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[Neonivek]

Unlike video games, statues are inert and non-interactable (yeah you can touch them, but you guys know what I mean), so, that comparison doesn't really work

That is a needless nitpick. All I am saying is that are these statues MAKING people rally, are they such a powerful symbol that Nazis are being created through their existence...

Or do Nazis exist and they just chose convenient symbols?

Hopefully a clear example: imagine neonazis gained enough political power in germany to go around building monuments to hitler and his generals today, years after the war.

I do kind of LOVE the idea that when the South lost the Civil war... the north EXTERMINATED THEM! We should teach that in American schools given that the American Civil War is basically the Holocaust.

[smjjames]

Unlike video games, statues are inert and non-interactable (yeah you can touch them, but you guys know what I mean), so, that comparison doesn't really work

That is a needless nitpick. All I am saying is that are these statues MAKING people rally, are they such a powerful symbol that Nazis are being created through their existence...

Or do Nazis exist and they just chose convenient symbols?

This is getting into the philosophical realm of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". Though evolutionarily speaking, the egg came first.

Hopefully a clear example: imagine neonazis gained enough political power in germany to go around building monuments to hitler and his generals today, years after the war.

I do kind of LOVE the idea that when the South lost the Civil war... the north EXTERMINATED THEM! We should teach that in American schools given that the American Civil War is basically the Holocaust.

I wouldn't quite go THAT far as the holocaust, but yes, the North were pretty brutal on Southerners after the war, look at how General Sherman did his march, it was almost scorched earth. There were atrocities on both sides and I've heard that the PoW camps on both sides were about equally brutal.

[Max™]

When it was built to remind black people of what the statue builders considered "the good old days" then yeah, it kinda does. Letting the discussion turn into one about how we should handle discussions of and teaching the history of the civil war rather than one about whether it is cool to accept the presence of monuments to the dark periods when the KKK gained enough power to build them seems wrong.

Hopefully a clear example: imagine neonazis gained enough political power in germany to go around building monuments to hitler and his generals today, years after the war.

I do kind of LOVE the idea that when the South lost the Civil war... the north EXTERMINATED THEM! We should teach that in American schools given that the American Civil War is basically the Holocaust.

What? Stop that.

Group A does something against Group B, then Group A is slapped down for it.

Later Group A2 forms and are big fans of what Group A did, so they start doing things to remind Group B what they think of them.

Is it cool to leave monuments which Group A2 built "to honor Group A" up when they were actually built to show how much they hate Group B?

[Neonivek]

Group A does something to group B, group A is slapped down for it.

Group A tries to stand up again after being slapped, Group A is slapped down for it.

Group A complains that they are being slapped, Group A is slapped down for it.

Group A tries to do something else, Group A is slapped down for it.

Group A tries to remember a time they weren't being slapped... It was before they were slapped down for it.

---

Hence why they should just teach that the North killed every southerner after the Civil War. Just rewrite history. There are no actual factual Nazis anymore, so there shouldn't be any southerners.

[smjjames]

This is getting into the absurd zone.......

[Neonivek]

This is getting into the absurd zone.......

I'll put it this way smjjames. Southern Pride is racist

The South was never really allowed to recover from the Civil War.

[smjjames]

The South was never really allowed to recover from the Civil War.

Which was the problem, part of the problem at least. There was never really any reconcillation either, instead, it's been a messy, jerky, spastic, rollercoaster of a reconcillation that happened bit by bit.

[Max™]

All southerners aren't hatefilled racists who join shit like the KKK and build monuments to racism. I don't think of myself as a southerner first, but I mean, I'm a Texan, I hate racists, big fan of tearing down shit the KKK built to honor racists.

Are you basically saying that everyone in the south is a racist or something, Neo?

[Starver]

Then again we do still celebrate April Fools... and that started out as a racist holiday,

Query?  Which particular tradition are you thinking of, here?

[Dunamisdeos]

I'd like to add that I have lived for around half my life here in Richmond VA.

There are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of statues and memorials to various men and events from the civil war. I have never once heard them mentioned in any positive way or context by anyone in relation to white supremacy until 2017. In school or in public and private conversation, I have only heard them referred to as an uncomfortable reminder of a terrible time in local history, or in reference to the military history of the men involved, or at worst in reference to atrocities committed by Union forces. (Granted I don't hang around with supremacists)

No matter who put them up, they serve a positive purpose. That NO monument to what we did as a nation should exist seems appalling.

@Max
I would build on what you said and say that the vast, overwhelming majority of Southerners are not hatefilled racists. For them and myself, we must have some connection to this past.

[smjjames]

The dilemma is that African-Americans, understandably, don't see the confederate statues in the same way as white Southerners do. So, what's a solution everybody on all sides, from most interest groups (the neonazis/white supremacists/etc would most likely be unwilling to compromise even a nanometer, so, we're leaving those out) would agree on?

RedKing and a few others have said that the KKK/neonazis/white supremacists/etc overtly rallying around a statue and doing a rally like this is pretty recent and the controversey over bringing down confederate monuments is actually also pretty recent. So, it's like a different phase or something in reconcillation, I dunno.

[Neonivek]

Are you basically saying that everyone in the south is a racist or something, Neo?

No, I am saying that the south is treated like everyone in the south is a racist.

[Frumple]

I mean... the compromise is easy, so long as someone can pay for it? Or there's... I'unno, enough people willing to volunteer to do the work or somethin'.

Just, y'know. Keep the statues and monuments and whatnot. But move them away from like... main street and shit. Out from in front of court houses and such, even if it's just the old ones kept around for memorial's sake. Maybe have a little bit added on to whatever to highlight the whole you wa shit thing, just to be sure, if there's not already.

Though, so far as I'm aware, nudging confed crap kinda' out of the way isn't really recent, per se. Seem to remember bits and baubles of it bubbling up from the depths of the news every once in a long while for a good two, three decades... probably more before that, too. It's just started getting to the point the efforts aren't as easy to ignore, both from a "Statue, what statue, you see no statue, now go away, also we'll jail your ass if you try to move that definitely not a statue to somewhere less wang-in-facey" sense and so far as general public awareness.

... part of me just realized there may be a point to wonder, there. We're not too many years off from becoming majority minority, and projections and whatnot have had enough time to sink in. Might explain part of the reason(s) why it's becoming an issue with more public awareness of it. Folks primarily shat on by it is getting a bit more parity in political weight, or at least more able to call in help that wasn't existent or punchy (in the legal/economic punch sense) enough to warrant much attention previously.

@Max
I would build on what you said and say that the vast, overwhelming majority of Southerners are not hatefilled racists. For them and myself, we must have some connection to this past.

A: So let's let that connection not be the stuff racist shitbags used to take a dump on our neighbors in the early to mid 1900s I don't think we explicitly need an attack on civil rights sitting down town to keep a connection to the past.

And if we do, we have a helluva' lot bigger problem than some freaking statues. I know our education system down here's pretty rough and humanities endowments few and slender, but damn, come on. If it's that bad sell the things and hire a wandering historian/teacher troop to go from town to town telling us of the kinda' shitty song of our people. They can bring music! The song of our people is kinda' shit but bluegrass and mountain music and all the rest of it is on point.

Also, B: You're fairly accurate saying the overwhelming majority of southerners are not hatefilled racists, heh. Most of it's much more low key and... atmospheric (?), for lack of a better word. Of course you avoid black neighborhoods, of course the black dude going down the street is probably peddling drugs, of course you're going to take a long and mighty piss on your kids or family if they bring home black/mexican/etc. relationship fodder. Etc., etc. Just part of how things work, lotta' times folks just straight up don't notice they're doing it. Sometimes even when you point it out, there's a half dozen reasons they attribute it to unrelated to race! There's just this oddly consistent pattern in what they entail (various degrees of racism) and what triggers the reactions (not!white people).

[Max™]

I'd like to add that I have lived for around half my life here in Richmond VA.

There are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of statues and memorials to various men and events from the civil war. I have never once heard them mentioned in any positive way or context by anyone in relation to white supremacy until 2017. In school or in public and private conversation, I have only heard them referred to as an uncomfortable reminder of a terrible time in local history, or in reference to the military history of the men involved, or at worst in reference to atrocities committed by Union forces. (Granted I don't hang around with supremacists)

No matter who put them up, they serve a positive purpose. That NO monument to what we did as a nation should exist seems appalling.

Which nation are you talking about, cause the one which lots of these are ostensibly supposed to represent doesn't exist anymore, but look at the dates of the ones on Monument Avenue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Avenue#Monuments

Lee: 1890 Confederate
Stuart: 1907 Confederate
Davis: 1907 Confederate
Jackson: 1919 Confederate
Maury: 1929 Confederate
Ashe: 1996 Co-co-co-combo breaker!

@Max
I would build on what you said and say that the vast, overwhelming majority of Southerners are not hatefilled racists. For them and myself, we must have some connection to this past.

Just make sure it's the right past, that stretch where segregation was a big enough issue for racists to get enough power to plonk down monuments "for the civil war" as a sort of reminder that there were people who would fight to keep black people as slaves--and something of a veiled threat "we[the KKK] would be happier if it was like this again" really--rather than a statement about how we shouldn't forget how awful it was that they were slaves at all.

[smjjames]

The thing though is that while Maury did fight for the confederacy, his statue isn't even a Civil War monument, heck, the local Sons of Confederate Veterans don't even go by there.

Wikipedia doesn't really say what his views on slavery were, going to try and find that.

For prominent individuals like the generals or Davis, I get it, but for other individuals or statues, it gets murkier.