MLK: Another Cosby Moment?

[Mountain Man]

The flip side of that is - why tear down statues and rename schools because we had some very good people who did wonderful things for our country, but had some very serious flaws and owned slaves.

Because they're white!

[Adrift]

The flip side of that is - why tear down statues and rename schools because we had some very good people who did wonderful things for our country, but had some very serious flaws and owned slaves.

I don't like the statue tearing down stuff simply because I'm very into letting the historical record stand. If the city feels so strongly about it, I'd rather see a placard go up explaining the controversial nature of the statue. Don't erase your past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

...Unless, of course, the person's bad heavily outweighed their good. I saw a Youtube video recently on Stalin, and was a little surprised to see that there are still a few statues of him still standing in Georgia (the Eastern European Georgia, not the US state), though most of them have been torn down throughout the previous USSR.

[Cow Poke]

I don't like the statue tearing down stuff simply because I'm very into letting the historical record stand. If the city feels so strongly about it, I'd rather see a placard go up explaining the controversial nature of the statue. Don't erase your past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

EGGzackly! We USED to call those "teaching moments".

...Unless, of course, the person's bad heavily outweighed their good. I saw a Youtube video recently on Stalin, and was a little surprised to see that there are still a few statues of him still standing in Georgia (the Eastern European Georgia, not the US state), though most of them have been torn down throughout the previous USSR.

[KingsGambit]

There's an interesting controversy in my original home of Kansas City. The city council bypassed everybody and renamed a major street Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The original street was called The Paseo, and was named after a major street in Mexico City, with plenty of fountains placed throughout to try to replicate the ambience. The change was so unpopular that now the citizens are going to vote whether to change it back to Paseo, and it looks like that's what's going to happen.

One black community leader said that renaming a street after King in 2019 is "too little too late" anyway, especially considering the context that the city remains highly segregated because of a history of legally enforced segregation east of a certain point in the city.

[Mountain Man]

I don't like the statue tearing down stuff simply because I'm very into letting the historical record stand. If the city feels so strongly about it, I'd rather see a placard go up explaining the controversial nature of the statue. Don't erase your past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

...Unless, of course, the person's bad heavily outweighed their good. I saw a Youtube video recently on Stalin, and was a little surprised to see that there are still a few statues of him still standing in Georgia (the Eastern European Georgia, not the US state), though most of them have been torn down throughout the previous USSR.

Statues can serve as an honor, a reminder, or a warning.

[NorrinRadd]

There are allegations. There are claims that hard evidence exists to prove those allegations. No hard evidence has been produced to date.

You've spent the last two or three years with that kind of falderol, no?

Maybe someone will persuade Trump to "declassify" the MLK tapes.

But wait 'til after the 2020 election.

[KingsGambit]

Maybe someone will persuade Trump to "declassify" the MLK tapes.

But wait 'til after the 2020 election.

I don't think the actual public release of the tapes (assuming they exist) would be in the public good.

[tabibito]

I don't think the actual public release of the tapes (assuming they exist) would be in the public good.

If that is so, why aren't the Democrats demanding that they be released?

[Cow Poke]

I don't think the actual public release of the tapes (assuming they exist) would be in the public good.

And whoever authorized that would be forever associated with antagonizing an already unpleasant situation, I'd think.

[Cow Poke]

If that is so, why aren't the Democrats demanding that they be released?

I think there's enough "bad" stuff there that it would only inflame African Americans - even if some of the more salacious stuff isn't verifiable.

[tabibito]

And whoever authorized that would be forever associated with antagonizing an already unpleasant situation, I'd think.

Going on their track record, that would be all the more reason for the radical left to want them released.

[Leonhard]

Statues can serve as an honor, a reminder, or a warning.

I have been consistently against any terrorism done against these statues. I just don't think there's a need to give them a place of honor. And if they do have a place of honor, and people in those areas consider them ennobling and don't realize their history. In that case I believe there's room for a discussion about plaques that make their history clear, even the ugly sides of it. And perhaps moving them to a less honorable area.

[Leonhard]

The flip side of that is - why tear down statues and rename schools because we had some very good people who did wonderful things for our country, but had some very serious flaws and owned slaves.

At least General Robert E. Lee, though he beat slaves himself, and had some escaped slaves captured and re-enslaved, was against them not being given an education. From our lofty vantage point he has what I definitely experience as a rather patronizing view that it was the 'whites burden' to help the slaves become civilized (being slaves was a step in that process), until eventually they could become part of the lower working class.

So its possible to acknowledge that while General Lee was a product of his time, he did also move beyond it, and didn't see slavery as a permanent or god-ordained institution, but more as a temporary transition.

Also when it comes to slavery in the South, its wrong to talk about it without acknowledging that the slaves they bought they often bough from the Northerners who were getting rid of theirs. A lot of slaves were sold before they had a chance to become free.

Probably just saying stuff you already know Cow Poke, but I've been doing my own reading into American history. I still aim to come to the US to work there for some years in a few years.

[Cow Poke]

At least General Robert E. Lee, though he beat slaves himself, and had some escaped slaves captured and re-enslaved, was against them not being given an education. From our lofty vantage point he has what I definitely experience as a rather patronizing view that it was the 'whites burden' to help the slaves become civilized (being slaves was a step in that process), until eventually they could become part of the lower working class.

So its possible to acknowledge that while General Lee was a product of his time, he did also move beyond it, and didn't see slavery as a permanent or god-ordained institution, but more as a temporary transition.

Also when it comes to slavery in the South, its wrong to talk about it without acknowledging that the slaves they bought they often bough from the Northerners who were getting rid of theirs. A lot of slaves were sold before they had a chance to become free.

Probably just saying stuff you already know Cow Poke, but I've been doing my own reading into American history. I still aim to come to the US to work there for some years in a few years.

It was certainly an ugly time in the history of our Nation - and a lot of it had to do with rationalizing and justifying the need for cheap labor because "Cotton was King".

[Leonhard]

It was certainly an ugly time in the history of our Nation - and a lot of it had to do with rationalizing and justifying the need for cheap labor because "Cotton was King".

Slaves are only cheap labor until you start having steam engines, and then you need some modicum of training to do anything. At that point you're a laborer. Market forces had driven slavery into the South. So the fact that we talk so much about the South when it comes to slavery is the historical accident that they were the last place in the US where slaves made financial sense.

And don't think we danes in Denmark were any better. We engaged in slave trading all the way up to 1803 when it was finally outlawed by order of King Christian XIIth.