Poll of the Day > Confederate statues/symbols

(+) Yeah! (+)

Confederate statues/symbols.

---

Depends on the context of the statue.
---

*prepares popcorn *

---

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

---

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

This

---

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

Nailed it

---

and seeing how people have been trying to get these statues out of the streets and into museums to no avail for quite some time its no suprise people have taken things into their own hands

---

once they got rid of Aunt Jemima and the Eskimo from Eskimo pies i knew time was up.

burn it all down

Get rid of the statues of people, put up statues of horses.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless


---

They are all racist af

There are places they belong. Proudly displayed as symbols of hate on public (tax funded) land is not that place.

Where does it end?

History is complicated. For example, the statue of Albert Pike was taken down. He was one of the first people to legislate/defend Native Americans. Technically he was on the Confederate side, but was charged with insubordination and treason.

He wasn't a perfect guy - but in reading through his Bio, he seems to have done more good than bad.

If you try to wipe every statue in history and only leave those who were pure, you will be left with zero statues. For example - how do people tolerate MLK statues in this day and age of the metoo movement when he was a known misogynist and womanizer? Should we rename every street that has any reference to anyone who owned slaves? There has to be a line somewhere, so where is it drawn?

captpackrat posted...

Get rid of the statues of people, put up statues of horses.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless

I like this idea

---

A lot of those statues are basically propaganda pieces by white supremacists (look up the lost cause of the confederacy). I don't think most of them need to be in musuems. Tear them all down.

---

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

Move them into a museum.

How old are these statues, in general? I mean, does anyone know if any statue to commemorate a Confederate figure has been erected in the last fifty years?

---

Best info I can find is that most were built in either the jim crow era or during the civil rights movement.

---

kukukupo posted...

Where does it end?

History is complicated. For example, the statue of Albert Pike was taken down. He was one of the first people to legislate/defend Native Americans. Technically he was on the Confederate side, but was charged with insubordination and treason.

He wasn't a perfect guy - but in reading through his Bio, he seems to have done more good than bad.

If you try to wipe every statue in history and only leave those who were pure, you will be left with zero statues. For example - how do people tolerate MLK statues in this day and age of the metoo movement when he was a known misogynist and womanizer? Should we rename every street that has any reference to anyone who owned slaves? There has to be a line somewhere, so where is it drawn?

Tearing down his statue probably gave him more reach/exposure and did more for educating people of who he was compared to the entire lifetime of the statue existing

---

PMarth2002 posted...

Best info I can find is that most were built in either the jim crow era or during the civil rights movement.

Hmm. It sounds like some of them, at least, were erected to make a political statement, a statement of defiance against change. In other words, they weren't so much commemorating American history as commenting on the times in which they were put up.

---

I just don't care.

---

kind9 posted...

I just don't care.

I've actually taken this stance on most things lately. I think this country would be better off if more people just didn't care about stuff

OhhhJa posted...

I've actually taken this stance on most things lately. I think this country would be better off if more people just didn't care about stuff

Outrage fatigue?

---

captpackrat posted...

Get rid of the statues of people, put up statues of horses.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless

Now this is an idea I can get behind.

Firewerx posted...

Outrage fatigue?

While I think some level of outrage is righteous and has accomplished some good, I look around at what's going on in the country right now and can't help but think the country might be better off with a small dose of not giving a fuck

OhhhJa posted...

While I think some level of outrage is righteous and has accomplished some good, I look around at what's going on in the country right now and can't help but think the country might be better off with a small dose of not giving a fuck

I used to think that way, but lately I'm starting to think that people not giving a fuck is why the country is in the state its in.

---

OhhhJa posted...

not giving a fuck

https://youtu.be/6wS5xOZ7Rq8

---

most of these statues were built in the 60s, these arent old civil war statues, they were put up by racists in protest of the civil rights movement. fuck em

---

I do like seeing statues getting knocked down. Very entertaining.

---

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

Absolutely this.

Put them in museums. Theres no reason they should have statues in the lobbies of government buildings or have schools and streets named after them. Those things should be reserved for people you want to honor.

---

Write in the books that they were taken down because someone else decided they were offensive. Thats a pretty good life-lesson in itself.

---

zebatov posted...

Write in the books that they were taken down because someone else decided they were offensive. Thats a pretty good life-lesson in itself.

they were literally built by folks that were still butthurt about losing a war they werent even alive for

---

replace them with animu waifu statues

---

They even tore down a statue of Grant now.

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

They're statues designed to be publicly displayed. And history isn't simply learned in museums.

TheSlinja posted...

and seeing how people have been trying to get these statues out of the streets and into museums to no avail for quite some time its no suprise people have taken things into their own hands

...that's not what they had been trying to do. They had been trying to get them into dumpsters.

zebatov posted...

Write in the books that they were taken down because someone else decided they were offensive. Thats a pretty good life-lesson in itself.

Then burn the books because somebody else finds those offensive. That's also a pretty good life lesson, and a history lesson as well -- although nobody who tears down statues and burns books ever really learns history, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

---

kukukupo posted...

Where does it end?

History is complicated. For example, the statue of Albert Pike was taken down. He was one of the first people to legislate/defend Native Americans. Technically he was on the Confederate side, but was charged with insubordination and treason.

He wasn't a perfect guy - but in reading through his Bio, he seems to have done more good than bad.

History is indeed complicated, which is why statues don't do a very good job of teaching it on their own. Pair them with an explanatory placard in a museum, and you've got a much more effective vehicle for education. Statues in public places pretty much exclusively suggest that the subject of the statue should be celebrated (specifically that those who erected and maintain it feel that it should be), even if there's a plaque attached to it that explains the nuance (most passers-by don't bother to read the details, after all).

PMarth2002 posted...

A lot of those statues are basically propaganda pieces by white supremacists (look up the lost cause of the confederacy). I don't think most of them need to be in musuems. Tear them all down.

The sweeping statement of "move them all into museums" is indeed a bit too broad. In practice, many (perhaps even most) of them have very little artistic merit and don't represent any history that's significant enough to warrant preservation, in which case nothing of any particular value will be lost if they aren't kept in a museum (museum space being quite finite and all). Many of them are also pro-segregation propaganda from the civil rights era, history which likely would not be accurately communicated in any museum exhibit put together by members of a community that saw fit to keep the propaganda around in the first place (since "we just kept this because we're racist" isn't something such people tend to admit so freely).

Still, though, the idea of preserving these things in museums should at least be on the table. If nothing else, it shuts up the "you can't take this down we must preserve our history!" crowd because you're offering to do an even better job of preserving the history (or at least separates the people that are actually concerned about historical records from the people that are just leaning on that because it sounds more acceptable than "I like this super racist guy and want to keep honouring him"), so there's that.

---

Here's an interesting question to provoke discussion:

Say you have a statue of Jefferson. Or Washington. The statues celebrate their role in founding our country. On the other hand, both owned slaves, and both perpetuated (either via action or inaction) the institution of slavery in the nation. Should those statues be removed as well, because of the implied context?

Or let's jump forward a bit - say you have a statue of Grant, who helped the Union win the Civil War and free slaves. But he was also an alcoholic, was originally opposed to freeing the slaves (and actually voted against Lincoln originally because of it), was engaged in a number of scandals, damaged the economy, ended Reconstruction (thus opening the door for a lot of future civil rights abuses), and continued existing predatory policies against native Americans. How should we feel about memorials or celebrations of his legacy? Or to get thornier, how should we feel about a statue dedicated to Sherman, who engaged in what would potentially be considered war crimes today?

Where DO we draw the line? Most of human history is atrocity, and most of the great men we tend to elevate reached their lofty positions on a pile of corpses. Is it right or wrong to celebrate the accomplishments of individuals who profited from human misery - regardless of the nature of that misery or who it was inflicted upon?



Mead posted...

they were literally built by folks that were still butthurt about losing a war they werent even alive for

But now they're being knocked down by people still butthurt over a war that their grandparents weren't even alive for.

What is the acceptable expiration date for outrage?
---

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I say keep them up and at the forefront as a constant reminder. It's absolute insanity to remove or even move them to where people can easily disregard them.

Zeus posted...

They're statues designed to be publicly displayed.

And Auschwitz was designed to massacre people, not memorialize them. Times change, acceptable behaviours change with them, and objects (or regions, in the extreme example of Auschwitz) that were once used for behaviours that are no longer acceptable should be either destroyed or repurposed for more acceptable behaviours.

Zeus posted...

And history isn't simply learned in museums.

Indeed. It's also learned in schools, libraries, archives, online... Museums are just the best venue by which to educate using statues and monuments. It's rather hard to fit a statue on a bookshelf, after all.

Quite simply, when a city erects a statue, it's not doing so for the purpose of educating people on history. It's doing so because it values the statue's subject and wants to honour them. The only way a statue can educate people is through a plaque, which is inevitably going to be a very narrow snapshot of the relevant history that does little to explain the necessary context and significance, limited pretty much to "this guy did this one neat thing so here's a statue." There are far, far better ways of teaching people history that tell a more complete story and can be presented without lauding somebody who doesn't necessarily deserve praise.

Zeus posted...

They even tore down a statue of Grant now.

An because you're you, I'm sure you're going to interpret that as BLM collectively deciding that Grant was somehow evil and not as an act of random vandalism by people that don't really care about BLM's goals or intentions.

---

captpackrat posted...

Get rid of the statues of people, put up statues of horses.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless

She quickly became part of the unit and was allowed to roam freely through camp, entering the Marines' tents, where she would sleep on cold nights, and was known for her willingness to eat nearly anything, including scrambled eggs, beer, Coca-Cola and, once, about $30 worth of poker chips.

What a legend!

---

Literally a party animal

---

I prefer statues of dogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D#Bronze_statues
---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But now they're being knocked down by people still butthurt over a war that their grandparents weren't even alive for.

that isnt why people are upset or taking those statues down

youre smart enough to know that

---

Put them in Civil War museums.

---

Most of these civil war statues were mass produced, and most of them were incredibly cheaply made (which is why it's been so easy to pull them down, they're literally junk).

---

Losers dont deserve monuments. The confederacy only existed for 5 years, there is no heritage.

---

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Where DO we draw the line? Most of human history is atrocity, and most of the great men we tend to elevate reached their lofty positions on a pile of corpses. Is it right or wrong to celebrate the accomplishments of individuals who profited from human misery - regardless of the nature of that misery or who it was inflicted upon?

You could probably start the line at "statues glorifying a force who tried to tear down the United States for the sole purpose of perpetuating slavery" and then work out the kinks from there. Don't draw false equivalencies to defend atrocity.

---

If those who support their presence are really all about historical content, they they should petition to have them relocated to historical museums. Otherwise, their whole argument falls flat and the monuments should be removed from public places.

---

BUMPED2002 posted...

because they're a stain on our racist slave holding past

And? History is history, putting a tarp over it and pretending it no longer exists does not make it go away.
History needs to be remembered, even if just to keep it from repeating.


---