CREDIT: screengrab.
One Karl Oliver, a rethuglican representative, has made an open, unapologetic statement about the removal of monuments to slavery. Specifically, he wrote:
“The destruction of these monuments, erected in the loving memory of our family and fellow Southern Americans, is both heinous and horrific. If the, and I use this term extremely loosely, ‘leadership’ of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED! Let it be known, I will do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.”
I haven’t heard one thing about these statues being destroyed. Removed from the public square, yes. The state could always put them up for auction, so hateful bigots like Oliver and his pals who approved his statement, could fork over serious money for them, and plant them in their backyard, where they could continue to worship hatred, bigotry, and slavery. The money could go for education, so we end up with fewer ignoramuses of Oliver’s type.
As Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, there is a difference between the memory of history, and the reverence of it, and that sentence says all that is needed. These monuments, like the confederate flag, are not a type of aide-mémoire to history; they are a paean to horrible, blood-soaked, hate-fueled times in our recent past. And while we should certainly remember such times and actions, to remind of us of how easily we hate, and how easily we are willing to kill for that hate, that’s not, and never was, the purpose of these monuments. They were created to have some sort of victory; to bolster a sense of self-righteousness in the fight to keep the right of owning other humans.
Not only do I think it’s past time for these types of monuments to go quietly away, I also think the confederate flag, that handy American version of the swastika, should go as well. People such as Karl Oliver need to walk off into the sunset as well, being little more than bags of puffed up, vitriolic bigotry. We don’t need you anymore, either.
Oh, no! Godwin’d by the fucking white supremacist!
N-shouter Americans.
Yeah. Assholes have the nerve to call monument removal horrific. Lynching is horrific. Slavery is horrific. War over owning other humans is horrific.
“…they should be lynched…”. Oh my. There is a lot of people who shoot their own foot and call it a victory.
No, don’t destroy the statues. That takes us down to the level of the Taliban and ISIS. Some sculptor put a lot of effort into each one, and they do stand as a a reminder that some of us did revere these assholes enough to make statues of them. Deploy them appropriately.
Eastern Europeans have come up with clever solutions for the same problem. Outside of one town is a walled-in area that has a bunch of statues of various Communist leaders making speeches at each other. In another town, Lenin guards the bathrooms of an art gallery.
Timberwoof, excuse the fuck outta me, but where did you get the idea they are being destroyed? No one has said they are, I didn’t, no one official has. One fucking nazi shite supremacist has called removal to be the equal of destroyed, and you’re going with that?
Read more carefully, please.
The correct way to remember the American South would be to have various monuments dedicated to abolitionists and to the people who were enslaved by white Southerners.
Zero monuments should be to the lynchers and those fighting for slavery. That’s kinda how it works. When you say you want a World War II monument, you probably don’t mean to Goebbels, right?
Saad:
Works that way everywhere except the South, it seems. I have no idea why anyone would be proud of that past.
timberwoof
If eastern Europeans saved every Soviet statue, ever, they would still be everywhere. Most are destroyed, and I see nothing wrong with that. Some are saved for historical display, yes, but not in town squares as points of pride.
There’s nothing wrong with destroying garbage, if that’s what they choose to do with these statues in the south. Museum with appropriate labelling (e.g. death count) would also be good, but isn’t necessary. Melt them down and make abolitionists.
You can always make another statue. There’s a distinctly religious-relic feel to this resistance to removing the monuments or altering anything about them in any way. A bit fanatic.
I’ve always advocated leaving such Confederate statues, with the provision that each must contain, prominently displayed in type larger than the largest font used for the original inscription, the main sentences from the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens, VP of the Confederacy:
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“Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
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In addition, local descendants of enslaved African-Americans would be provided an equivalent amount of space for a photograph, drawing or quotation of their choice, illustrating the effects of slavery or its defenders on that community.
Opus @ 10, I think that is a stunningly bad idea, which misses the point in the widest possible scope.