It can be dangerous to be black and a legal gun owner in America

[MidnightMonkey]

If the pulling down of a statue of a slave trader/conquistador/confederate traitor ruins your way of life you are either A) a racist or B) a pigeon.

 

[mainman]

Are there any national monuments honoring Joseph Mengele or Heinrich Himmler in Germany? They both are a part of history, the publicized struggle of the so called master race. I don't believe there are any national monuments in Germany dedicated to those two nazi's, how fortunate for Jews not having to bare witness to state sponsored bigotry should they live in or visit Germany. Meanwhile in the U.S there are numerous statues and fucking national monuments dedicated to white supremacists and slave owners. Hell the same supremacy still to this day demands blacks stand like chattel and sing a national anthem written by a racist piece of shit. A song which third verse straight out states ".No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"

 

[MidnightMonkey]

Are there any national monuments honoring Joseph Mengele or Heinrich Himmler in Germany?

I mean all the concentration camps are still there. That counts as something. (Yes, I know why they're still there)

 

[mainman]

I mean all the concentration camps are still there. That counts as something. (Yes, I know why they're still there)

Yes you do know why they are still there. As a penance and remembrance of past atrocities, not a badge of proud honor and means of continuous intimidation as the dominate culture in American views their monuments.

 

[MidnightMonkey]

Man, someone is condescending as fuck. I neither made an argument nor alluded I desired to keep them. Futhermore, having been born and rasied in the "good ol boy" south in a biracial family, nobody in the general public really gave a shit about any of those statues. Nobody truly gives a fuck about them now, either - regardless of their actions.

 

[norton9478]

Until last week, I didn't realize that there were US military bases and ships named after confederate leaders. That is some crazy shit.

They should tear down every propaganda monument. Confederates, yeah, but all the rest too. Mt Rushmore, Washington Monument, Lincoln, all of it.

War criminals, the whole lot of them. Most of them slave owners 9n top of that.

Thus why the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of the best ever.

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Man, someone is condescending as fuck. I neither made an argument nor alluded I desired to keep them. Futhermore, having been born and rasied in the "good ol boy" south in a biracial family, nobody in the general public really gave a shit about any of those statues. Nobody truly gives a fuck about them now, either - regardless of their actions.

I think they still perform very subtly on the senses. It shapes landscape.

 

[LoneSage]

Until last week, I didn't realize that there were US military bases and ships named after confederate leaders. That is some crazy shit.

Growing up in Virginia the next city over from Appomattox where the surrender took place, I went there on a field trip in the 4th grade. I got some souvenir money so I bought a a picture of Grant. When I got home, my dad asked why didn't I get a picture of Robert E. Lee, because he was Virginian. I pouted like a baby, "Because Grant was the good guy!"

I can feel a sense of pride that I grew up there and for my entire life I never felt the Confederacy should've won or were ever the good guys, even with all the bullshit being taught in schools about the Confederate generals being gentlemen and strategic geniuses and whatnot. There was (is) so much twisted history being taught in public schools about the losers of a war who were traitors to their country and sought to keep their right to own slaves. It has very much been a 'both sides' situation my whole life, and it's infuriating how much people make their 'heritage not hate' bullshit from a civil war that was five years long and 100+ years from when they were born. I clearly remember being in sixth grade and hearing the debate about the Confederate flag flying from the state capitol and just confused as to why they don't just take it down!

Goddamn Daughters of the Confederacy.

 

[MidnightMonkey]

Until last week, I didn't realize that there were US military bases and ships named after confederate leaders. That is some crazy shit.

Someone's late to the party. Ton's of cities and streets, too.

I'm too lazy to quote fami's reply, but:
You right, lets fucking napalm the whole country and not allow anything but the color gray. That make's sense. Literally everything in this country can be tied back to slavery. Businesses, architecture, fuck me even the railroads. That's infrastructure, fam.



Here's my thought since everyone want's to get so hyper-emotional. It doesn't matter what form it takes (statue, film, painting, etc.), it's still art. The connotation or how someone chooses to perceive it is almost inconsequential. If the majority of the public feels one way about it, then remove it from overt display and place it in an institution of preservation of history or the arts. Regardless of how you FEEL (which isn't covered by the BoR), artistic expression is an almost sacred manifestation of human endeavor. When you begin to eliminate works of art and expression from existence, you remove the ability for people to connect with and understand each other and our shared history, regardless of what side you're on. Someone once tried to remove certain literary works from the face of the planet alongside an entire group of people. You know who hates that fucker now? Almost everyone.

 

[wyo]

The monuments issue is complex. First of all, I think it's unreasonable to judge historical figures by modern standards. Winston Churchill certainly had some problematic views and policies but without him we might all be speaking German, and not in a good way like Tak and Shroom. Were it not for America's slave-owning founding fathers, Americans might have medieval dentistry and an even worse national anthem!

We should also consider that every statue was built by a third party with their own motivations. For example, some statues in the South were specifically erected as thinly veiled political statements, usually targeting "uppity Negroes".

Perhaps more than any other issue, removing statues riles people up that under normal circumstances would give negative zero fucks about architecture. All you get is people on both sides getting agitated about something that has minimal effect on their lives, and whoever "wins" actually wins nothing except pissing off the "losers" and perpetuating divisiveness.

I say keep the statues but offer context in the plaques. Removing them whitewashes history even more than it's already been whitewashed. Leave the heritage destruction to the savages of the world.

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Someone's late to the party. Ton's of cities and streets, too.

I'm too lazy to quote fami's reply, but:
You right, lets fucking napalm the whole country and not allow anything but the color gray. That make's sense. Literally everything in this country can be tied back to slavery. Businesses, architecture, fuck me even the railroads. That's infrastructure, fam.



Here's my thought since everyone want's to get so hyper-emotional. It doesn't matter what form it takes (statue, film, painting, etc.), it's still art. The connotation or how someone chooses to perceive it is almost inconsequential. If the majority of the public feels one way about it, then remove it from overt display and place it in an institution of preservation of history or the arts. Regardless of how you FEEL (which isn't covered by the BoR), artistic expression is an almost sacred manifestation of human endeavor. When you begin to eliminate works of art and expression from existence, you remove the ability for people to connect with and understand each other and our shared history, regardless of what side you're on. Someone once tried to remove certain literary works from the face of the planet alongside an entire group of people. You know who hates that fucker now? Almost everyone.

It's the politics not the art

 

[DevilRedeemed]

We are responsible for this moment in history, both as custodians and as participants. We shape and reshape the landscape, its how it works.

 

[MidnightMonkey]

It's the politics not the art

Past politics don't matter. In the grand scheme of things, all politics are simply a guise to hide all the shit my boy Dante wrote about.

We are responsible for this moment in history, both as custodians and as participants. We shape and reshape the landscape, its how it works.

You're right, but good luck enabling roughly 300 million willfully ignorant, intellectually retarded mother fuckers to objectively assess enough pertinent information to pick up a grading rake and use it for it's literal purpose instead of bludgeoning and anally violating each other.

 

[DevilRedeemed]

Wasn't talking about past politics per se. Statues at any given point in time perform a political function. Art in this case is at the behest of the state, and is there to make a statement about the country lived in at present, its values etc.

We inherit the challenges of our forefathers, we inherit their wealth and we inherit their poverty. We also inherit a sense of pertainance, as we simultaneously feel we belong to a culture that it in turn also belongs to us. At one point in time whites felt that blacks belonged to them and this dynamic still plays its part and can dangerously bring about the unravelling of a people, if not kept in check.
Slavery was 200 years ago, which was when the present began to take shape.

 

[Takumaji]

Every generation over here since 1871 tore down statues and renamed streets but it did not really have an impact on the socio-political development of the German people. In the 1920s they literally tried to tear down the old world of tyrannic Kings, Queens and Emperors by smashing their symbols to pieces, then Hitler came and led all these efforts ad absurdum. Coincidence? I think not.

After WW2 when the prominently visible remnants of Nazi Germany had been removed, it became sort of fashionable for various political groups and parties to look through the names of streets and monuments in their hometowns to find some that were named after a person who may have had ties to the Nazi party or their views and change them. After all the "Adolf Hitler streets" and "Herrmann Göring squares" had been renamed to their pre-war names again, the efforts soon became ridiculously microscopic, all it took was a street named after the nephew of a friend of someone who know a guy whose father was a member of the Nazi party and you could be sure that some attention-seeking group of people would come up with a petition to change its name.

Yet it was not the iconoclasm that made people learn from the past but the tireless efforts of historians, authors, activists and some politicians who had lived through the dark days and instead of wasting time with symbol politics went forward and initiated a wide public discourse over our past, present and future in light of the new times. It's a hard and tearful process that spans generations but it's the only way.

In my opinion, even statues of or streets named after persons who are part of the bad side of the past can fulfil an important role as literal and intellectual stumbling blocks that make us stop and think about what happened at that time and how it still affects us. I think this kind of reflection is essential to prevent us from making the same mistakes again.

 

[Marek]

Tak you're probably the best all around human on the forums today

 

[evil wasabi]

Until last week, I didn't realize that there were US military bases and ships named after confederate leaders. That is some crazy shit.

Imagine being a young recruit sent to a base named after Braxton Bragg, and being indoctrinated by superior officers to have pride in Bragg. It's not too far from being raised a fan of the Washington Redskins. We make people emotionally invest in deeply offensive histories, and worse, to take pride in them.

Comparing concentration camps to the confederate statues is a bad look, Midnight Monkey. The camps don't glorify the butchers who caused so much pain and suffering. Parents don't take their children to the concentration camps to instill in them a sense of pride.

 

[norton9478]

Someone's late to the party. Ton's of cities and streets, too.
.

Yes, I understand streets (though I don't agree with it).

But to name a Military installation after an insurrectionist? That is just cuckoo!

 

[Taiso]

I just want to say this thread has been a great read, Tak won it because he's the best and I won it because Lebron James is the worst.

 

[LoneSage]

I just want to say this thread has been a great read, Tak won it because he's the best and I won it because Lebron James is the worst.

but never forget who realized the zeitgeist and made it

 

[Taiso]

but never forget who realized the zeitgeist and made it

I'll build you a statue and then in a hundred years when alcohol is branded a mortal sin, the kids can spray paint it and tear it down.

 

[LoneSage]

LMBO

 

[Taiso]

LMBO

I said that with nothing but love, sir.

 

[evil wasabi]

When I got home, my dad asked

Whoa.. I always figured you didn’t have a dad.

 

[MidnightMonkey]

Yes, I understand streets (though I don't agree with it).

But to name a Military installation after an insurrectionist? That is just cuckoo!

It's about strategery, as ol G. W. would say. The installations named after those people weren't necessarily done so to honor their morals, but their military prowess. Even the losing side can have amazing tacticians and leaders whom can be valued for those assets. Hitler was a damned fine commander, but his dick got sick. Literally everything in Texas is still named after Texan military leaders, and Texas lost at everything, even the genetic lottery. I mean the U.S. Allowed it to remain a state along with the other insubordinate states.