To everyone suggesting the racist’s statue should be kept;
Statutes are a means to honor someone. They are a disgrace. And their statutes are a reminder that their ideology was once accepted, and admired enough to be honored.
I’m personally not a fan of any statues. We have a tendency to create hagiographies of people, not realizing until decades later that they are human.
That said, putting up statues of losers of a war just…doesn’t fucking make sense. We don’t have statues of King George or Osama Bin Laden anywhere. No one is screaming about their heritage.
hagiographies
Um… new word.
I like the idea of putting them into a museum of their history, so we can appreciate the skill that was needed to make them but we also learn about the stain on humanity that the subjects represent
Most of them are not good examples of the fine arts. Shit, the average town would just buy one from travelling salesmen who intentionally sold mass produced statues that had easily modified insignia and could be sold on either side of the Mason-Dixon line. The one in this story was just a carved obelisk from the early 20th century, probably from a tombstone yard in northeast Georgia.
If somebody ponied up for Auguste Rodin to do a Confederate statue, then okay fine let’s squirrel it away in the corner of a museum somewhere, maybe even from a lesser light like Charles Keck, but other than that you could adequately preserve the artistic and historical value of these things, even the ones of specific enslaving assholes, with a dozen examples in a storage unit somewhere, along with a flash drive holding 3D scans of the rest, and that’s presuming you actually got all the southern municipalities to agree to take them down.
why make them agree?
remind them of an actual civil war hero, and just take them down, killing any CSA fuckers who get in your way?
There’s plenty other examples of skill to use that doesn’t have a subject of traitors….this can get melted, or otherwise destroyed.
Yeah like a normal poster explaining what shitty people they were to teach. There’s no reason to glorify them with statues, the majority of which were put to by daughters of the Confederacy or whatever in the 1920s. Shitgibbons themselves.
if we need the materials for anything, or it gets too expensive to keep in a box, sure. lets not give this scrap priority over other scrap.
I agree in the same way there is Nazi paraphernalia/propaganda in museums today. If we don’t teach about and denounce traitors we’ll be sure to see more. These statues were used a century later to brainwash people into advocating for terrorism.
Your last sentence gave me an idea.
Why don’t we put the Confederacy statues in something like an “American Slavery Museum”?
Its probably good to remember that these horrific ideas were once admired and honored, lest we become complacent. But putting them in the right context, i.e. next to evidence of the horrors wrought by their ideals, seems like the perfect place for them imho.
Edit: well, not every idea I have is a winner.
You won’t find statues of Hitler, Goering, or other Nazi figures in the Holocaust Museum. I’m well aware of what they did, and I’m sure many others are as well.
No, for the same reason Hitlers body isn’t on display for “historic” purposes. Sudate on them, yes. Otherwise they should be erased from discourse as to not become idols much like many confederate leaders are today.
also, date each statue was comissioned constructed and finished.
and a reminder of the names of every piece of shit who voted for it. addresses, for the ones who are still alive.
Good trouble.
Ooohhhh way down south in the land of traitors, rattlesnakes and alligators…
May the spirit of Sherman carry you forever my friend.
Can we put Sherman in Atlanta and Savannah with a torch in one hand and his saber in the other?
Just a historical reminder…
Go full patriot and put a statue of Sherman on top of a Sherman tank lol
I hope they’re putting the statues they’ve been removing in storage or something. Imo it’s kinda important history (partially due to age,1 partially because their removal is kinda big from a historical perspective) and just destroying them kinda sucks. Put them in a huge warehouse for academics to study or something.
1 (yes Europeans, I know 100yrs isn’t much and that your apartment building is probably that old. However, in the US, it’s rare for something to last more than 100yrs)
Edit: for clarification, the “historically significant” part is the fight to takedown the statues and the realization of just how many and how common they are. I’m aware they were erected after the civil war.
The monument in question was erected in 1908 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group which exists to this day and remains inextricably linked to the Ku Klux Klan. Let those traitors pay to store their garbage if they want to.
Put them in a huge warehouse for academics to study or something.
We don’t need to keep these statues to understand their racist purpose, nor to document their removal for the historical record.
im actually in favor of charging them for this, and using the most overpriced government contractor you can find, with some absurd conditions about how visible they can be from outside (not at all) etc. maybe add an expensive certification. if their heritage is really that expensive, they can pay out the ass for it.
or, gouge them just the same, and give all the money to the SPLC or something.
I’m aware they aren’t Confederate era. I still believe them to be historically significant due to the outrage they’ve caused. I think it’d still be worth putting them all together in a single warehouse because, at the very least, people would be able to get a true sense of the scope of the problem.
Which would have more impact, a statue or two with a description saying that hundreds of such statues existed, or a balcony overlooking said hundreds of statues?
Personally, I’d find the latter way more impactful. It’s hard to imagine just how many statues are in “hundreds of statues” (heck, some people literally can’t visualize things in their heads); seeing them altogether would probably be mind boggling.
He’s dogmatic about this and truly has zero cool don’t bother
Meh, I don’t agree with them, but I understand why they feel strongly about it. The statues were an attempt to whitewash the civil war; of course people, especially non-white Americans, are going to feel very strongly about it.
I guess the way I see it though, is that the statues are technically part of America’s civil war history. No, they weren’t put up during the Confederacy, but they were intentionally built to affect the way people saw the civil war. Afaik that kinda technically makes them a part of civil war history.
Does that mean they’re worth preserving?
Tbh, I don’t really know, I’m not a historian so I ultimately don’t know how useful they’d be for studying and teaching about the civil war and reconstruction era. I’m concerned about losing parts of human history, but if expert historians believe the statues wouldn’t have any use for research or education, then I guess there’s not really any reason to not crush or melt them down.
Another side of it is that it’s a lot harder to downplay their significance or claim them as hoaxes when the original article still exists. That doesn’t mean people won’t try to do it anyway (I mean, Holocaust denialism seems in vogue among the far right wing right now), but it makes it easier to rub their faces in their stupidity when you can point to a physical mass of statues as opposed to a photo gallery or a plaque (I can already imagine people trying to claim that the pictures were AI generated or that the media was making a bigger deal about it than it actually is).
I’ve also already seen some people who seem to think that if the statues are removed, then the problem magically disappears and America isn’t racist anymore. That’s gross and makes me uncomfortable. America has a very racist, bigoted history. Don’t try to whitewash American history like that.
I’d be very curious to see where you read/heard “If the statues are removed then the problem magically disappears and America is not racist anymore.” Honestly, I have generally only ever heard that argument as a theoretical position proposed by people against removing the statues. They think that’s why people want them gone, that they believe it “magically solves our social issues.” It’s meant to be an intellectually dishonest accusation.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone explicitly state it, however I remember seeing a handful of people on Reddit who’s comments seemed to imply that view point several years ago when people first started talking about removing them. I could have been misinterpreting what they were saying, but that was the impression I got and it grossed me out.
Honestly I think you’re way overestimating how simplistic in their logic people who are against these statues generally are.
I think there are many great museums for them to give historical context/discuss the vile history of post-reconstruction glorification of the civil war.
We don’t need all of them but to destroy them all I think is a backwards decision. They are unique works that should be studied and discussed so we remember to ask the hard questions and look at our history without rose tinted glasses. Racism is still alive and well and we need to see the cultural flashpoints and contributions throughout our history that have contributed.
Beauregard for instance is a fascinating figure. After the war he wrote and spoke extensively about how wrong he was to fight for the confederacy and openly said it was about slavery and everyone else is full of shit. He even advocated for black Americans’ right to vote after the war. Yet a statue of him in his confederate uniform was erected anyway against his wishes. This is worthy of discussion.
Don’t get me wrong - he was a confederate general and nothing will wipe that stain away. But people are complicated and can grow. It shouldn’t be “confederate pride,” we should be going “why did they choose him”? There’s a lot to unpack.
Take a damn picture before you melt 'em down if you want. Traitors don’t deserve statues, and racists don’t get to keep them.
Let’s go bulldoze former nazi concentration camps. We have plenty of photos and videos right?
Let’s go bulldoze former nazi concentration camps. We have plenty of photos and videos right?
Those concentration camps weren’t built 43 years after the war by the descendants of Nazis to continue intimidating Jewish people, now were they? Do you see me claiming we should destroy civil war forts? No. You’re just trying to shift the discussion because your original point was weak enough to be countered by simply reminding you that “cameras exist.”
Now, I’m not going to continue indulging you by defending myself from claims I never made in the first place. We’re done here.
History isn’t pretty. We don’t just keep things we like. I think confederate statues belong out of the public sphere 100% but museums are totally appropriate.
Yes we are done here.
How would statues enhance any of the discussions you suggest?
This is an argument against having any real objects besides photos/videos in museums. Should we remove all nazi weapons? SS uniforms? Warplanes that we’ve preserved?
What about all the posters and various bigoted media produced by all countries during the war? All these and more are housed at the national WWII museum in the US.
I used to believe this, then I remembered cameras exist. They can be 3d scanned for the academics or whatever, I think the loosers don’t deserve trophies.
The “Confederate” monument that was removed wasn’t a Civil War monument; it was bullshit put up 50 years after-the-fact by “Lost Cause” nutcases. It’d be like if MAGAs put up a statue of George Wallace in 2024 to celebrate this fuckery.
Metro Atlanta does have a few legitimate Civil War monuments that actually deserve preservation, but this was not one of them!
I know they aren’t confederate-era. The thing that I think makes them historically significant is the fact they’ve caused so much outrage. As such, I think it’s important to showcase just how much of a problem they are. It’s not like a single statue here or there, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of them.
As I asked in another reply, which would be more impactful, seeing a statue or two with a plaque that says something about hundreds of them existing, or a balcony overlooking a warehouse full of them? Personally, I think the latter would have a much stronger impact on me because it would emphasize just how many of them there are/were.
