Do statues tell us anything about history?

Blow those mf statues up!

yet they would never dare say anything about Africa being pillaged by China now would they ?

@Snowvixen No one is proposing banning Confederate museums. If that ever happens you can chime in and oppose it. I will oppose it too. Public statues are celebratory monuments. Museums are a walk through history.

And in case you didn't know, in my area, the erection of Confederate statues was the result of a push by the White Men's League, beginning in the 1870s. The White Men's League was a white supremacist, paramilitary organization formed to help deny blacks and Republicans the right to vote, end the Reconstruction government, and put governing power back in the hands white men and white men alone. They were closely allied with the KKK. Their goal was taking political power away from black people and instituting white supremacy.

The entire point of raising Confederate statues in my area was to celebrate white supremacy and intimidate black people. The statues begin to be erected in the 1890s when legislation and jurisprudence had once again given white people legal supremacy 8n the south.

Blacks were 40% to 47% of the population in Louisiana in the first 30 years after the Civil War. Mississippi and South Carolina had absolute black majorities. Four other southern states had populations that were over 40% black. In the 1870s, many whites were not allowed to vote due to their association with the Confederacy and waging war against the United States of America. So, in many places in the south, black people ruled due to having a majority of the vote. That's called democracy.

The White League instituted an intimidation campaign, including armed skirmishes with police and federal troops. Their tactics bore fruit by the turn of the century. They disenfranchised black voters by passing a new constitution in Louisiana in 1896 (or around 1896). Before 1896 Louisiana had over 130,000 black voters. By 1900 that number dropped to 5,000.

The US Supreme Court handed down Plessy v Furgeson also in 1896 legalizing segregation. By 1900, the south was the Jim Crow South, white men ruled again, and blacks were once again subhuman in the eyes of the law. All of this was due to the concerted campaigns of segregationist ideology and the intimidation of blacks by the violence of the White League and KKK.

Erecting those statues was a STRATEGIC move by white supremacist organizations. Their purpose was to let Negroes know they were once again under the thumb of white men and the United States government wasn't going to help them.

Any questions?

The same people who cheered back in 89 and 90 when the Berlin Wall came down, and people were pulling down statues of Lenin....are upset when people in 2020 take down statues of Confederates. 🤔

We can document history without glorifying the worst parts by raising statues of people who's lives were abhorrent.

I am inclined to agree with you.. When I heard about this my first thought was that, well what on earth are they doing having a statue of someone who profited by slavery! I think it's perhaps more complex as this person apparently did some good with his money too.. I don't think that makes it ok.. but I also think we have to acknowledge that 'most' of the rich/aristos back then made their money similarly so I am not sure where that leaves us..

My concern with removing statues is that we remove our history and opportunities to discuss history. Without something to put our eyes on it turns into out of sight-out of mind. Yes, these people who were memorialized may not have done right and proper things according to our present ideals; but they now allow for civil conversation to keep that history from repeating itself.

Also, while watching the video, I felt that the people’s behavior and actions to the statue were just as violent and offensive as the person represented in the statue.

What’s next? Tearing down war memorials? Burning museums? Removing history in-total because it does not conform with our present ideology?

If those things happen, we will be no better than the those represented in statues. Some food for thought...who is to say those being celebrated in our current society will not be vilified and condemned in the future? If there even is a future.

Just because you pull a statue down does not mean it'll erase history. Seems kinda dumb just my opinion. 🤷‍♀️

Plenty of awesome people in history who didn't kill millions in a manufactured famine, or own human beings, or do a genocide. Let's statue them.

Good for the people who pulled the statue down.

I said this before but those statues are a little like if me coming from a Pagan background went past statues built by the man who designed the punishments for witches lol. Nobody wants to see that. I'm sure some people out there actually see them as heroes because in the fundamentalist mind-set, they are battling "evil" but I don't want to see that. It makes me scared and kind of gives me generalized anxiety from thinking about what humans can do when they see someone as "bad" regardless if there's any logic to it or not.

There's plenty of other ways that we can not "forget" history. Change the history books to reflect what really happened and open up honest dialogue for one.

Texas changed the history books a long time they actually brought it to court and since then America has had to deal with their revisionist history for many years. Change it back and not let the Texas school-board of education make the finalized decision for all states.

Pulling down statues requires the least amount of effort and fortitude and yet it becomes the center of attention and is elevated as a solution. It solves nothing.

On one hand, honouring historic monsters seems disrespectful and yet all historic heroes can all be turned into monsters for practicing being human during their time on earth.

In the future, perhaps we will be vilified for not being responsible stewards of the planet and leaving it worse off than we found it. Will our statues be torn down as well?

Should statues become disposable since each self-absorbed generation can only tolerate heroes that represent their own times?

What I am absolutely pissed about is that a black man was killed, a British Police man beaten up by yobs and Boris and co have nothing to say but a statue of a slave trader is pulled down and they are completely up in arms and want the people arrested and the force of the law taken against them, it just goes to show this is still very much deep routed in modern Britain.

Where do we stop? Ideas alter through time so what is acceptable, even praiseworthy to one generation is disliked by another. Very few people of the past will be seen to be 'worthy' in the present climate although they were influential and possibly seen as kindly to their peers.
Harriet Beecher Stowe approved of the Highand Clearances where thousands of people were forcibly evicted, King Richard of England massacred thousand of Islamics, Genghis Khan is a hero in Mongolia yet was responsible for uncounted deaths.
This present trend reminds me of the Protestant Reformation when abbeys and other religious institutions were destroyed in the 16th century.

The historical event of tearing down statues that commemorate racists is far more fucking interesting than hte statues of the racists themselves.

Yes, I think they do. Taking the statues away doesn't change anything. Colston was still a slaver and the people of Bristol in 1895 thought he was worth commemorating 170 years after his death. I think the statue will now be in a museum, where far fewer people will see it. Possibly a missed opportunity to educate more people.

Bristol seems to be particularly, or maybe deliberately, ignorant of the role of slavery in its history. There is a good article in the local paper about it here. Until recently, only 100 people had signed a petition to remove it.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/how-city-failed-remove-edward-4211771

Having said that, I'm not saying no statues should be removed. I'm sure there aren't any statues of Cromwell left in Ireland. I think it's a very difficult judgement to decide what should be removed. Were the Taliban right to destroy 1700 year old statues of Buddha?

Most statues around the world have some connection to racism, so take them all down and then all our flags and then start on memorials....strip our countries bare and get rid of all our heritage ....stop teaching history.....

Just out of curiosity... how many statues of black people are there out there???

For the record, I don't have any that come to my mind.

I mean, black people have to have done something statue worthy by now... If a white woman with no arms and legs can have a statue - then, why not black people, too???

If the removal of a racists statue, effects your way of life. You are....
1) A Racist.
2) A Pigeon.
🤷‍♀️

In fact I’d like to say that it should be illegal in all countries to name bridges, airports, roads, etcetera after any person whatsoever. Every time a new regime or ideology comes into power, then things get changed up at a huge cost to the tax payer. It’s bullshit.

I understand and acknowledge that people are upset about what statues symbolize, however destroying legitimate art is pure vandalism. Put the statues in a museums and make it illegal for anyone to-forever to look at statues of people who have committed any atrocities and that goes for everyone of all races and creed.

Destroying art will never be ok in my book. Even if it was meant for propaganda purposes and it will continue.

Put it in museums. And be done with it.

And maybe those pulling statues down should be more concerned with the current atrocities going in, like in Lydian slave markets or Chinese concentration camps. Instead of pulling down art that’s part of history.

Interesting video.

She makes the argument very well. In the past I vacillated between whether we should judge historical figures by today's moral standards or those of their age. The "the persecuted knew it was wrong" position is extremely persuasive.

Art is being destroyed. Regardless of the ideologies of the time that it was created. It’s art that’s being decimated. And when the next people come into power, with different ideologies, then they’ll destroy the current art too. Thanks to hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt being hammered out, we’ve lost history and knowledge.
Rhodes wasn’t just bad to black people by the way.

I totally disagree!

OK, so this is well known history. Out of curiosity, how exposed are the UK's kids, to its racist/exploitative history, in schools?

What happened to all the Neville Chamberlain stuff?

They certainly remind us that history does in fact exist. Only silly people want them destroyed for the sins that the person may or may not have done.

boring world with no history

If you subscribe to the Christian faith, statues of people are technically false idols and all should be destroyed, no matter who they depict. Just a fun fact for the day.

They can be a good demonstration of a country's history and how times have changed since then.

At some point, something becomes old enough where the "who" stops mattering. But it takes a while. A very long while.

I’ve driven cross country I’ve seen lot of statues. A lot of them tell you a story.

It could have been 1,5 minutes shorter... and it would have made a better point imo.

Oh really? Not this again...

Not totally.

[b][big]TIMES UP BITCH[/big][/b]