Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticCat
Admittedly, relatively few people have posted about this topic, so it's certainly not a representative sampling, but I find it interesting that the Southerners¹ who've weighed in have, I think, been uniform in saying that the statues were primarily erected in order to reinforce White Supremacy and no longer have a place in the public squares of our communities, while those who have talked about things like erasing history, honoring the dead or where to draw lines have been from outside the states of the Confederacy. FWIW.
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Life long Southerner, 3 states all of which were part of the Confederacy. Descendant of slave owners, and while not plantation sized, they were owners nonetheless. Both my grandfathers routinely used the N word and exhibited overt signs of racism. Attended a white, suburban high school with "Rebels" as our mascot and the Rebel Flag as our symbol. Currently live in an area where multiple Civil War battles were fought and monuments/statues are everywhere. Was always far better at math than organizing my swirling thoughts into succinct and coherent words on paper, thus have been slow to participate in this thread. But that doesn't change how strongly I feel about this subject.
I could not agree more that the monuments and statues (as well as my high school mascot and flag) need to be permanently removed. Children who simply want to play in a park or visit the library should never have to walk by a monument of an individual who fought to keep their ancestors in chains and as property. The subtle social class message of these statues is not lost on anyone.
I also concur with the others that these were erected by white individuals during Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era to be a symbol of power classes vs oppressed classes. If we all took more time to genuinely -->listen<--- to people of color, oppressed groups, and those who are not in positions of power or majority we could learn so much. Seeing issues through the lenses of others and not simply our own life prism should be what guides decisions such as these. When white people say "but history" we just look well, white and uninformed.
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