Racial Tension in the U.S.

MediumBaller said:

Who decides who makes up "The People"?
If we look at the polls it seems like the majority of "The People" do not support taking down the monuments.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fiveth...-we-should-take-down-confederate-statues/amp/

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It's not a national issue, it's a local one.

There was a vote to take down the statue of Lee.

As @The Human Q-Tip would say, some people just don't like the outcome.

AZ_ said:

It's not a national issue, it's a local one.

There was a vote to take down the statue of Lee.

As @The Human Q-Tip would say, some people just don't like the outcome.

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If people vote to take down a statue then okay, fine. Lately a lot of these statues have been removed at night without a vote by the people.

The Oi said:

I'm obviously not black so I don't know how it feels to walk by statues of Civil War heroes and the right call may be to put these in museums.

But @King Stannis, if I understand the Civil War correctly...Robert E Lee could have easily been a Union General or other high ranking officer, yes? And chose not to be one simply because of his sentiment, as that of many other people then, that states came before country and that they should be allowed to secede if they chose to do so.

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This is essentially my understanding. Keep in mind, the reason the states were seceding was the threat to the institution of slavery. So to put your state above country in this instance is to choose slavery over remaining in the Union.

And that THIS- the rights of a state to secede if they chose to do so- was what the Civil War was about more than slavery.

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But that choice doesn't come up in this instance if not for slavery. Any argument that the Civil War was about states rights DEPENDS on slavery, rather than skirts it.

That the abolition of slavery was a secondary (maybe even tertiary) effect of the Confederacy losing the Civil War.

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That's a more complicated matter.

If I'm understanding this correctly (may not be), Robert E Lee was not the terrible person he has been rewritten to be at all.

Help me on this one please before I development an argument further.

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Nobody really views him as one of history's great monsters. The Hitler statue argument is not really calling Lee Hitler (or at least a sensible person's comparison isn't), just that if you want to honor history we should think about the victims instead.

If anything, Lee has been re-written as more sympathetic than he probably deserves. A lot of people see him as anti-slavery, having his hand forced to protect his beloved south. In reality he was a slave-owner. He did free his slaves upon death and wrote of slavery being an "evil," so there is that. From a NYT article about the letter in which he wrote that:

Dr. Foner said that after the war, Lee did not support rights for black citizens, such as the right to vote, and was largely silent about violence perpetrated by white supremacists during Reconstruction.

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Another interesting bit:

The general did, however, object to the idea of raising Confederate monuments, writing in 1869 that it would be wiser “not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife.”

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MediumBaller said:

Antifa is a far greater threat than the alt-right. Trump was 100% right in denouncing them.

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FBI and Homeland Security have a bulletin report that White Supremacy is the greatest domestic terror threat to the U.S. and relayed this report to Donald Trump.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14...ng-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/

The Oi said:

But @King Stannis, if I understand the Civil War correctly...Robert E Lee could have easily been a Union General or other high ranking officer, yes? And chose not to be one simply because of his sentiment, as that of many other people then, that states came before country and that they should be allowed to secede if they chose to do so.

And that THIS- the rights of a state to secede if they chose to do so- was what the Civil War was about more than slavery. That the abolition of slavery was a secondary (maybe even tertiary) effect of the Confederacy losing the Civil War.

If I'm understanding this correctly (may not be), Robert E Lee was not the terrible person he has been rewritten to be at all.

Help me on this one please before I develop an argument further. I flat out don't trust the information out there at the moment and don't feel like reading a book on him.

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This romanticizing of Lee is wrong.

For one, Lee did not believe secession was specifically legal, but instead potentially unavoidable. Lee largely advocated that the Union of States was perpetual in nature and not intended to be dissolved (i.e, States did not have specific rights or powers to cede from the Union); however, the argument instead was that any people have a right to self-determination, such that, no government should force their Union.

Lee's reasoning for joining the Confederacy was because he felt his "home" and his allegiance was with Virginia; to defend his "native state" but not to take up arms against the Union. So, according to Lee (his reasoning to his contemporaries at least) suggests he felt joining the Confederacy would be a matter of self-defense in a war that he didn't support but was out of his control. In other words, Lee's argument was that, if the State of Virginia were honorable in addressing it's grievance, and left with no other choice but to secede, then he would fight to defend Virginia since his loyalties first lie with his home over the "Federal Government."

Lastly, you would be wrong to think that slavery was not the primary reason behind secession and Lee's thinking. It was the primary reason for the South to secede from the Union. The idea of "States Rights" revolves around the question of the expansion and continuation of the institution of slavery. Remove slavery from the equation, and you don't have a war.

In other words, the question of States Rights is a polite way of framing the question of slavery.

Is there any accuracy to the assertion that the South's loss had less to do with a strategy issue and more to do with blindness caused by staring at an eclipse that they were unaware could cause damage to their eyes due to a lack of social media at the time?

The Oi said:

Is there any accuracy to the assertion that the South's loss had less to do with a strategy issue and more to do with blindness caused by staring at an eclipse that they were unaware could cause damage to their eyes due to a lack of social media at the time?

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May the shadow of the moon fall on a world of peace.

Ahhhh the Civil War discussion in a race thread...

Certainly as relevant today as ever. A sure reminder that besides cars, airplanes, computing, cellphones, satellites, building materials, music, entertainment, how we speak, and just about everything being completely different in our everyday modern lives, we are forever stuck in 1861 according to those whose great grandparents weren't even alive at that point.

Here's to another 156 years of dwelling on the past.

"These blacks really need to let go of the past and forget about slavery and civil rights, those days are over."


*Takes down statue of Robert E. Lee



"Now wait just a goddamn minute"

AZ_ said:

"These blacks really need to let go of the past and forget about slavery and civil rights, those days are over."

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"That there statue ruins my day! I don't want to remember the horrific things I didn't experience!"

Kyrie4MVP0202 said:

"That there statue ruins my day! I don't want to remember the horrific things I didn't experience!"

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I mean, how the fuck is the Civil War not relevant? It's one of the major determining factors in the history of race in this country. The recent protests have revolved around memorials to the losing side of that war. Pretending it's not worthy of discussion, especially at a time when it's highly relevant, is like saying the Constitution is irrelevant to a discussion of modern government.

It's akin to erasing history. Isn't that the whole argument? That history matters? So why shouldn't people talk about it? Do you honestly think it didn't have relevant effects on race relations today?

Quit baiting people into saying something that will get this thread closed.

-Akronite- said:

I mean, how the fuck is the Civil War not relevant? It's one of the major determining factors in the history of race in this country. The recent protests have revolved around memorials to the losing side of that war. Pretending it's not worthy of discussion, especially at a time when it's highly relevant, is like saying the Constitution is irrelevant to a discussion of modern government.

It's akin to erasing history. Isn't that the whole argument? That history matters? So why shouldn't people talk about it? Do you honestly think it didn't have relevant effects on race relations today?

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It has zero relevancy.

I've visited several monuments and statues throughout my life that represented both good and bad. I've always viewed them in a historical context as many others do. History is interesting to a lot of people.

I grew up in the south and I've never heard a Southerner say slavery was a good thing. This shit hasn't been an issue for decades upon decades until now. We are so inundated with emotional ideas through the internet and media that we've become emotionally volatile toward anything and everything.

It's going to bite us in the ass one of these days.

Kyrie4MVP0202 said:

It has zero relevancy.

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It has zero relevancy to you. It's quite obvious that's not the case for those asking for their removal.

Kyrie4MVP0202 said:

It has zero relevancy.

I've visited several monuments and statues throughout my life that represented both good and bad. I've always viewed them in a historical context as many others do. History is interesting to a lot of people.

I grew up in the south and I've never heard a Southerner say slavery was a good thing. This shit hasn't been an issue for decades upon decades until now. We are so inundated with emotional ideas through the internet and media that we've become emotionally volatile toward anything and everything.

It's going to bite us in the ass one of these days.

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Unfathomable to believe it could have an impact that doesn't match your worldview.

Kudos to Jim Brown, Lebron, and some of the others speaking out recently. I appreciate their message, I think they're speaking their mind and their hearts in a (generally) unifying way.