It'd be funny to explain it that way to the Confederate-fancying Americans - "this is exactly how the Poles felt when the USSR collapsed". Blind 'em with confusion by putting them in the positions of the evil reds

Yeah the worst is their argument that history is being erased and people will repeat history if they don't have the monuments to remember it by. Yeah getting rid of Hitler statues totally made Germans forget who Hitler was. I see that name on the internet sometimes but I have no idea who that was. Some Formula 1 driver or something? So yeah gotta keep monuments to slavery defenders otherwise all knowledge of slavery is instantly and completely wiped from everybody's memory.

For real, you build monuments to represent things you love or are proud of. There shouldn't be Confederate monuments anywhere in America for the same reason don't have a statue of Steve Yzerman outside of the United Center. "Erasing history" is such an obvious bullshit argument that it blows me away that it's still the dominant defense.

I was livid when Hitler beat Alonso to the title in 2005. He shouldn't have even been allowed to compete with his human rights records. Just like the Chinese Olympics! Money talks!

As everyone knows, artistic impressions glorifying a famous person are an essential primary source for historians. It's not like most primary sources are written, right?

Great argument.

And those Confederate statues were built looooong after the south fell, at a time when a reemergence of overt racism swept through the bottom half of the country faster than Coronavirus at a Trump rally. They're also of extremely poor quality, made out of something akin to plaster of paris. Anyone who believes they should remain standing in public isn't just morally reprehensible, they probably think Thomas Kinkade is one of the greatest painters of our time.

My general feeling on a lot of those monuments and statues is that they do represent important parts of history, in the same way that preserved propaganda posters do. Not the least bit objective, but biased sources are still valuable, especially in reconstructing the mindset and sentiments of a time period.

But just like we don't preserve old war propaganda posters by keeping them plastered on walls in public spaces, there's no reason to preserve these statues by keeping them in public spaces.

Dismantling and relocating them to museums dedicated to the unvarnished truth about the depicted people and their impact on history seems to me the best solution.

There could never be a better statement on the subject of Confederate statues than by Robert E. Lee himself:

For a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869:
“I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

In his writings, Lee cited multiple reasons for opposing such monuments, questioning the cost of a potential Stonewall Jackson monument, for example. But underlying it all was one rationale: That the war had ended, and the South needed to move on and avoid more upheaval.

“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated,” Lee wrote of an 1866 proposal, “my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; and of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour.”

A statue of Steve Yzerman outside of the United Center would definitely drive up the value of the United Center.

I feel this has a good take on the issue:

As a Red Wings fan, I would love to see such a statue there.

Seeing as no one's posted on this, and this is a very recent update on the matter:

Atlanta mayor orders police to de-escalate confrontations after Rayshard Brooks shooting

---

And another link:

'Guardians Not Warriors': Atlanta Mayor Orders Police Reforms

Jeez he's not the best ever, but what have you got against his paintings?

Psychotic civil war fantasies come to life in Oakland, CA.

-edit- Got two news articles mixed together. The latest incident I'm referring to was in Albuquerque, NM while a guy in Oakland, CA was charged with murder for a separate incident 11 days ago.

Clutching at your pearls over vandalizing statues of assholes is peak Karen behaviour, at best. Don't be a Karen.


...You're kidding right

Rayshard Brooks's killer was just charged with 11 counts, including felony murder and aggravated assault. On one hand, this seems like a victory. On the other, I don't think many, if any, of these charges are going to stick. The cynic in me almost feels like these charges were designed to let him off.

What do you guys think?

I have to ask you but do you really think 'Clutching at your pearls' is a criticism that anyone will take seriously?

It's not a criticism but more of a description of a kind of behavior. Calling someone a "Karen" is a criticism, and in light of the fact that many Karens have been wanting to change their name, I would argue it is a valid criticism that is taken seriously

See the below article - A great many of the people posturing about the statue toppling, especially in a city like Oxford (the definition of unthinking, self-absorbed privilege), are the British equivalent of Karens - a great deal of 'what do you mean you don't agree with me / have the world ordered precisely to my view ?! Let me speak to someone with a mixture of authority and existential worry about their career so that I can get this corrected'.

The funniest thing is the mental gymnastics contest in the comments, as the right-on Guardian types justify keeping hold of money made by Rhodes in diamond mining, colonialism, the odd war, a bit of piracy here and there - no, no, no, we just want to take his statue down, we're quite happy with the massive endowment fund that puts little Olivia and Julian through university in style

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/17/end-of-the-rhodes-cecil-oxford-college-ditches-controversial-statue

To our American cousins - your entirely valid movement about terrible injustice has been reduced to hypocritical academic navel gazing by the British - for that I do apologise

I agree. First prize.

I was actually thinking about this last night. When news networks are calling women that do questionable things, "Karen's" I wondered what normal women named Karen thought about this.

My name isn't Karen, it's David. I do like my name, though. If there was some kind of National hate towards the name "David" I'd like to think that I would try to show that not every David is bad and not change my name.

If the Karen meme bothers you just watch Rambo IV where Rambo and Karen kill all the bad guys together.

I'm glad HBO Max got alt-right boys so fixated on how much they love Scarlett O'Hara, keeps them out of any relevant debates. And I guess it also means they got over how seeing a black Arielle would ruin their imaginary daughters' lives.

Here in Australia, we have protesters joining in the rest of the world in defacing statues. There's a campaign targeting statues of Captain James Cook.
I don't really understand why Cook would get targeted. The man was a cartographer. He had nothing to do with colonisation. Here in Australia at least, why not target Arthur Phillips, who lead the first colonisation efforts? Am I missing something?

The Kentucky AG held a press conference today regarding the Breonna Taylor investigation. I had heard from several friends that the courthouse was already "barricaded" hours before the press conference so we expected the worst.

Ultimately he just wasted everyone's time. The message at it's core seemed to be "We're working on it". Ooookay? I feel that they've placed themselves in a logic trap by already creating a new law in her name. To me that's an admission of wrongdoing. If you're admitting that already up front, then surely the investigation has to be taken 100% serious and seen to it's end, right? Unfortunately they have proven they don't operate within the confines of logic or common sense, as demonstrated by having the national guard roll in and brutalize our community, including the murder of David McAtee, who was LITERALLY a wonderful human being who only wanted to feed a community that has been abandoned. There's not even a fucking grocery store operational in the area anymore. Complete food desert.

I haven't been checking in on this thread as much because frankly, it's a lot of people who want to philosophize on the issue because they are able to sit back and do that from a comfortable position, unaffected directly. It hurts. I'm experiencing the same thing from my own family, especially my father and his side, who are all white as pure driven mayonnaise. My fiance is a person of color and obviously our children will be as well. It's really nagging at me that one entire half of my family may be a danger to my own children, should they exist one day.

Don't assume. I got into the subject when I met my fiancée (should be wife but lockdown causes a delay) who is a Brazilian who was living in Europe and before me was dating an English dude who radicalised to Britain First shit and destroyed her life in every possible way before I met her. It's impossible to handle these backwards shit ideologies once you've personally seen what kind of damage they do to people.

And by "don't assume" I'm fairly certain there are a lot more forum members who aren't armchairing things but have a personal stake in the subject, even if it might not appear that way at first glance.

Oh and last time she returned to Brazil, I dropped her off at Amsterdam airport and returned to Germany by bus, crossing the border from the Netherlands (where weed is legal) to Germany (where weed is illegal), and the German border police stopped the bus, and searched everyone with long hair (like myself) and everyone with dark skin for weed, and left everybody else alone. Like it's obvious what they are doing, what their criteria are, every little bit of life experience tells you that immediately. Cops don't care if you're an actual suspect, they only care if you look different, if your skin is darker or if you're in another way different. That's a fact.

And these are just a few anecdotes to highlight why I definitely wasn't talking about you!

Maybe I am making assumptions, or extrapolating too much from some folks tone. But there are a few that seem...very very aloof to the heart of the matter, and in a desperate way to steer the direction to more "philosophical" discussions. I'm finding this a common reaction from a lot of white folks I know who feel they can have a detached and thus somehow more "accurate" stance on the whole thing. I just don't feel like there's room for debate on most of this stuff. It's human rights, not opinion.

Six people of color lynched in the US just recently and EVERY SINGLE ONE was judged to be a suicide by local law enforcement. ICE is detaining people under the most vile conditions. Situations that would be considered a war crime if there was any conflict other than our government versus people of color. So watching users here go around and around in these pseudo debates becomes nauseating to me. I check in occasionally for the folks who are posting information from the frontlines.

You could have, because the anecdotes weren't there when I first posted in the thread, and that's my point, there could be others who have a personal stake in it but it isn't immediately apparent. Mixed race families, relationships and friendships are a lot more common than a lot of people think and only people who are completely blind (it actually happens among alt-right "I have this and this friend therefore" types) will not notice that their spouse, partner or friend is stopped by the cops ten times more than they are.

Wasn't sure if I should put this here or in the general politics thread. They're currently boarding up the courthouse in Louisville, Kentucky (Where Breonna Taylor was murdered), seemingly in advance of a ruling. If they're really not going to press charges, I hope they're ready for their city to burn. Just unreal.

I'm sorry you're going through all of this. You're right, there's a lot of smug, detached hot takes at times, it's very aggravating.

Thank you and I apologize. I'm 100% not trying to make this about me or mine individually. Completely the opposite. Just trying to share some relevant info about KY/Louisville. I shouldn't have even mentioned my personal feelings tbh.

Trashy_Rambo: The press conference was at 3pm and it was basically just the Kentucky AG saying "We're working on it.". If you hear anything more than this please let me know here or in a PM, I'd really appreciate it. I haven't heard anything outside of the non-statements made at the press conference.

Of course. I'm quarantined in my room right now, so I'll have my ear to the ground.

I think it probably goes to show how little of Australian colonial history (and pre-colonial history, just to be clear) is taught when we were in school. Australian history, at least the bulk of it, tends to start with WW1, specifically Gallipoli (“the birth of a nation”). My random Cook fact, he was not officially a Captain (as in naval rank).

Do you really not understand how the two were connected? Britain had been involved with the slave trade and colonization of lands outside Europe for nearly two centuries by James Cook's time. The act of mapping out lands unknown to Europeans (many of which were already inhabited) wasn't just for knowledge's sake, it was to scope out opportunities to expand the enterprises of colonialism and slavery, which is exactly what happened in the Pacific after Cook.



Yes. As white people, we prefer to think of colonialism as something that happened a long time ago, which was sad and wrong but we can move past now. In reality, black and indigenous people still suffer under the white supremacist systems that were built in places like Australia and the Americas (which are names created by whites and imposed on those lands!), and efforts to remove statues of colonial figures or slavers is a very modest, small effort to move towards a just future where black and indigenous people can live in dignity and not be an underclass in the lands where their ancestors have lived for millennia or were forced to inhabit against their will and work for nothing.

The situation in Europe is a bit different, since they are mostly not settler-colonial societies and whites are "native" there, but the wealth and powerful global position of Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and many other countries was attained in no small part through colonialism and slavery, and statues that honor men who committed colonial atrocities exist there, too, as does the racism inherited from colonialism. Look up the history of the Congo Free State and tell me that Belgians should tolerate statues honoring Leopold II anywhere in their country.

Seriously ? 'As white people'

Honestly ?

Christ

Yeah I'm with Methuen on that, there's no monolithic "white people" just as much as there's no monolithic perception of the world within black people. I hate when people make these wide swaths of judgement on any race. It's one thing to acknowledge systemic problems in regard to race, it's entirely another thing to pigeon hole people into categories simply because of their race.

But that said, I think Inkshooter is right to say that colonialism is seen by large amounts of people as a historical event that the present has no relation with. Imo, there's a rather simple explanation for this. Photography and other forms of visual historical documentation psychologically feeds into our minds as to when certain things happen. Anything with a black and white photo feels more relatable than something without it. We don't look at paintings of presidents from the late 18th century and feel some sort of relationship to them because, well, they're painting- and who on earth this day and age conveys reality through this? But some black and white photo makes us feel like we're actually looking at history that can be relatable.

Several nooses found hanging in Van Cortlandt Park (Bronx). NYPD won't open an investigation and claim they're "leftover piñata string"



Source: https://gothamist.com/news/reports-noos ... tes-allege


This is beyond fucked up

Okay, how about "Many Western Europeans and descendants of European settlers prefer to think..."

I phrased it the way I did because I'm not immune to that line of thought either, it's foundational to the social order in the US and elsewhere.

"Piñata string" left after a party of people disguised as ghosts and calling themselves Wizards, I bet.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but Hunter Avallone posted an interesting documentary of the George Floyd incident and an analysis of his character. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9li-l0Oxa3E