These men who are depicted as heroes fought for the institution of slavery. What did the Civil War mean for both the Union and the Confederacy? A year after the United States had a diplomatic confrontation with Venezuela, Washington had a diplomatic confrontation with Caracas, and Venezuela had a diplomatic confrontation with Washington. They are a part of our cultural heritage. His policies were also deadly for thousands of Native Americans. 17, 2020, 42. There was the thought that these immigrants needed to be turned into productive workers, and that concern is where a lot of our public spaces come from. ], ProCon.org, "Historic Statue Removal Top 3 Pros & Cons,", ProCon.org, "Historic Statue Removal Top 3 Pros & Cons. Take away anything that smacks of the sort of imperialist legacy which clearly that statue embodies.
It was a great energy to be a part of removing that statue and seeding something new in its place; a little piece of respect and love for the land, which is what I consider the poem to be.. And there was a real concern about assimilating these immigrants into you can call it Americanization, but what it really was was an assimilation into white, Protestant culture. We do not erect monuments to people who performed extraordinary feats that were unquestionably evil, even if their characters included some virtuous traits. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. It is not possible to have them live in a single location at the same time. SINHA: I think when you go down that slippery slope, maybe it might backfire. GAZETTE: In the past, people have suggested the monuments should stay, but that additional plaques or other information should be incorporated to add context. And the vast majority of these statues were erected during the height of the Jim Crow movement, as historian Kevin M. Kruse has shown. George Martin, Why Confederate Monuments Should Be Preserved and Honored, charlotteobserver.com, July 6, 2017, 38. As goes the South, so goes the nation: Tennessees HIV cuts are a warning for marginalized populations, Florida, Oklahoma double down on the death penalty we need nationwide abolition now, Supreme Court to consider overruling Chevron doctrine, Tucker Carlson, on leaked video, derides Fox streaming service, Al Franken blasts Supreme Court: Its illegitimate, Senate rankings: Here are the 5 seats most likely to flip, Human brains show larger-than-life activity at moment of death. According to Richard Rose, President of Atlantas NAACP, there can be no contextual or commutational discussion of racism because the statues were intended to promote white supremacy. GORDON-REED: I would say there are other places for that on battlefields and cemeteries. Are you. [32] [33], Of the calls to take down Confederate monuments, President Donald Trump stated, This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. The slippery slope goes further, allowing anyone to destroy any statue they disagree with. That, my friends, is what we must work toward eradicating. [50], Ellis Cose, Senior Fellow at the ACLU, states that the statues should remain, with plaques and other material in place that point out that these men were traitors, not American heroes, and that their ugly legacy haunts us still. SINHA: Exactly. 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On the one hand, some argue that they are historical landmarks and should be preserved. Many of Americas founders George Washington, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Like, FDR, after all, was responsible for the internment of Japanese American citizens. Today progressives vandalize statues of Columbus and Lee, allegedly because of actions motivated by racism. Between June 17, 2015 and July 6, 2020, 59 Confederate statues, nine interpretive markers, and plaques were removed from public land in 19 states across the country. As contemporaries, Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II were both harshly criticized for their racist behaviors. Politics plays a role in answering close questions. Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Women, and the Possibility of Growth, chicagoreporter.com, Jan. 18, 2019, 48. It does not disqualify him that he selected a husband for his daughter rather than allowing her to select one for herself. The Confederate statues have no redeeming qualities to them, but other statues certainly do. GORDON-REED: Plaques can work in some situations. Heres a List., nytimes.com, Aug. 28, 2017, 6. A statue must be erected on land that is yours and have the authority to do so. The statues were built to honor and enforce white supremacist views, and the intent or damaging effect have not been erased by time. Who Abraham Lincoln was. Were trying to let the government know were not going to wait any longer for our freedom to happen. [19] Celebrations of Columbus have long been criticized due to his colonization and genocide of Indigenous people, as well as the false narrative that he discovered America when he never set foot on North America. Plaques can describe the history of slavery and the Civil War, as well as the white supremacist legacy that led to the creation of such monuments. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. So for instance, I just read today that the Museum of Natural History wants to take down a statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has an African American man and a Native American man standing alongside him while he's astride on a horse. Do you agree? I certainly understand the emotion the passion particularly if government officials have turned a blind eye to previous petitions from the community. These loans are available for those with a credit score of at least 500. Confederate statues depict anti-abolitionists as heroes and very honorable men, therefore they should be removed. New York Times, From 2017: Confederate Monuments Are Coming down dcross the United States. Nellie Peyton, As the Men of Stone Fall, Who Should Rise up and Take Their Place?, news.trust.org, July 2, 2020, 33. The SPLC reported at least 160 monuments were removed in 2020 after George Floyds death, more than the prior four years combined At last count, about 704 Confederate monuments remained on public land. Tension over statues has arisen within the recent Black Lives Matter protests. However, preservationism remains the dominant outlook of the sector. His explorations united a world previously divided by hemispheres. Lee was distinguished from his contemporaries by an exemplary career, both in the U.S. and Confederate armies, of competence and honor. Donald Trump, Twitter.com, June 30, 2020, 35. There are a variety of reasons why Confederate monuments should be removed from public spaces. Those who argue in favor of keeping political statues in public spaces typically make the following points: 1. The Onion looks at the pros and cons of removing historical statues. Confederate monuments, in our society, are an artifact from an era gone wrong. They are not an accurate representation of our countrys diverse population. Removing statues is a slippery slope that could lead to the brash removal of monuments to any slightly problematic person. The concept of La Raza -as* -as* is based on the idea that all latinos are united in EEUU and that they are committed to aquella tradition. Ellis Cose, Keep Confederate Monuments, but Put Their Horrific History on Center Stage, usatoday, Aug. 21, 2017, 52. Does this moment, and these efforts feel different to you? Manisha Sinha, a Civil War historian at the University of Connecticut, says when it comes to, say, Robert E. Lee, take it down. Most monuments I'm aware of attest to conquered people and lands, including my people., The Robert E. Lee monument, erected several decades after the Civil War to commemorate the Confederate general, was recently removed following more than a year of protests for racial justice. [49], Author Sophia A. Nelson, JD, who notes she is the granddaughter of a slave, states that she does not fear 150-year-old statues of old dead white men. Nelson argues that her classmates at Washington & Lee University didnt hate [black students] because there were statues of Robert E. Lee or George Washington (our nations first President and a slave owner) on campus. Arguments for why Confederate statues should not be removed include pointing out the dark sides of other celebratedAmerican heroes, like Washington and Jefferson, as well as the politicization of the statues when there are more important problems. Cicero was a great orator, an outstanding lawyer, a spokesman for balanced government, and the single person most responsible for transmitting the Greek philosophical tradition to Western Europe.
The Pros and Cons of Pulling Down Statues - Medium This is the first statue of a black person to be installed in Statuary Hall, and it was commissioned by the state. The interpretations have been contradictory, and the results are presented in the form of commentaries.
Should Statues Of Historic Figures With Complicated Pasts Be - NPR The monument divided the African American community, exposing various political philosophies on how to deal with white supremacy.
Your Arguments Against Removing The Statues Are Bad Robert Draper, Toppling Statues Is a First Step toward Ending Confederate Myths, nationalgeographic.com, July 2, 2020, 24. Police stopped these protesters, but statues are coming down around the U.S., yanked down or removed by local governments. A copy of the Statue of Liberty was damaged in Valencia, so it was removed from the citys streets. Political iconoclasm has a dark and violent historyone we should be eager not to repeat. When activists deface statues, ultimately what theyre doing is forcing the citys hand so that they either have to put money into restoration, which doubles down on whatever message that monument is sending, or they can just remove it. Colleen Walsh, Must We Allow Symbols of Racism on Public Land?, harvard.edu, June 19, 2020, 44. Symbolic annihilation can result in society valuing groups of people less and in internalized negativity among those groups. Ted Mann, Lincoln Statue With Kneeling Black Man Becomes Target of Protests, wsj.com, June 25, 2020, 14. Q: Are there any monuments that, even though they send a message most agree is now outdated or harmful, should still be kept as a kind of reminder of what not to do, or what we have overcome? Any statue removal may result in the removal of monuments from any individual with a problematic history. I was really dismayed to see the statue of Grant, especially, come down because Grant was never. But so did tens of thousands of others similarly situated. A petition in Tennessee gained 22,736 signatures (and counting as of July 8, 2020) to replace all Confederate statues in the state, including the statue of Confederate Army General and KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest that stands in the states capitol building, with statues of Dolly Parton. Evan Andrews, How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Enslaved People?, history.com, Sep. 3, 2019, 45. It was an event that forced segregationists to come down rather than a single persons actions. Gino Spocchia, Christopher Columbus Statue Torn Down, Set on Fire and Tossed in Lake by Anti-Racism Protesters in Virginia, independent.co.uk, June 10, 2020, 9. There is a plaque next to the Peace Monument in Atlanta, Georgia, that states, This monument should no longer serve as a memorial for white Brotherhood. Remove Confederate statues from public places based on the pros and cons. The XVI Tumba-estatuas de Guaicaipuro present the main lder of the resistencia indgena a la conquista del Valle de Caracas. Theres nothing to memorialize there, except a history of white supremacy and treason. We see this in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. Confederate monuments, in particular, hold religious, cultural, economic, and political values. The states declared they had not been fighting to preserve slavery and, instead, fashioned a set of ideas and arguments that they were fighting to hold back the massive industrialization of America, they were trying to preserve rural agrarian civilization, according to David W. Blight, PhD, American History Professor at Yale University. Its saying, We still have the upper hand. [23], Finley hit not only on the current psychological impact of the statues, but also on the intended historical impact. [44] Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the white suffragists purposefully excluded black women. GREENE: But what about historical figures with complicated, often racist histories who were also Union generals or former presidents? Explore the Southern Poverty Law Centers Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy resource, which promotes the removal of confederate statues. The architect Daniel Burnham was a leader in the movement; he went on to do the McMillan Plan for the National Mall in D.C. Photo courtesy of Getty Images/iStockphoto, (480) 965-9657
What Are The Pros and Cons of FHA Loans For Buyers and Sellers John Daniel Davidson, Why We Should Keep The Confederate Monuments Right Where They Are, thefederalist.com, Aug. 18, 2017, 37. And thats so important, because future generations will see those images of self-representation of groups that have traditionally been excluded from these monuments making a statement about how colonization has affected them, or how they have survived and are resilient. Debate around the removal of memorials and monuments that honor people and ideas whose messages and causes are considered offensive to certain marginalized groups has been a hot-button issue of late in the national conversation. Who Frederick Douglass was. History protests Confederate Monuments and Other Disputed Memorials Have Come Down in Cities Across America. You said that moving to statues like George Washington and the Founding Fathers is going from one extreme to another extreme. Khushbu Shah, Atlanta's Confederate Monuments: How Do Context Markers Help Explain Racism?, theguardian.com, Aug. 3, 2019, 25. They can be kept in museums with proper historical context rather than on a plinth to be admired. GAZETTE: Many believe that taking the statues down is an attempt to cover up or erase history.
The Rights and Wrongs of Taking Down Monuments - Reason.com Aishvarya Kavi, Activists Push for Removal of Statue of Freed Slave Kneeling Before Lincoln, nytimes.com, June 27, 2020, 20. First, removing all these statues and monuments cost a lot of money and take a long time. 5. Confederate statues were the focus of protests in Richmond, Virginia, last summer. The statues are also seen as ahistorical and ahistorical in depicting people who contributed to slavery, attempted to secede from the United States, and fought for independence from the United States. It depends on who the person is and what the objections are. They were on the wrong side of history. They can be seen as a form of art. These are various statues across the US which honor Confederate leaders or "heroes". Chan School of Public Health celebrates opening of $25M Thich Nhat Hanh Center for research, approaches to mindfulness, Women who suppressed emotions had less diverse microbiomes in study that also found specific bacterial link to happiness, Tenn. lawmaker Justin Pearson, Parkland survivor David Hogg 23 talk about tighter gun control, GOP attempts to restrict voting rights, importance of local politics, Dangers involved in rise of neurotechnology that allows for tracking of thoughts, feelings examined at webinar, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College. [39] [40] [41], However, Washington led the Continental Army to victory over the British, held together the country as the first President over two terms, resisted calls to become King of the country, and, in his will, freed his slaves upon his wifes death. The Confederates lost the war, the rebellion. Eight US presidents owned slaves while in office, with an additional four owning slaves while not in office. Defunding the humanities, cutting history classes and departments. Accuracy and availability may vary. They didnt like having black classmates because they had racist hearts.