“If this is wrong, i wonder if anyone can offer proof otherwise. "
You’re the one who made a claim.
Donald Trump frequently puts on red pumps, and dances around the Oval Office singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” I wonder if anyone can offer proof otherwise.
Those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it. And instead of removing the statues, they shouldn’t be a reminder of the past, but how FAR WE’VE COME. And those that don’t agree with the second sentence, reread the first.
I hope Stantis is reading these comments because he needs to hear this one. This particular strip crosses the line from being politically contrary to being patently offensive. And I’m not talking about the argument that those who want the statues down are only hurting themselves (and I’m not sure how this argument even holds water anyway). No, my problem is the final dig delivered by Carmen, a girl of color apparently in defense of leaving the statue where in place.
You’ve never said what ethnicity Carmen is, but in this case it doesn’t matter. She’s not white. And while I’m sure you can find a few minority voices that defend Confederate monuments, the vast majority of us have had to pass by these moral monstrocities for decades. And they aren’t harmless. They also aren’t standing history lessons. We don’t learn history in school by statue study. We use monuments to honor people who did great deeds…who did great things. The only thing these people on the statues did was justify the cruel enslavement of millions who look like Carmen. They were traitors to the nation, responsible for killing an estimated 620,000 Americans. To say nothing of defending the treatment and deaths of countless thousands of Africans.
We can’t undo the past. But we can look at the past with a more critical eye and look at the recent past when these statues were erected with a more critical eye. They were a giant middle finger to Reconstruction in the 19th century, to those who opposed Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century and the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. And all the while, people who looked like me or looked like Carmen were the ones who were warned not to buck a morally indefensible social system.
It is possible to be a black or minority conservative and not defend this stuff. Please consider that before you put Carmen’s character in a similar situation.
Did the guys in Eastern Europe who pulled the statues of Lenin down in the 1990s feel better? Did the guys in Iraq who pulled the statues of Saddam down in the 2000s feel better?
Those who erase history by tearing down statues are indistinguishable from those who destroy pagan temples in the name of Allah. I note a similar tendency toward violence among those practitioners.
Wow! How about a word from a black woman on this?http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-richardson-black-confederate-history-20170827-story.html
I’m a black daughter of the Confederacy, and this is how we should deal with all those General Lees.
Last paragraph:
To all the bronze Confederate soldiers, in whom I see the image of my great-great-great-grandfather, I would extend this grace. Without resentment or rancor, I would move them into museums and there tell the story of their lives. I would end their utility as flashpoints for racism and division, and, once and for all, allow them to retire from their long service as sentries over a whitewashed history.
As for Robert E. Lee, consider what he thought.
“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…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.”
“He said he was not interested in any monuments to him or – as I recollect – to the Confederacy,” explained James Cobb, history professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, who has written about Lee’s rise as an icon.
“I don’t think that means he would have felt good about the people who fought for the Confederacy being completely forgotten,” Cobb added. “But he didn’t want a cult of personality for the South.”
Lee advocated protection of just one form of memorial: headstones in cemeteries.
“All I think that can now be done,” he wrote in 1866, “is … to protect the graves [and] mark the last resting places of those who have fallen…”
There’s a good thing that could be done with those statues. They could be put in museums… with accurate labels telling who they are and the crimes against humanity and the acts of treason against the United States that they committed. Waste not, want not. A stupid hero worship object could then become a valuable teaching tool. This would not be rewriting history but the un-rewriting of history.
Thirdbase over 6 years ago
We should be so lucky. Of course the victim would just sue the city for not making the statues easily removeable or some such.
Darsan54 Premium Member over 6 years ago
Carmen, you’re saying you approve of monuments to the enslavement of black people? Is that where your parents went?
Eric Thom Premium Member over 6 years ago
If only that would happen to the real protesters.
Ignatz Premium Member over 6 years ago
“If this is wrong, i wonder if anyone can offer proof otherwise. "
You’re the one who made a claim.
Donald Trump frequently puts on red pumps, and dances around the Oval Office singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” I wonder if anyone can offer proof otherwise.
twclix over 6 years ago
Ugly, yes, reality, thankfully not. Here’s my response. Slavery bad. Treason bad. Neither is to be celebrated with public statues.
metagalaxy1970 over 6 years ago
Those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it. And instead of removing the statues, they shouldn’t be a reminder of the past, but how FAR WE’VE COME. And those that don’t agree with the second sentence, reread the first.
sevenfeet0 over 6 years ago
I hope Stantis is reading these comments because he needs to hear this one. This particular strip crosses the line from being politically contrary to being patently offensive. And I’m not talking about the argument that those who want the statues down are only hurting themselves (and I’m not sure how this argument even holds water anyway). No, my problem is the final dig delivered by Carmen, a girl of color apparently in defense of leaving the statue where in place.
You’ve never said what ethnicity Carmen is, but in this case it doesn’t matter. She’s not white. And while I’m sure you can find a few minority voices that defend Confederate monuments, the vast majority of us have had to pass by these moral monstrocities for decades. And they aren’t harmless. They also aren’t standing history lessons. We don’t learn history in school by statue study. We use monuments to honor people who did great deeds…who did great things. The only thing these people on the statues did was justify the cruel enslavement of millions who look like Carmen. They were traitors to the nation, responsible for killing an estimated 620,000 Americans. To say nothing of defending the treatment and deaths of countless thousands of Africans.
We can’t undo the past. But we can look at the past with a more critical eye and look at the recent past when these statues were erected with a more critical eye. They were a giant middle finger to Reconstruction in the 19th century, to those who opposed Jim Crow laws in the early 20th century and the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. And all the while, people who looked like me or looked like Carmen were the ones who were warned not to buck a morally indefensible social system.
It is possible to be a black or minority conservative and not defend this stuff. Please consider that before you put Carmen’s character in a similar situation.
Christopher Shea over 6 years ago
Did the guys in Eastern Europe who pulled the statues of Lenin down in the 1990s feel better? Did the guys in Iraq who pulled the statues of Saddam down in the 2000s feel better?
Rick Parkhurst Premium Member over 6 years ago
If you repeat the LIE that the democrats switched parties often enough, maybe it will magically become true.
jbmlaw01 over 6 years ago
Those who erase history by tearing down statues are indistinguishable from those who destroy pagan temples in the name of Allah. I note a similar tendency toward violence among those practitioners.
Baslim the Beggar Premium Member over 6 years ago
Wow! How about a word from a black woman on this?http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-richardson-black-confederate-history-20170827-story.html
I’m a black daughter of the Confederacy, and this is how we should deal with all those General Lees.
Last paragraph:
To all the bronze Confederate soldiers, in whom I see the image of my great-great-great-grandfather, I would extend this grace. Without resentment or rancor, I would move them into museums and there tell the story of their lives. I would end their utility as flashpoints for racism and division, and, once and for all, allow them to retire from their long service as sentries over a whitewashed history.
As for Robert E. Lee, consider what he thought.
“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…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.”
“He said he was not interested in any monuments to him or – as I recollect – to the Confederacy,” explained James Cobb, history professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, who has written about Lee’s rise as an icon.
“I don’t think that means he would have felt good about the people who fought for the Confederacy being completely forgotten,” Cobb added. “But he didn’t want a cult of personality for the South.”
Lee advocated protection of just one form of memorial: headstones in cemeteries.
“All I think that can now be done,” he wrote in 1866, “is … to protect the graves [and] mark the last resting places of those who have fallen…”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/
Lee did not want his soldiers forgotten, but he knew that Dixie worship was a bad thing.
jimmjonzz Premium Member over 6 years ago
There’s a good thing that could be done with those statues. They could be put in museums… with accurate labels telling who they are and the crimes against humanity and the acts of treason against the United States that they committed. Waste not, want not. A stupid hero worship object could then become a valuable teaching tool. This would not be rewriting history but the un-rewriting of history.