should statues be removed pros and cons

There are far more dangerous threats to history. The Avalon Project, A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union., avalon.law.yale.edu (accessed July 8, 2020), 17. The Confederate statues were put up when they were put up [not just after the war but largely during periods of Civil Rights tension in the 20th century], to send a message about white supremacy, and to sentimentalize people who had actively fought to preserve the system of slavery. Taneys bust was replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall. Arguments For And Against Removing Confederate Statues - Ranker Hannah Natanson, Theres a New Way to Deal with Confederate Monuments: Signs That Explain Their Racist History, washingtonpost.com, Sep. 22, 2019, 53. It would be odd for me to condone other people doing something I would not do. The media should publish their anniversaries and conduct tests based on their significance. Beyond building monuments to honor black Americans, monuments could employ and elevate living black artists, such as Kehinde Wiley, whose 2019 Rumors of War statue depicts a black man on horseback in a pose reminiscent of statues of Robert E. Lee. Manisha Sinha, a Civil War historian at the University of Connecticut, says when it comes to, say, Robert E. Lee, take it down. Do you agree? Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Opponents said, well, if you're going to take down Jefferson Davis, the next day you're going to take down George Washington. Interview was edited for clarity and space. The fact that pro-Confederate sentiments have become unpopular is. The result is that, as a result, the Primera Guerra is no longer averse to it. Richard Allen Greene, King Leopold II Statues Are Being Removed in Belgium. This article was published on January 20, 2022, at Britannica's ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source. Should Statues Be Removed Pros And Cons - Gary Cluster Republican This was before he became president or even commanded the Union Army. Following the white nationalist rally in Virginia on August 12, 2017, it was back in the news. May 16, 2017 0 The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his mount, Traveler, face the setting sun on Monument Ave. in Richmond,. In later years, Lee alsodistinguished himself as an educator: As president of the institution that is nowWashington and Lee University, he was largely responsible for fashioning the modern college honor code. ASU News sat down with Lamp, whose current scholarship focuses on the classical influence on U.S. public art, memorials and monuments, and how those sites guide understandings of citizenship and civic participation, to learn more about the issues at play in this ongoing dialogue. By writing to US national senators and representatives, you can advocate for the position and policies you believe in. Why Confederate monuments are coming down now | Stanford News Confederate monuments are more likely to be removed in cities with large African-American and Democratic populations, as well as chapters of the NAACP, and where state legislatures have the authority to approve their removal. Colleen Walsh, Must We Allow Symbols of Racism on Public Land?, harvard.edu, June 19, 2020, 44. The statues misrepresent history, and glorify people who perpetuated slavery, attempted secession from United States, and lost the Civil War. Thats not fair, asking me as a law professor. SINHA: Well, I think it is important not to go from one extreme to the other. The Rights and Wrongs of Taking Down Monuments - Reason.com There are at least two reasons for not permitting contemporaneous vices to disqualify historical figures from favorable commemoration. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army GeneralsRobert E. LeeandStonewall Jackson. Over the last few years, we have seen an increase in the demolition of statues of heroes who, from one day to the next, appear to follow the exploits of the Egyptian Pharaohs. Many of the men with whom George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S. Grant were associated at the time were slaves. Lee was distinguished from his contemporaries by an exemplary career, both in the U.S. and Confederate armies, of competence and honor. Why are Confederate statues being removed? When is it right to remove a statue? - BBC News Robert E. Lees statue, for example, is regarded as particularly offensive due to his role in defending slavery and the Confederacy. The video of the officer with his knee on George Floyds neck was so extreme. New York Times, From 2017: Confederate Monuments Are Coming down dcross the United States. And I also grew up hearing stories from my family or reading in archives the terrible things those men did to my people.. Where do we draw a line? Da de la Raza was founded in 1578 to end the Spanish race and promote the civilizing movement that followed it. A year after the United States had a diplomatic confrontation with Venezuela, Washington had a diplomatic confrontation with Caracas, and Venezuela had a diplomatic confrontation with Washington. [44] Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the white suffragists purposefully excluded black women. Pros And Cons Of Removing Confederate Statues. GREENE: But what about historical figures with complicated, often racist histories who were also Union generals or former presidents? Despite being recognized around the world as a hero, Columbus statues have long been criticized as a result of his colonization and genocide of Indigenous cultures. Arguments For And Against Removing Confederate Statues, Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate statues. Confederate monuments can find an appropriate home in museums and cemeteries. Linda Lopata, If Susan B. Anthony Was Racist, susanb.org (accessed July 7, 2020), 47. Statues play a critical role in society. They often depict political leaders, but more often military leaders. BBC, Confederate and Columbus Statues Toppled by US Protesters, bbc.com, June 11, 2020, 21. Research reveals the long-term impact following the destruction of the Greenwood District, Harvard experts talk about how to turn the moments energy into lasting change, Harvard faculty recommend the writers and subjects that promote context and understanding, Ash Center panel puts defining moment of Floyd killing into context of fight for social justice, Biomolecular archaeology reveals a fuller picture of the nomadic Xiongnu. PRO: These monuments should be removed because they honor slavery and segregation CON: Confederate monuments should stay because they connect past racial crimes to current racial inequality Nearly every heavy-crane company in southern Louisiana has received threats from opponents. Statues elevate a person from a historical event rather than demystify it. There has been much debate over which statues should be taken down, and whether this is an effective way to combat bigotry. John Daniel Davidson, Political Editor at The Federalist, explained, That they were wrong about slavery does not excuse us today from the burden of trying to understand what motivated them to fightand what motivated them and their families to undertake a flurry of monument-building decades later as the surviving veterans began to die off A more mature society would recognize that the past is always with you and must always be kept in mind. There have been other videos, of course, but there is something about this image of a prone individual who is not moving and who we know is losing, or has lost, his life after an encounter that started over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill. What is that extreme? While the debate whetherConfederatestatues should be taken down has been gaining momentum for years, the issue gained widespread attention after the June 17, 2015, mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. A 2018 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center found there are more than 1,700 monuments to the Confederacy still in public spaces. 5. Should historic statues be taken down? A petition in Tennessee gained 22,736 signatures (and counting as of July 8, 2020) to replace all Confederate statues in the state, including the statue of Confederate Army General and KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest that stands in the states capitol building, with statues of Dolly Parton. The standard traditionally applied is as follows: When deciding whom to commemorate by statues, place names, monuments, holidays, currency, or coins we select individuals who performed extraordinary feats that, on balance, made the world a better place. What you got in the interim before that happened was a kind of a battle over community values. The Recycling Economic Information (REI) Report found that, in a single year, recycling and reuse activities in the United States accounted for 757,000 jobs, $36.6 billion in wages and $6.7 billion in tax revenues. Or a religiously-conservative majority may blacklist outstanding women who in private life opted for legal abortions. Pros. A 2018 investigation published in the Smithsonian Magazine found that over the prior ten years at least $40 million in taxpayer dollars were allocated for Confederate statues, other monuments, and heritage organizations. Natalie Huet, Sir Geoff Palmer, Dont Take down Statues - Take down Racism, euronews.com, June 11, 2020, 54. Starting with the Reconstruction, we see them being used as a way to control public spaces and maintain white supremacy alongside other things like lynching, controlling school curriculums, etc. Thats a lot of money for one city to pay for, and that money could be used for more important things. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. The Confederate monuments and statues should be removed not only because they are offensive and outdated, but also because they represent Virginia in the 1890s rather than in the 21st century. For many years people have been arguing whether certain controversial monuments, such as statues, should be destroyed or removed. The ornaments do not represent the history of the world; rather, they represent what the past chose to celebrate and commemorate. It depends on who the person is and what the objections are. We see this in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. On the one hand, some argue that they are historical landmarks and should be preserved. Explain your answers. Nellie Peyton, As the Men of Stone Fall, Who Should Rise up and Take Their Place?, news.trust.org, July 2, 2020, 33. Many of them were erected decades after the fall of the Confederacy as a way to remind Black Americans of their place in society. I was really dismayed to see the statue of Grant, especially, come down because Grant was never. There are pros and cons to removing statues. Robert Draper, Toppling Statues Is a First Step toward Ending Confederate Myths, nationalgeographic.com, July 2, 2020, 24. We should let them stand and use them to remind ourselves of what we are and are not, the cost our forebears paid for our freedom and to educate our children. [38], During the protests following the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, many Confederate statues were damaged or toppled, as were statues of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S. Grant. With most American figures, certainly most presidents, you will find many reasons to actually criticize them and criticize their record, even our heroes. [17] [18] The Lost Cause mythology was used to continue the idea that black people needed to be subjugated for their own good and as justification for Jim Crow laws. The US National Trust for Historic Preservation offers a point of contrast, having stated: 'We should always remember the past, but do not necessarily need to revere it'. Make sure to visit the Southern Poverty Law Centers Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy resource. They put up monuments to T.J. because of the Declaration of Independence, which every group has used to make their place in American society. GREENE: Historian Manisha Sinha is the author of "The Slave's Cause: A History Of Abolition.". Monuments to controversial historical figures should remain 3. This is why they put them up in the first place; to affirm the centrality of white supremacy to Southern culture. [1], Because the statues were intended to promote white supremacy, Richard Rose, President of Atlantas NAACP, argues, You cant contextualize racism or compromise on racism. He states that the contextualization plaques added to Atlantas Confederate statues establish that racism is valid. [24], The statues still appeal to white supremacists, as demonstrated by the 2017 rally to defend the Lee and Jackson statues in Virginia and in Dylan Roofs 2015 pre-massacre tour of plantations and a Confederate museum. Though they may represent history, the history that they represent is done in . 4. At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, a significant portion of anti-imperialist and Bolivarian thinking was based on those ideas. The states declared they had not been fighting to preserve slavery and, instead, fashioned a set of ideas and arguments that they were fighting to hold back the massive industrialization of America, they were trying to preserve rural agrarian civilization, according to David W. Blight, PhD, American History Professor at Yale University. Following the murder of George Floyd, I think we started to see a broader recognition of how statues in civic spaces can exclude certain people. Then youre asking museums to do a lot of work they dont want to do and maybe shouldnt be doing. During the 1970s, a reformulated version of the Tariff Act of 1930 was enacted, which allowed the venezolano to dispensa a Cristbal Col*n. This reaccin is made up of two components: the poblacin fluctu and the condena a la indiferencia. And that is, in fact, a very imperialist vision. Was there no other way to handle that situation? [47] Do we exclude the achievements of these figures from public display because they displayed controversial behavior? Debate around the removal of memorials and monuments that honor people and ideas whose messages and causes are considered offensive to certain marginalized groups has been a hot-button issue of late in the national conversation. Glenn Foster, founder of The Freedom Neighborhood, stated of the Emancipation Memorial, which depicts Lincoln over a kneeling freed slave, When I look at that statue, Im reminded my freedom and my liberation is only dictated by white peoples terms. On July 13, 2022, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was dedicated in Florida in place of the Confederate soldier statue. Slavery is represented in statues by people who distort history and commemorate individuals who perpetuated it. The campaigns demise was both sad and pathetic. Should Statues Of Historic Figures With Complicated Pasts Be - NPR For example, a statue of black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass was damaged over the July 4, 2020 weekend in Rochester, New York. It was an event that forced segregationists to come down rather than a single persons actions. This time also coincided with the creation of many Confederate monuments, though they were coming from a different set of concerns. The statues are also seen as ahistorical and ahistorical in depicting people who contributed to slavery, attempted to secede from the United States, and fought for independence from the United States. The statue was defaced, there was a lot of graffiti that dealt with defunding the police, and there are some incredibly powerful images that were taken during that time, some of which are going into the new time capsule. Khushbu Shah, Atlanta's Confederate Monuments: How Do Context Markers Help Explain Racism?, theguardian.com, Aug. 3, 2019, 25. Accuracy and availability may vary. The results of these revoluciones can be viewed in the following format: Un momento climtico en el derribamiento de alguna ser industrialization de Marx. There are statues being targeted of people like Ulysses S. Grant, of people like President George Washington, who were not involved in the Confederacy. So what do you think of moving into a broader swath of statues coming down and - or being targeted? The U.S. Recycling System | US EPA Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA, Natalie Leppard The renewed division between the two civil rights groups followed the war. Other statues of historic figures, such as slave-owning presidents or imperialists like Christopher Columbus, promote similar oppressive and revisionist messages. but They Should Remain., washingtonpost.com, Aug. 18, 2017, 39. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. emma.greguska@asu.edu. Should the US remove Confederate memorials, flags, and Pros And Cons Of Removing Confederate Statues | ipl.org Aishvarya Kavi, Activists Push for Removal of Statue of Freed Slave Kneeling Before Lincoln, nytimes.com, June 27, 2020, 20. Should Statues Be Removed and Destroyed? | Guest Contributor - Politics Red There was the thought that these immigrants needed to be turned into productive workers, and that concern is where a lot of our public spaces come from. But thats incredibly problematic. 2. Many of Americas founders George Washington, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. The plaques can not only detail the history of slavery and the Civil War, but also the white segregationist history that promoted the building of such statues to promote the revisionist Lost Cause history. In response to a question posed by The Daily Mail, the Queen Mothers statue in Trafalgar Square should be chosen. The removal of Confederate monuments is usually around $1.8 million in total, but this varies by location. Sophia A. Nelson claims in her book that Washingtons Lee University didnt hate black students because it had statues of Robert E. Lee and George Washington. For example, The cost to remove all the monuments and statues in New Orleans could cost $600,000. Eight US presidents owned slaves while in office, with an additional four owning slaves while not in office. When the statues are publicly owned, removing them by wanton destruction still usurps decision-making authority from the public. The Shepherd monument would not have been returned to the National Park Service if it did not provide interpretive signs and returned it to its rightful owner. Top photo: The base of the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Virginia, after his statue was removed from atop it. For one thing, it can be a close question whether a persons extraordinary feats made the world a better place: Franklin D. Roosevelt is widely commemorated, even though scholarsstill argueover whether his leadership during the Great Depression actually improved American life. Why build a street for losers? Psychologically, its perpetuating a system. Confederate monuments, in particular, hold religious, cultural, economic, and political values. Since this fundamentally conflicts with American values and ideas, they should be removed. When we get into Confederate monuments specifically, again, they were purposely put up at times when Blacks were beginning to gain more rights as citizens, and very often, they were erected in public, civic spaces, often on courthouse lawns, specifically to let Black people know that even though, legally, they had more rights, those rights wouldnt be upheld there. Alex Parsons, Replace All Confederate Statues in Tennessee with Dolly Parton, change.org (accessed July 8, 2020), 31. It was a great energy to be a part of removing that statue and seeding something new in its place; a little piece of respect and love for the land, which is what I consider the poem to be.. David Greene talks to Manisha Sinha, professor of American history at the University of Connecticut, about the recent toppling of non-Confederate statues like those of George Washington. There is no path to a peaceful and prosperous country without challenging and rejecting that as a basis for our society. Historic Statue Removal - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org The removal of Confederate statues is a painful reminder of the countrys racist past and present. Edward Colston: Why are people arguing about statues? ", ProCon.org. Lawrence A. Kuznar, PhD, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Fort Wayne, stated that removing Confederate statues is a whitewashing of our history that destroys our ability to remember inconvenient truths from our past. There are statues of people all over the place, and they should be removed. 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During the globalBlack Lives Matterprotests in the summer of 2020, calls to take down the statues were met with citizens not only actively damaging or removing statues of Confederate figures, but targeting statues of slave-holdingFounding Fathers in general, as well as historic monuments to Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. Dreamers and DACA supporters rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court. {mosads}George Washington is one example of the traditional standard in action. Confederate symbols and flags have been removed from public display in the South since the end of the Civil War. Many people believe that these statues and monuments are inciting white supremacy and promoting violence. And the vast majority of these statues were erected during the height of the Jim Crow movement, as historian Kevin M. Kruse has shown. [23] For example, the Confederate statues in the Capitol building should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation. GREENE: Has your view on all of this changed since George Floyd was killed and we've seen such anger on the streets and such a growing movement at this moment? In the 1930s and 1940s, revolutionary and reformist forces distrusted Columbus statues because they had been erected with a clearly racist and Eurocentric spirit. A statue of Cecil Rhodes being removed from the University of Cape Town campus, South Africa, 2015. Who Abraham Lincoln was. Today, some of the worst leaders of the French Revolution have names on public sights, like the metro station named for Maximilien Robespierre, architect of the Reign of Terror. Consider appealing to the American Alliance of Museums for the use of the statues removed from public display. What do you think of that idea? He freed that slave. Among the items included in a new time capsule that will take its place is a copy of Diazs Pulitzer Prize-winning Postcolonial Love Poem., When my old basketball coach Wendy Larry texted me to tell me the Virginia governor's office was trying to reach me, I had no idea what they might want. MANISHA SINHA: It always astonished me as a Civil War historian to see statues commemorating Confederate generals and politicians who had literally committed treason against this country in order to uphold human bondage. On the one hand, some argue that they are historical landmarks and should be preserved. A few years ago, the nation stood watch as Confederate statues started tumbling down at the hands of protestors or at the direction of city officials, seeking peace and reckoning mainly throughout the South after the deaths of Black men at the hands of police and other racial injustices. During the 2017 rebellion in Venezuela, at least 11 Hugo Chvez statues were torn down. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Petition Pushes for Parton Statues, arkansasonline.com, June 23, 2020, 30. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. [15] [16], However, after the Confederate States lost the Civil War, the South revised history. George Martin, Why Confederate Monuments Should Be Preserved and Honored, charlotteobserver.com, July 6, 2017, 38. These monuments are controversial because they are seen by some as honoring the Confederacy and its pro-slavery and white supremacist policies and by others as historical markers of the nations history. ONLY FOR REPUBLICANS. Those who argue in favor of keeping political statues in public spaces typically make the following points: 1. Citizens have the right to express themselves in ways that respect their personal beliefs by creating statues and holding controversial opinions. Like, FDR, after all, was responsible for the internment of Japanese American citizens. Perhaps that is precisely why the standard is flouted by those who want to politicize everything. The Day of the Race has been condemned by social science as a result of its extreme racism, including the Nazism of World War II. I cannot see myself pulling down a statue in that way. Poli Sci prof (IR) at U. Illinois. The Confederate statues have no redeeming qualities to them, but other statues certainly do. Because civil rights groups have grown in prominence, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) dedicated a monument to Shepherd, a so-called faithful slave.

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