New Orleans Begins Process of "Removing History"

[Thermodolia]

Damn right. Out of the two, the Iruqois were the most democratic. They treated their women right.

Never forget that a lot of the soldiers of the south were basically forced to fight or be killed, not all of the soldiers were evil, not all of the generals were evil. Lee wasnt evil, he thought he had a duty to his state, so he fought for the south, he was against slavery and wanted to be a union general, but because of this duty to his state, he fought for a cause he didn't believe in, because he thought it was his duty to help his state. In actuality, we should be leaving the monuments to people like Lee, and the divisions under the confederacy, because lots of good men died under the confederate flag, racist or not, most of which simply wanted to defend their states from the union generals like Sherman who were literally destroying their towns, killing their civilians, or were simply drafted in with not decision other than, fight and die for your homeland, or die on a gallows with a noose knot around your neck.

Disclamer: I am not defending the entire south as a whole, simply the right for some of the monuments to be left in their place, and that NOT EVERY confederate general/soldier was evil most were as described above, I am a staunch Ohioan, and I will defend the union to my dying breath, as all ohioans have before me (I have a relative who served in the 1st ohio cavalry, C company, and fought in every major battle from Bull Run to Gettysburg) , even against those filthy Michigans for toledo bay.

Stone Mountain ain't going anywhere anytime soon so ya still got that monument

[Ashmoria]

oh I would change them all

but its not up to me.

Why should they be changed? Should the concentration camps in Germany and Austria be knocked down?

you don't know the difference between things that celebrate the past and things that warn us about the past?

if my state had renamed a county auschwitz county after ww2 I certainly would want that changed.

[Alvecia]

Why should they be changed? Should the concentration camps in Germany and Austria be knocked down?

you don't know the difference between things that celebrate the past and things that warn us about the past?

if my state had renamed a county auschwitz county after ww2 I certainly would want that changed.

Also hard to fit a concentration camp in a museum.

[Patridam]

You mean like that dude on the US $20 bill?

He'll be going soon.

Well it certainly makes more sense to replace Jackson than it does Hamilton. I still question the choice of Tubman as the new one....

[Ethel mermania]

you don't know the difference between things that celebrate the past and things that warn us about the past?

if my state had renamed a county auschwitz county after ww2 I certainly would want that changed.

Also hard to fit a concentration camp in a museum.

The death camps that remain have been turned into museums. To remember what happened and honor the victims of the crimes. That is not what the statues do.

[Alvecia]

Also hard to fit a concentration camp in a museum.

The death camps that remain have been turned into museums. To remember what happened and honor the victims of the crimes. That is not what the statues do.

Indeed. But it's also a very good practical reason to not knock them down.

[Ethel mermania]

The death camps that remain have been turned into museums. To remember what happened and honor the victims of the crimes. That is not what the statues do.

Indeed. But it's also a very good practical reason to not knock them down.

The death cwmps, agreed. The statues not so much.

[Ifreann]

I said the place would be about respecting both sides and preserving history.

The Confederacy deserves no respect.

Like I said, they need to put it in a museum or memorial for historical purpsoses. They moved it because it triggered someone, which is why I don't like what they did. Should they be forced to or feel pressured to just because people are offended by it? Nah.

The City Council wasn't forced to do anything. And sure, people don't like that the city still has a monument celebrating white supremacists who attacked the police and state government because black people weren't livestock any more. Maybe you want to call that being "triggered". So what? Nothing is being destroyed. Nothing is being lost. These statues are being removed to a museum, exactly what you say should happen. What does it fucking matter if some people want them gone because they hurt their feelings? It isn't like the council has adopted a policy of acceding to whatever emotional request is put to them.

Just it being there isn't hurting anyone, it's a statue from long ago that wasn't made any time now. People won't just see it and go "Welp time to enslave some black people and try to secede lol". It's like trying to say video games make people into serial killers. If someone shoots someone over Call of Duty they were already mentally unstable or wanted to. Monuments aren't enough to make someone want to have a political belief. If someone does a hate crime because they saw a monument, we don't blame the statue, we blame the person for their actions.

Hey look, you responded to an argument that no one made. Congratulations.

[Zakuvia]

The death cwmps, agreed. The statues not so much.

This. The fact that you're going to something called a 'Death Camp' takes away any of the majesty or pride one might have upon seeing a statue. As far as I know, none of the statues show these traitors beating slaves or anything that would make someone understand that these people were in the wrong. The camps and these statues can't be compared as far as their impact on the observer.

[Ashmoria]

you don't know the difference between things that celebrate the past and things that warn us about the past?

if my state had renamed a county auschwitz county after ww2 I certainly would want that changed.

Also hard to fit a concentration camp in a museum.

true

Auschwitz is kept intact as a terrifying lesson about the Nazi regime and the human capacity for evil. well worth it.

[Tamanian]

As a someone from Louisiana I would have appreciated if the issue of removing the statues had been put up to vote and if there and been the smallest bit of transparency involved in the dealing with the statues. The New Orleans government has refused to tell us anything involving the removal of the statues.

[Saint Gloria]

I think all history, good or bad, should be remembered and protected for future generations to learn from.

[Alvecia]

As a someone from Louisiana I would have appreciated if the issue of removing the statues had been put up to vote and if there and been the smallest bit of transparency involved in the dealing with the statues. The New Orleans government has refused to tell us anything involving the removal of the statues.

It was put to a vote when the city council was elected.

[Calladan]

I think all history, good or bad, should be remembered and protected for future generations to learn from.

Okay. Lets take this out of the real world for a moment.

Not sure how much about the world of Harry Potter you know, but lets just say Voldemort won the war of 1995-1998. He ruled Magical Britain for 30 years, before he was overthrown by The Resistance, and in that time he, and his Death Eaters, were responsible for the death, torture and general mistreatment of around 50,000 mudbloods and 500,000 muggles.

Then in 2029 The Resistance, lead by Luna Lovegood and Lavender Brown overthrew the government and restored peace and democracy. However there are statues to Voldemort, Bellatrix "Mad Dog" Lestrange and Lucius "The Butcher of Bolton" Malfoy dotted around the country. Between them, these three people slaughtered nearly 750,000 people all told (in the war and the 30 years that followed) and made the country a living hell for muggles, muggle born and anyone who opposed their ideology.

Do you leave the statues up because "they are part of history, good or bad"?

Or do you tear them down because they honour three people who were cruel, sadistic, evil and vile. Who got their jollies torturing people just to hear them scream? Who basically represent EVERYTHING that is wrong in the world?

Do the statues stay or go?

[Ifreann]

As a someone from Louisiana I would have appreciated if the issue of removing the statues had been put up to vote and if there and been the smallest bit of transparency involved in the dealing with the statues. The New Orleans government has refused to tell us anything involving the removal of the statues.

Considering that death threats were made against the construction workers who'll be doing the actual removing it isn't so strange that they're not announcing when they plan to remove the other statues. It is suspicious that they apparently secured private funding to do this and won't say where it came from. Someone should probably sue over that.

[Ifreann]

I think all history, good or bad, should be remembered and protected for future generations to learn from.

Okay. Lets take this out of the real world for a moment.

Not sure how much about the world of Harry Potter you know, but lets just say Voldemort won the war of 1995-1998. He ruled Magical Britain for 30 years, before he was overthrown by The Resistance, and in that time he, and his Death Eaters, were responsible for the death, torture and general mistreatment of around 50,000 mudbloods and 500,000 muggles.

Then in 2029 The Resistance, lead by Luna Lovegood and Lavender Brown overthrew the government and restored peace and democracy. However there are statues to Voldemort, Bellatrix "Mad Dog" Lestrange and Lucius "The Butcher of Bolton" Malfoy dotted around the country. Between them, these three people slaughtered nearly 750,000 people all told (in the war and the 30 years that followed) and made the country a living hell for muggles, muggle born and anyone who opposed their ideology.

Do you leave the statues up because "they are part of history, good or bad"?

Or do you tear them down because they honour three people who were cruel, sadistic, evil and vile. Who got their jollies torturing people just to hear them scream? Who basically represent EVERYTHING that is wrong in the world?

Do the statues stay or go?

Your alternate fictional history intrigues me, and I wish to subscribe to your fanfiction.

[Dread Lady Nathicana]

Welp. Not being a Southerner and having no horse in this race, gonna put out a general opinion on the whole thing and see how that goes over. Here's the thing - we have a divide on how people view their history here. On the one side, you've got folks who have a point in that history happened, and even in loss, they had some good people who lost their lives fighting against their brothers. The reasons may differ, given who you talk to, history will state various things depending on who wrote whatever version you're reading, but the bottom line was that there was slavery involved, there were states rights involved (that unfortunately were tied to a right to own other human beings, mind), there were various other things involved, but in the end, it was a pretty damned horrible thing all around.

You've had years of Southern Pride that's been already bruised and damaged due to first, the loss in the war, and then the loss in livelihood and the North coming in and mucking things up a bit here and there from what I recall, then the ongoing issues that a good many of them kept tied to race and the 'old days' and having new ideas more or less, as they probably see it, 'forced on them' by those damn Northerners yet again. You're gonna have some prickly egos there, folks, right or wrong.

Now you've got monuments to all those goings on, you've got strong emotions tied to them, you've got that whole bit of holding on to some pride through historical happenings, tradition, ties to the past and those 'old days' and such ... and here we are again, with what many could perceive as another 'Northern aggression' with the ideas of changing some of that, taking down monuments, once more dragging that pride through the dirt, and again - right or wrong - having folks get angry and emotional about it all.

One might see how this has folks more than a little ruffled, neh?

Now, overall, not usually in favor of the removal of monuments, etc. There's a good part of me that feels that an addition to it, an information board, something to bring it up to speed, so to speak, could be a better choice in some instances. On the Liberty Place thing ... perhaps this is a good move forward in attempting to come together in a more peaceful way to memorialize a thing that happened, without the blatant racist plaque and all. For others, like Stone Mountain, not in favor of the outright destruction of a monument so that one group can lord it over another, any more than being in favor of said monument being lorded over the other side with racist gatherings and other things that have gone on in the past. Now, the relocation of monuments ... that seems to me like a decent compromise. Should a location be somewhat toxic, shall we say, to a community? Perhaps moving it, putting up something more inclusive, might not be such a bad move. Just not the outright destruction of it. Like it, agree with it, support it or not - it is a part of history. And reverse whitewashing things won't change that, though it could, in the future, change the perception of what happened.

There's some lessons to be learned from questionable or controversial memorials that is somewhat lessened by their outright removal or lost in their destruction. But when placed side by side with a more enlightened perspective, perhaps that will help keep those lessons fresh in mind as we go forward, so that mistakes of the past are not made again in quite the same ways.

One thing on the voting - tyranny by majority ain't always the best either, but it isn't a horrible way to at least gauge the public temperature, so to speak. Could be an opportunity to change some minds, bring some education and enlightenment to the masses prior to just uprooting people's ties to the past, and perhaps avoid some of the worst backlash.

[Calladan]

Okay. Lets take this out of the real world for a moment.

Not sure how much about the world of Harry Potter you know, but lets just say Voldemort won the war of 1995-1998. He ruled Magical Britain for 30 years, before he was overthrown by The Resistance, and in that time he, and his Death Eaters, were responsible for the death, torture and general mistreatment of around 50,000 mudbloods and 500,000 muggles.

Then in 2029 The Resistance, lead by Luna Lovegood and Lavender Brown overthrew the government and restored peace and democracy. However there are statues to Voldemort, Bellatrix "Mad Dog" Lestrange and Lucius "The Butcher of Bolton" Malfoy dotted around the country. Between them, these three people slaughtered nearly 750,000 people all told (in the war and the 30 years that followed) and made the country a living hell for muggles, muggle born and anyone who opposed their ideology.

Do you leave the statues up because "they are part of history, good or bad"?

Or do you tear them down because they honour three people who were cruel, sadistic, evil and vile. Who got their jollies torturing people just to hear them scream? Who basically represent EVERYTHING that is wrong in the world?

Do the statues stay or go?

Your alternate fictional history intrigues me, and I wish to subscribe to your fanfiction.

Sadly that is not a story I have written. Which given I have written..... 60 something other stories is quite surprising It was literally just something I made up on the spot. Sorry

[Genivaria]

Ugh, that damn little girl statue. Most successful, and meaningless, marketing ploy I've ever seen. If it makes America feel good about itself, I guess...


In a way I agree, though America's founding principles weren't as wonderful as Americans like to remember them.


Why would they? Those men were patriots, and the traitors they fought loss the war. Much to their chagrin, I'm sure, those statues are in America, not in the Confederacy.

Sherman and Sheridan were both violent war criminals, hardly patriots of any sort.

A slanderous lie nothing more.

[Ifreann]

Your alternate fictional history intrigues me, and I wish to subscribe to your fanfiction.

Sadly that is not a story I have written. Which given I have written..... 60 something other stories is quite surprising It was literally just something I made up on the spot. Sorry

Well, now you know what to write next. Harry Potter and the De-Death-Eater-ification of Wizarding Britain.

[Arkinesia]

Let me ask you a question, OP: are you from the South? Do you live in the South?


I hope so. Speaking as a Southerner myself, it's time for my fellow Southerners to move on. Worshiping Confederates has not made us more prosperous, if anything it makes us paupers.

As a Southerner I'd like it if Lost Causers would stop claiming that they speak for me.

I don't have an issue having a spirited debate with other Southerners about the nature of the Confederacy and so on, I don't really enjoy hearing Northerners' opinions though. Regardless of whether or not they agree with my own.

But they don't idiolise treason, they leave a few statues up for historical reason. Do I need to go back to the Lenin in Moscow's metro argument?

No, they really do idolize treason. You haven't seen these people in action.

Seriously, if there's anything I despise more than Yankees defending the Confederacy, it's foreigners defending the Confederacy. People who don't even live in the US are completely fucking clueless about the situation which makes no sense considering the INTERNET exists and they could very easily read the facts of the matter.

[Arkinesia]

Good, white Southerners need to stop commemorating slavers and those who fought for them.

Are you are White Southerner?

I'm a White Southerner, and Confederate worship is bad, and you should feel bad for it.

You've had years of Southern Pride that's been already bruised and damaged due to first, the loss in the war, and then the loss in livelihood and the North coming in and mucking things up a bit here and there from what I recall,

Your recollection is, no offense, not particularly good then. Andrew Johnson (a Southerner) fucked up Reconstruction on purpose to help slavers continue to oppress black citizens in the South.

There's a reason he was impeached.

[Kekistonia]

Everyone knows about the Confederacy. If you live in the South, there is no possible way you can escape learning about it. Whether this be through the flag being flown by Southerners, through history lessons, or through memorials, you'll find out about it and the war between the CSA and the USA. But this is the 21st Century, a time where people support removing history because of their feelings. But anyway, here is the story:

After years of legal wrangling and intimidation, New Orleans has begun the process of dismantling four monuments of the Confederate and Jim Crow eras.

The first monument, which honors members of a white supremacist paramilitary group who fought against the city's racially integrated, Reconstruction-era police force in 1874, was dismantled and removed before the sun rose Monday.
Debate Rages In Southern States Over Whether To Remove Confederate Symbols

Following death threats, the contractors wore flak jackets and helmets as they broke down the Battle of Liberty Place monument, as WWNO's Tegan Wendland reports.

"We will no longer allow the Confederacy to literally be put on a pedestal in the heart of our city," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

Landrieu has called for the statues to be removed since 2015. He described the Liberty Place monument as the "most offensive" of the four, according to The Times-Picayune.

Last month, as The Two-Way reported, a federal appeals court greenlighted the city's plans to remove the monuments, including statues of Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard.

Relocating these confederate statues is not about taking something away from someone else. It’s about choosing a better future.
— Mitch Landrieu (@MayorLandrieu) April 24, 2017

In 1989, the Liberty Place monument was removed from its prominent location on Canal Street due to construction, and repositioned to a location off the main drag in 1993.

The mayor's office said that in 1932, the city placed a plaque on the monument stating that the battle memorialized was intended to "overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers," and "the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state."
New Orleans Can Remove Confederate Statues, Federal Appeals Court Says

When the monument was moved in 1993, that plaque was covered with a new one that said: "In honor of those Americans on both sides who died in the Battle of Liberty Place. ... A conflict of the past that should teach us lessons for the future."

The Advocate newspaper reports that "no statue in New Orleans has had as slow or tortured an exit from the public stage as the monument to the Battle of Liberty Place." Here's more on the long, contested history:

"Up through the 1970s, respectable opinion held that the battle really had nothing to do with race. As one newspaper editorial put it after the obelisk was defaced with black paint in 1970, it was a battle against 'interlopers ... sent to the community to loot, to confiscate lands and to otherwise misrule Louisiana.'

"Like the obelisk itself, this view has been largely discarded, at least among professional historians."

About a dozen protesters gathered as the workers began to dismantle the monument, according to the Times-Picayune. "Supporters of the monuments say they're part of the city's history," Wendland added.

But Mayor Landrieu said that "relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. ... This is about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile — and most importantly— choose a better future."

The four statues will be initially moved to storage, then the city will look into relocating them to a museum or other location.

The city isn't releasing details about the other statues' removals due to security concerns, but has said that it has secured private funding for the jobs as of Monday. It did not state the source of the funding.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/24/us/new-or ... e-statues/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/us/n ... .html?_r=0
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... -monuments

Now, I believe that this is a horrible action on the part of New Orleans. The committee that voted on this subject was primarily black, so it is not quite surprising that this happened. This is quite reminiscent of how Nazi Germany rewrote history and removed certain historical objects to support their beliefs. There is no reason for these to be removed because of people acting foolishly with them and them representing a historical point in US history. So NSG, are we approaching a time where the South will have to remove all traces of the Confederacy, and will this move elsewhere in the world where governments will have to remove anything pertaining to a "bad" point in their nation's history?

Trying to erase history because muh feewings. Vile and disgusting.

[Genivaria]

Are you are White Southerner?

I'm a White Southerner, and Confederate worship is bad, and you should feel bad for it.

You've had years of Southern Pride that's been already bruised and damaged due to first, the loss in the war, and then the loss in livelihood and the North coming in and mucking things up a bit here and there from what I recall,

Your recollection is, no offense, not particularly good then. Andrew Johnson (a Southerner) fucked up Reconstruction on purpose to help slavers continue to oppress black citizens in the South.

There's a reason he was impeached.

If only we had kept Lincoln we could've finished Reconstruction properly.

[Alvecia]

Trying to erase history because muh feewings. Vile and disgusting.

History isn't being erased.