@mitch70 may I point out for someone who says diversity doesn’t work, he certainly has a diverse family. It must be working in your family, just as it has in mine.
This is what should be taught in schools.
This month marks 400 years since enslaved Africans were first brought to what is now the United States of America. Slavery was officially abolished in the US in 1865, but historians say the legacy of slavery cannot be untangled from its economic impact. On a hot August day, 25 people are gathered around a small commemorative sign in New York's financial district. Their tour guide explains that this was the site of one of the US' largest slave markets.
Just two streets away from the current site of the New York Stock Exchange, men, women and children were bought and sold. "This is not black history," says Damaris Obi who leads the tour. "This is not New York City or American history. This is world history."
It is also economic history. Stacey Toussaint, the boss of Inside Out Tours, which runs the NYC Slavery and Underground Railroad tour, says people are often surprised by how important slavery was to New York City.
"They don't realise that enslaved people built the wall after which Wall Street is named," she says.https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49476247
I did this tour in New Orleans, basically a one man operation, but he has rallied a lot of support. https://www.hiddenhistory.us/. He was kind old a few years ago and it looks like he might have thrown in the towel.
I don’t have time to look up the pictures, but one of the locations we went to was across from a building on the regular tours. They don’t mention much about the slave trade during the tours put on by the parks or city. What he showed us was a bar. It used to have actual artifacts from plantations, like shackles and whips, just hanging from the ceiling. It was the theme of the place. They should have been in a museum, and not presented as trophies. He protested the place and then one night, it was all gone. He doesn’t know where the stuff went.
This is how we erase our own history and the evidence racism still exists. People who say we aren’t doing that are proof that the erasing works.
@lausten I agree. I’m not big on Civil War statues, but to start destroying them and replacing them is erasing history. As a nation, we must face our racist history, both the slavery mostly Black people, but some natives) and the genocide (mostly N.A.). Then there was the racism against the Irish, Asians etc.
Recorded slavery since Egyptian times.
The statues that people want torn down are the ones that try to erase the pre civil war history. The guy wanted those artifacts to be displayed with historical context, not in a bar. The bar owners erased them
Statues honoring southern generals would be okay with me if there were also statues honoring the slaves that fought for freedom.
Germany has historical markers that mark atrocities from WWII. We should have those. Duluth MN has one, there is a new one in GA. NOLA has one plantation that focuses on the slaves. There should be a lot more like that.
Those who forget history are doom to repeat it. IF they succeed in erasing it, people will forget that history even existed, and the U.S. will be doomed to repeat it again. We cannot forget Wounded Knee, Slavery, Battle of Bighorn, Jim Crow, Carlisle Schools, Separate But Equal (is not Equal), or anything else like that in U.S. history.
Those who forget history are doom to repeat it. IF they succeed in erasing it, people will forget that history even existed, and the U.S. will be doomed to repeat it again. We cannot forget Wounded Knee, Slavery, Battle of Bighorn, Jim Crow, Carlisle Schools, Separate But Equal (is not Equal), or anything else like that in U.S. history.I absolutely agree. I think it's a terrible idea to destroy statues.
Remove them from positions of admiration, but build museums that can become a record of history, where these memorials can be placed in proper historical context and be a source of knowledge of the past.
How many times have we commiserated about the destruction of great artworks, because they depicted a time or person we want to forget. Priceless artefacts have been lost to civilization over the centuries. Is this not what archaeology is all about? A search for remains of ancient civilizations?
When placed in a museum the civilizations these artefacts represent can still be a source of connection to past ancestral civilizations for many people.
Aside from slavery (a worldwide practice), the colonial South did have some redeeming cultural values. Creating great statues was one of them, even if the subject matter was objectionable by today’s standards.
I think it is foolish to throw out the baby with the wash water.
‘History is that which, when you erase it, doesn’t go away.’ (loosely translated from Philp K Dick)
I know it’s Vox, but you can verify this information easily in neutral historical articles I've studied the history of Confederate memorials. Here's what to do about them. - Vox .
The statues of the Southern generals were erected specifically to honor and maintain the ideas of the people of the South who felt they could still win the Civil War. Freed slaves had no say in them being paid for or erected if they were government sanctioned, and often it was private interests. There are a lot of them, it would be a waste to put every one of them in a museum and explain it. These are not usually great artworks either. When they say something on them other than a name and dates, that history is often wrong.
The reasons you have given to defend them, just don’t apply.
This is one with lies. It was in a major boulevard but after protests, the city moved it in the middle of the night to a parking log. The first inscription talked about white supremacy, but that was covered up saying it was about all Americans. It wasn’t, it was a monument to a failed uprising. I don’t know you can justify that.
Remove them from positions of admiration, but build museums that can become a record of history, where these memorials can be placed in proper historical context and be a source of knowledge of the past.
Exactly! That seems the only way to keep from erasing history, forgetting it, and then repeating it. A museum is the best way to do this.
That seems the only way to keep from erasing history -- MrianaThe only way? Do we need to keep every symbol of failed ideas, every monument to the stupidity of some folly to preserve the institution of slavery? We teach it in history books, in literature, in song. Plantations are preserved and you can go tour them. How many different ways do I have to show that the monuments are not a source of knowledge, they are an attempt to distort it.
Whitney Museum is the only one that is working to preserve the history of what it was like to be a slave. Their monuments name them. Their statues depict them. All others barely spend a few minutes talking about them.
We teach it in history books, in literature, in song.
Are we really? Mississippi, once a slave state, ranks #50 in education, meaning kids aren’t getting educated in that state. Much of what should be taught isn’t in school books, because Texas, which was once also a slave state, controls what is in educational textbooks for public schools for most of the nation. Schools won’t teach the controversy. Even when my sons were in school, Evolution wasn’t taught nor was Cretinism, because it was controversial, so I had to teach my sons about Evolution. The truth of the matter is, many schools south of the old Mason Dixon Line and those on the line do not educate. You can easily look all of this up for yourself, but IF I must, I will post the links sometime after I get home from work. The truth of the matter is kids aren’t being educated at least not in Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, the deep South, with Old Miss being at the very bottom. I truly believe this is also why we are having issues with the COVID vaccine, masks, and the ever changing science on the matter. People in the hot states are not educated, even in science to understand that science changes when the info is updated. They say, “It’s confusing, all these changes the CDC keeps making!” Meanwhile, my own doctor told me when the CDC removed it’s mask requirement [for fully vaccinated people] it was premature. My doctor is a very smart lady and I agreed with her about it too, continuing to wear a mask at work and in public, despite being fully vaccinated. People really aren’t being educated, so what makes you think what people need to learn about history really is there in the text books? It’s not and teachers aren’t teaching history or science. They teach reading and math, maybe, but they don’t teach much anything else, especially if it’s thought to be controversial. The educational system in the U.S. is broken, especially in former border and slave states. So we need to have these statues and alike in museums and to tell the story of the Civil War and how much of a military genius Sherman was when he burned the South. The man was a genius, but yet, St. Louis names a boat after Robert E. Lee and celebrates that man (for what I don’t know), instead of the military genius Sherman. Sherman was a military genius.
I know about schools in the south. The people who are screwing them up are the same types that put up the monuments with lies and misinformation. Do you think kids that get propaganda in school will know, and go find a museum? If they see a Lee statue in the main square, they will believe he was good man, and the people around them will validate it.
Neither write4u or I are saying to leave Robert E. Lee in the town square or even on a boat. We’re talking about a museum, in which he and Sherman would facing each other down, as a Civil War archive. BTW, what propaganda are you talking about concern Lee? I don’t think anyone, except brainwashed white people in the South believe he was a good man. Did you even read what I said about Sherman? Sherman was a military genius and I learned that in American History Honours classes. Sadly they don’t teach his military genius in regular classes- at least not in MO. I came from an IL high school to a MO high school, years ago when my parents moved me here and suddenly they are putting me in honours classes. They don’t get propaganda in schools, but they don’t get educated either, unless they are in honours courses and wanting to learn. It’s just rudimentary stuff and not much of that either. When my older son was in high school teachers said not only knew more science than they did, but he could teach the science class. College professors complained that the education prior to college does not teach people how to think and they end up having to teach thinking before they can teach the basic courses. Education down here is a joke and kids in K-12 aren’t be taught much of anything. They don’t even teach sex ed (controversial)- again, I bought my son a book and had him talk to his pediatrician when he hit puberty because I don’t have a clue about boy bodies when it comes to puberty and alike. That was the majority of his sex ed and BTW the book, while written for boys, also covered girls’ development too. Trust me- the book may have been recommended by his pediatrician, but don’t think I didn’t read what he was reading also. I did, thus how I know what was in it. Education down here is a joke. Basically, I educated my sons more than the schools ever did.
So, let’s narrow the focus. I hear you saying that we should take all the Confederate statues and move them into museums, which might mean building some more museum space.
Is that right?
Is that right?
Yes and no. Not all museums, just Civil War Museums and really not all of them need to go because it would just be deplication and no, we might not need more space at all. Museums are are always sharing stuff, shuffling stuff from one museum to another. We don’t need all of the Robert E Lee statues or all the Jefferson Davis statues etc etc. I’m saying we shouldn’t destroy all of them, but we should keep a few to place in Civil War museums, be it sharing a small few or one in each Civil War museum. For all I know there may be at least one in a given Civil War museum and if that is the case, then it’s no big deal. See the Confederacy didn’t happen until said states seceded from the Union, so we are actually talking a short time in history. We aren’t talking about slavery before the Civil War or the Reconstruction. By the time the Reconstruction of the South began, Sherman had already burned the South and the war was over. We aren’t talking hundreds of years like we would if it were slavery, but only a four year period. You seem to be thinking there are statues for a hundred years or better, when it was only from April 1861 to May 1865. We were taught it was a war for “states’ rights”, which for the South, included slavery, whether school curriculums would admit it or not, which they did not. If you said it was over slavery, it was marked wrong, because the answer was “states’ rights”, and there’s the propaganda you said was not in schools concerning the Civil War. A student could argue until they were blue in the face, but if they did not say/write “states’ rights” the answer was wrong, unless you want to say the expansion of slavery was a part of “states’ rights”, but a student still had to answer with “states rights” or they were wrong. Now the Civil War museum would say it was about slavery and the expansion thereof, attempting to rid the propaganda the schools taught.
So, let’s narrow the focus. I hear you saying that we should take all the Confederate statues and move them into museums, which might mean building some more museum space.How about Civil War museums that provide a clear contrast between the North and the South. These can be used to teach basic history as well as advanced philosophy and a true reenactment of these societies and how they operated in those days.
Not all museums have to display the best humanity can produce. Some museums display the worst inhumane acts. I believe there is a WWII museum that does not celebrate but condemns Hitler’s and Himmler’s Nazi regime, with the most graphic and horrifying pictorials.
Again, I agree @write4u. The North believed all humans should be free, while the South wanted to enslave anyone not a male WASP. Ok so I’m stretching a bit, but not by much because they did try to enslave Native Americans too.
I’m stretching a bit, but not by much because they did try to enslave Native Americans too.Mission Indians
Spanish explorers arrived on California's coasts as early as the mid-16th century. In 1769 the first Spanish Franciscan mission was built in San Diego. Local tribes were relocated and conscripted into forced labor on the mission, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. Disease, starvation, over work and torture decimated these tribes.[1] Many were baptized as Roman Catholics by the Franciscan missionaries at the missions.
Mission Indians were from many regional Native American tribes; their members were often relocated together in new mixed groups and the Spanish named the Indian groups after the responsible mission. For instance, the Payomkowishum were renamed Luiseños after the Mission San Luis Rey and the Acjachemem were renamed the Juaneños after the Mission San Juan Capistrano and the Kizh or Kisiannos renamed Gabrieleño after the mission San Gabrielhttps://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/ucp026-001.pdf .page 8
[2] The Catholic priests forbade the Indians from practicing their native culture, resulting in the disruption of many tribes' linguistic, spiritual and cultural practices. With no acquired immunity to the new European diseases and changed cultural and lifestyle demands, the population of Native American Mission Indians suffered high mortality and dramatic decreases especially in the coastal regions where population was reduced by 90 percent between 1769 and 1848.[3]Later they were treated decently. Many stayed voluntarily for several generations and were known as "Mission Indians". I know this because my wife's great grandmother and grandmother worked on the mission grounds.
The missionaries kept very precise records of who worked for the mission and we were able to obtain copies of some records.
I’m not, and never did disagree that putting a few of the statues, built between 1890 and 1950, into museums, and the history of how they were built in the Jim Crow era, and their purpose of trying to paint the old south in a better light.