Salem Witch Trials an analogy for removing all confederate statues

[egbertowillies]

The president attempted to defend the those who want to keep the Confederate symbols and statues using terms like History and Culture. He would do well to read this.

https://egbertowillies.com/2017/08/15/salem-witch-trial-confederate-statues/

[L. Coyote]

1. Mob mentality is a frightening thing to witness.

The moreso when the president leads the mob!

"... torch bearing mobs of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville ... a visual representation of the kind of mob mentality, hysteria and hatred that fueled the atrocities committed in Salem ...."

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Great article. Thank you for posting it.

Some excerpts from the article are posted below:

If you travel to Salem, Massachusetts you can visit the Witchcraft Victim’s Memorial, take tours of the jail and visit several preserved structures in Danvers and Salem related to the trials. What you won’t find are monuments built to honor the brave men who had to hang and torture the women and men accused of witchcraft. This bothers me. They were husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. They did what they had to do to protect their way of life. They are part of history. Where are their statues? This is a ridiculous argument, but not really. The officers of the court who arrested, questioned, prosecuted and executed the accused were acting under the legal authority granted to them by their government. They are no better or worse than the Confederate soldiers who participated in the attempted overthrow the United States government. Americans have no problem condemning the evil committed in the Massachusetts Bay but have a much more complicated relationship with the evil committed in the name of the Confederacy...

The tragic events in Charlottesville were 325 years and 573 miles removed from the Witch Trials in Salem, yet both American horror stories share roots in hatred and hysteria. The people behind the Salem Witch Trials and Charlottesville weaponized the fear and anxiety of their allies. Once a mob is formed and their inhabitations have been lowered it becomes that much easier for them to kill those dehumanized by their ideology...

The scapegoating of racial, religious and sexual minorities is a necessary recruitment tool for hate groups trying to grow their numbers. The images of torch wielding xenophobes and bigots are disheartening but not nearly as disheartening as the social media posts of seemingly normal people who have tried to justify their actions. The soft bigotry at the core of their need to understand, justify and even sympathize is just as damaging to race relations as the people walking up and down American streets with Swastikas...

America was able to preserve the history of the Salem Witch Trials without canonizing the villains who committed the evil acts. 99.99% of our society can’t name one person responsible for the hangings, stoning, and torture that defined that dark period of American history, yet we all know what happened. If the statues stay we should at least be honest about the terror they represented for 22% of America’s population at the time of the Civil War.