SPLC: Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy

[G_j]

Last edited Sat Aug 19, 2017, 01:20 PM - Edit history (2)

https://www.splcenter.org/20160421/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy



<snip>
Following the Charleston massacre, the Southern Poverty Law Center launched an effort to catalog and map Confederate place names and other symbols in public spaces, both in the South and across the nation. This study, while far from comprehensive, identified a total of 1,503.*

These include:

718 monuments and statues, nearly 300 of which are in Georgia, Virginia or North Carolina;
109 public schools named for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis or other Confederate icons;
80 counties and cities named for Confederates;
9 official Confederate holidays in six states; and
10 U.S. military bases named for Confederates.
Critics may say removing a flag or monument, renaming a military base or school, or ending a state holiday is tantamount to "erasing history." In fact, across the country, Confederate flag supporters have held more than 350 rallies since the Charleston attack.

But the argument that the Confederate flag and other displays represent “heritage, not hate” ignores the near-universal heritage of African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by the millions in the South. It trivializes their pain, their history and their concerns about racism — whether it’s the racism of the past or that of today.

And it conceals the true history of the Confederate States of America and the seven decades of Jim Crow segregation and oppression that followed the Reconstruction era.

There is no doubt among reputable historians that the Confederacy was established upon the premise of white supremacy and that the South fought the Civil War to preserve its slave labor. Its founding documents and its leaders were clear. “Our new government is founded upon … the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition,” declared Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens in his 1861 “Cornerstone speech.”

..more..

[underpants]

1. Hell, Richmond is LITTERED with second place trophies

We have a whole avenue of them.

[gratuitous]

2. The short response

If you want Confederate memorials and monuments on public grounds, establish your own country with its own public grounds. The public grounds in this country belong to the United States of America, and our Constitution specifically outlaws slavery.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

But the argument that the Confederate flag and other displays represent “heritage, not hate” ignores the near-universal heritage of African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by the millions in the South. It trivializes their pain, their history and their concerns about racism — whether it’s the racism of the past or that of today.

And it conceals the true history of the Confederate States of America and the seven decades of Jim Crow segregation and oppression that followed the Reconstruction era.

The thing is, it doesn't ignore it - it completely dismisses it as not important to those who think only they matter.

[kwassa]

4. The monuments represent the triumph of Jim Crow.

They were erected when the whites had completely expelled blacks from politics in the South through internal domestic terrorism in the 1890s and early 1900s, and foreshadowed the new rise of the KKK, which reached its peak in the 1920s.

They are an expression of white power.

[Raster]

5. OMG! This. is. truth!

[G_j]

6. Exactly right

there is no question about it.

[G_j]

7. --