down because they decided to use him?

the same can be asked for other symbols used by Scandinanvian nazis, like Thors Hammer Mjölner and the Swedish flag as a whole.
---

ROBANN_88 posted...

here in Sweden, the king Karl XII has for some reason been used by racists now and then. he was never a racist himself. never anything that even suggested that (hell, he lived in Turkey for a while). he was just one of the guys who ruled during our geographical, military and political height, and that makes him attractive to these people.
should his statue be taken down because they decided to use him?

I'd say no because of the bolded.

Confederate iconography is used because the confederacy fought to keep slavery alive. It's about as close to a politically-correct way of saying "white power" as you can get. It's people who hate minorities gathering around statues of men who fought against the United States to keep minorities enslaved. That said, if you moved confederate statues to a museum and they started gathering around Mickey Mouse, I wouldn't say you should close down Disney World because there's no correlation.
---

darkphoenix181 posted...

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

Milo_Yiannopous posted...

Same way southerners hold the statues of the Confederacy in high regard. At the time a lot of people thought he was a good man for bringing such prosperity to the city, despite it being on the backs of slaves.

TBH it's still a contentious issue in Bristol and there is, funnily enough, talk about having it removed by some people but hasn't gained the tractions that the confed statues in the US has.

do you have large populations of slave descendents in Bristol who families were sold by this man?

I don't believe so no. Most of the outrage is by SJW just looking for something to moan about.

Why do you ask?

because in America we do, especially where these statues usually are

I'll be honest. Most of the slaves didn't go to the UK. Most were shipped to the americas.

ClunkerSlim posted...

And let's keep in mind that the Union didn't exactly fix the issue even after they won the war. It's not like black people suddenly became equal rights citizens. So let's not paint the Union too heroically.

Hard to pin that on the Union. The South didn't retrench itself into white supremacy and Jim Crow until after reconstruction ended and federal troops pulled out. There were black elected officials across the south in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.
---