Augustus
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The problem with plaques is that you have a few sentences to put something in a much broader historical context which is very hard, especially if trying to do it as neutrally as possible.
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Should we add plaques to statues of slave owners?
- Thread starter Erebus
- Start date
The problem with plaques is that you have a few sentences to put something in a much broader historical context which is very hard, especially if trying to do it as neutrally as possible.
And there are great differences of opinion about the morality of owning slaves.
Is it so wrong today to have done so in the 1700s...so wrong that statues must
be toppled or have mitigating auxiliary plaques? There will always be such
disagreements about the question, nature, & magnitude of sins.
Welcome to the club.As a result of this thread I now see this as a personal fault in you.
I'm sure that you'll soon learn the secret handshake.
I know what it is in this era. First go someplace where there's a big crowd and where no one is masked. Then shake everyone's hand there.
I think I could go for that. Take all of those confederate "heros", and recast them in bronze with shackles on them being led off the field of battle by Northern Black soldiers as the heroes of the story. That I could support. Monuments of Shame, for acts of monumental shame.
At the recent engine show, I was the only one doing the elbow touching greeting.
Too many were shaking hands.
Even after things are safe again, I'm sticking with the elbow greeting cuz it's less personal contact.
Personally I like the Vulcan salute.
Too much work.I think I could go for that. Take all of those confederate "heros", and recast them in bronze with shackles on them being led off the field of battle by Northern Black soldiers as the heroes of the story. That I could support. Monuments of Shame, for acts of monumental shame.
How about a 24-7 sound system shouting....
Too Jewish for this secular heathen.
Not a bad idea. Take the existing statues and parade them through all the streets of American cities, shaming them, casting rotten fruit at them, burning confederate flags, etc. That works too.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
It is wrong today, it was always wrong. People are not property to be owned. That is abuse. IMO.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
I thought Rev would go for the Glasgow kiss.
North America. My point is that no one is native to anywhere. History is overflowing with conquests, peoples being displaced, forced to migrate en masse. North American, African, Asian, South American, European peoples were constantly at war with each other, pushing and elbowing each other out, all too often with genocide. This is not unique to North America. No one is native or indigenous anywhere.
To complain about land being stolen is completely ridiculous because humans have been stealing land from each other for 250,000 years. It's not going to stop no matter how many statues or monuments are pulled down. I'm sure someone could dig up dirt on Abraham Lincoln. So that makes all four figures on Mt. Rushmore villains. Do we blow it up like the Taliban? The statue of Teddy Roosevelt is being removed from the American Museum of Natural History because he was racist. Seriously?
Where does this stop. Someone is always going to be offended over something.“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. -- Star Trek: The Next Generation”
Yes, from a tv show but no one can say this is not true and this danger doesn't exist. And we are heading for it now.
Also too much work.
But a speaker blaring "Shame! Shame! Shame!"
would attract people to the informative plaques.
We agree.
But when judging people of different times & ethics,
I do so by comparing them to their contemporaries.
The country's founders laid the groundwork in the
Constitution to eliminate slavery.
Thru a wormhole in space, I received a copy of the year
2257 Washington Post. Articles in it describe hyper-intelligent
bovine Ameristanians toppling statues of all who once ate
hamburgers & steaks, or wore leather shoes. Should we be
judged so harshly, even if we buy only free range meats?
North America. My point is that no one is native to anywhere. History is overflowing with conquests, peoples being displaced, forced to migrate en masse. North American, African, Asian, South American, European peoples were constantly at war with each other, pushing and elbowing each other out, all too often with genocide. This is not unique to North America. No one is native or indigenous anywhere.
To complain about land being stolen is completely ridiculous because humans have been stealing land from each other for 250,000 years. It's not going to stop no matter how many statues or monuments are pulled down. I'm sure someone could dig up dirt on Abraham Lincoln. So that makes all four figures on Mt. Rushmore villains. Do we blow it up like the Taliban? The statue of Teddy Roosevelt is being removed from the American Museum of Natural History because he was racist. Seriously?
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. -- Star Trek: The Next Generation”
Yes, from a tv show but no one can say this is not true and this danger doesn't exist. And we are heading for it now.
I'm not calling for anyone to destroy any statues or monuments. However, if others want to do it, I won't stand in the way or oppose it, since I really have no dog in that fight at all. My only point here is that if we want to use history to explain what's happening today (and I think that's a worthwhile exercise), we need to be able to come to terms with it honestly. It's not a matter of expurgating the things we don't like and pretending that the sanitized version is any better. That's what society tried to do 50-60 years ago, but obviously, such a strategy does not work.
Actually, just tearing them down is the least amount of work, and it lasts longer.
But that silences their wrongdoings.
Sure, sure, some argue that history books give us the info.
We live in a post-reading age.
Removing statues that glorifies those wrong doings, seems the simplest and most effective form of silencing them. Which should be done. It's time to let racism die, with those soldiers in grey who died pointlessly defending an unjust cause.
I'm proposing eliminating the glorification aspect for some, eg, Confederate soldiers.
As for Jefferson & his ilk, glorify with asterisk-worthy elaboration.
Don't silence.....converse.