The Statues

[*bfine32*]

(07-14-2020, 09:39 AM)fredtoast Wrote: yeah, right.  That makes all the difference in the world.  If that ex slave could just count to four he would be thrilled with that statue




The direction of his gaze does not change the factc that he is kneeling.  And I was not commenting on "white guilt".  I was commenting on your ignorance of how and ex-slave would feel about this stautue.  I would say the exact same thing if you were to claim that a statue to honor sexual assault survivors was not offensive because it portrayed the rape vitim bent over a stool with blood running from his anus but he was pulling up his underwear because the rape was over.  You can't speak for sexual assault victims any more than you can tell ex-slaves what is offensive to them.  It is not about "race" it is about "ignorance".

Kneeling on the ground is NOT a symbol of freedom.  This is a symbol of freedom



Or This



Or this



or this




Or this




Why in the world would anyone think that a symbol of freedom should be kneeling on the ground?

Of course the gaze matters. I guarantee without question, 100% that if he had his head bowed you'd suggest the direction matters. You can say no, but understand no one will believe you.

There's also a difference between being on all 4s opposed to a stance where a man is beginning to rise aka emancipate himself. Once again you can say you wouldn't use the fact that he were on all 4s as proof to dispute it as an indicator he's rising, but understand no one will believe you.

If it wasn't about race, why mention it so many times? You c an say it wasn't about white guilt, but wait for it....no one is going to believe you. Any American ex-slave alive today is free to educate me on what's it's like to be a slave. But using one man's comments over 100 years ago about "we must do better" as a view for all ex-slaves is minimizing ex-slave IMO. If I can find a quote about a black person who supports the statute can we say all blacks support it?

The thing is no one made you or anyone else Statue police who decides what is and is not offensive. Something about beauty in the eye of the beholder

[fredtoast]

(07-14-2020, 01:12 PM)bfine32 Wrote:  Any American ex-slave alive today is free to educate me on what's it's like to be a slave.

Thanks for showing how open minded you are willing to be on this issue.

[Belsnickel]

So, Tuesday, and the ad hominem is already flying in P&R 2.0. Good times.

[GMDino]

(07-14-2020, 01:12 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Of course the gaze matters. I guarantee without question, 100% that if he had his head bowed you'd suggest the direction matters. You can say no, but understand no one will believe you.

(07-14-2020, 01:12 PM)bfine32 Wrote: There's also a difference between being on all 4s opposed to a stance where a man is beginning to rise aka emancipate himself. Once again you can say you wouldn't use the fact that he were on all 4s as proof to dispute it as an indicator he's rising, but understand no one will believe you.

If it wasn't about race, why mention it so many times? You c an say it wasn't about white guilt, but wait for it....no one is going to believe you. Any American ex-slave alive today is free to educate me on what's it's like to be a slave. But using one man's comments over 100 years ago about "we must do better" as a view for all ex-slaves is minimizing ex-slave IMO. If I can find a quote about a black person who supports the statute can we say all blacks support it?

The thing is no one made you or anyone else Statue police who decides what is and is not offensive. Something about beauty in the eye of the beholder

So I actually agree that the statues seems to be someone breaking free/rising up next to Lincoln.  But there are artistic errors that (to me) make the statue problematic today versus when it was created:

Lincoln standing over the slave.
Lincoln's hand palm down as if yo be passing his judgement rather than palms up suggesting he is telling the slave to rise.
The slave may be getting up but is still not of equal standing (literally and figuratively) with the white man who freed him.

But that is, as I say, artistic errors that are in the eye of the beholder.  When looking up more info just now I was taken to the image page for one of the versions of this statue and from one angle is does look like Lincoln is patting the head of the slave.  Probably not what the sculpture intended but something becomes and error from him and as time passes.

Here is more on the statue itself:

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc87.htm

Quote:Laid out in L'Enfant's plan for Washington as a square to hold a monumental column from which point all distances on the continent would be measured, Lincoln Park was slow to develop, and, in fact, was used for years as a dumping ground. During the Civil War, it was the site of Lincoln Hospital, named after the President, and among the places visited by Walt Whitman, who made rounds to comfort the injured and dying soldiers. The name apparently stuck and, in 1867, Congress authorized it to be called Lincoln Square as a memorial to the martyred leader, the first site to bear his name.

Consecrating the place to Lincoln's memory really took hold several years later, however, through the efforts begun shortly after the assassination by an African American woman named Charlotte Scott of Virginia. Using her first $5 earned in freedom, Scott kicked-off a fund raising campaign among freed blacks as a way of paying homage to the President who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation that liberated the slaves in the Confederate States. The campaign for the Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, as it was to be known, was not the only effort of the time to build a monument to Lincoln; however, as the only one soliciting contributions exclusively from those who had most directly benefited from Lincoln's act of emancipation it had a special appeal.

The funds were collected solely from freed slaves (primarily from African American Union veterans), however, the organization controlling the effort and keeping the funds was a white-run, war-relief agency based in St.Louis, the Western Sanitary Commission. The monument was designed by Thomas Ball, cast in Munich in 1875 and shipped to Washington in 1876. Congress accepted the Emancipation Group, as it came to be known, from the "colored citizens of the United States" for placement in Lincoln Square and appropriated $3,000 for a pedestal upon which it would rest.

As you can see freed slaves paid for the statue...but a committee of solely white people designed it.

A secondary link (that admittedly doesn't like the statue) adds some information of the original sculpture the statue was based on and what changes were made:

https://medium.com/@raulspeaks/a-monument-to-white-supremacy-stands-uncontested-in-our-own-back-yard-672f26db429c

Quote:The push for such a monument began almost immediately after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. Upon hearing of his death, Charlotte Scott, a freed black woman, gave the first five dollars of her earnings to create a memorial to the martyr-president. The Western Sanitary Commission in St. Louis, an agency that helped care for newly freedmen and refugees during the war, took on the task of raising additional funds. The monument would be the first of its kind to be funded solely by freedmen, a tribute to their beloved emancipator. The Sanitary Commission played on this sentiment, issuing a letter inviting all freedmen to contribute to a monument to “Massa Lincoln.”
$17,000 was raised to fund the memorial — an enormous sum coming from a newly emancipated people. Predictably (and this is important), none of these donors had a say in the monument’s design.

Instead, the all-white Commission led by Rev. William G. Eliot set out to find a suitable tribute. Eliot met with Massachusetts-born artist Thomas Ball, who had sculpted Boston’s acclaimed George Washington statue. Ball was working in Florence, and, upon hearing of Lincoln’s death, sculpted a smaller version of what would come to be known as Lincoln and a Kneeling Slave.



This early small demonstration version, was purchased from Ball and brought to Methuen, Massachusetts by Edward Francis Searles where it rests in the Town Hall atrium. Photo by EraserGirl.

Eliot and the Commission liked the concept, but thought the kneeling figure was depicted as too subservient, and asked for changes be made. Notably, the “liberty cap” was removed and the figure’s right arm was stretched outward to indicate that he was rising up as a free man. Nailed it!, they must have said upon seeing the updated design, which was then cast in bronze.

If you think the final version fails to effectively connote the agency or dignity owed to any human, enslaved or free, then you’re in good company. Frederick Douglass gave the keynote speech at the 1876 dedication. He ­had long pushed for a monument to The Great Emancipator, but was similarly displeased with the final outcome, remarking that the statue “showed the Negro on his knee when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom.”

The black figure on bended knee was likely a remix of a widely-viewed image depicting the plight of enslaved people. Accompanied by the plea “AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?,” the image appeared on medallions worn by abolitionists and became a symbol of the anti-slavery movement.


Design of the medallion created as part of an anti-slavery campaign by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787

Did Ball consider his work an homage to the abolitionist movement, or was it representative of his own views on the white / black dynamic? That’s unclear. Regardless, the juxtaposition of a kneeling black man and a towering Lincoln is evocative of the paternalistic sentiment that was typical of whites of the era — slaveholders and abolitionists alike — toward blacks, free or enslaved.

Yet another change to the original version was made at the behest of Eliot. In a bid to add a touch of realism, he asked Ball to model the facial features after Archer Alexander, a formerly enslaved man who later became Eliot’s servant. That Alexander was enslaved in Missouri, a border slave state exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, which therefore did not confer freedom upon him, was apparently of no consequence to Eliot or Ball.

...

Quote:The Boston replica, called the Emancipation Statue, was erected in 1879. A gift from Ball’s former employer, Moses Kimball, it was similarly placed in an venerable location, with a direct line of sight to the State House.

The dedication took place in Faneuil Hall (due to rain). The official program perpetuated the narrative that the design presented the slave figure as having a role in his own emancipation:

Quote:In the original the kneeling slave is represented as perfectly passive, receiving the boon of freedom from the great liberator. But the artist justly changed this to bring the presentation nearer to the historical fact, by making the emancipated slave an agent in his own deliverance. He is accordingly represented as exerting his own strength, with strained muscles, in breaking the chain which had bound him. A greater degree of dignity and vigor, as well as historical accuracy, is thus imparted.

Lastly, for the same link some early criticism of the statue that matches today:

Quote:[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Of course, the emancipation statue was not universally accepted. Quite the contrary. Noted art historian Freeman Henry Morris Murray pointedly criticized the work in 1916, noting that the kneeling figure seemed to have “…little if any conception of the dignity and power of his own manhood.”[/color]

Chandler Rathfon Post, another art historian, remarked in 1921: “The real merits of conscientious portraiture in Ball’s own representation of Lincoln… are obscured by the unfortunate appearance that he has given to the negro of polishing the President’s boots.”

This notion of the figure as a shoeshiner dated back to 1892, when the Boston Evening Transcript noted the figure’s pose was suggestive of him “blackening Lincoln’s boots,” and the Evening Telegraph mockingly asked, “Shine, sir?”

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]



[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]This unfortunate nickname stuck with the statue for decades, although little was done to challenge its continued existence. One notable exception was in 1982, when Boston City Councilman Bruce Bolling, citing concerns from the black community, questioned whether the statue should be moved or even permanently removed. A Boston Globe story at the time noted, “Some say it appears as if the crouching figure is shining Lincoln’s shoes. They say it makes Lincoln appear to be The Great Patronizer.”[/color]

The Boston Art Commission, which was tasked with deciding the monument’s fate, received pushback from, among others, the Lincoln Group of Boston. They cited the historical significance of emancipation “for freedom, equality, and democracy,” yet offered no comment on the concerns of Boston’s black citizens. It’s unclear whether this argument or another won the day, but what we do know is that Lincoln remains today in Park Square, looming mightily over a black man kneeling at his feet.

More at that link.

So in the end it is up to the viewer to decide what the statue says to them but if the subjects of the statue feel it is unflattering perhaps we should listen to their views a little more than our own. IMHO.

[fredtoast]

(07-14-2020, 01:12 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The thing is no one made you or anyone else Statue police who decides what is and is not offensive. Something about beauty in the eye of the beholder

That is not the way it works with public displays. An individual can adorn his private property with all the swastikas and lynching imagry he wants. B ut he doesn't get to decide what is offensive for public displays.

[*bfine32*]

(07-14-2020, 02:28 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is not the way it works with public displays. An individual can adorn his private property with all the swastikas and lynching imagry he wants. B ut he doesn't get to decide what is offensive for public displays.

Outside of the false equivalency of comparing this statue to swastikas and lynching imagery; you have a point. The public should decide and more so those within the community. In this back and forth I've given ample proof that the image is of a freed slave preparing to rise; but it doesn't matter, because some have found it offensive and care less about the message.

If the majority of this community decides the statue should be removed; it should be removed. If it offends a few folks with an alternate agenda, then maybe it should remain for those who choose to view it and consider the message for themselves.

[*bfine32*]

(07-14-2020, 02:04 PM)GMDino Wrote:


So I actually agree that the statues seems to be someone breaking free/rising up next to Lincoln.  But there are artistic errors that (to me) make the statue problematic today versus when it was created:

Lincoln standing over the slave.
Lincoln's hand palm down as if yo be passing his judgement rather than palms up suggesting he is telling the slave to rise.
The slave may be getting up but is still not of equal standing (literally and figuratively) with the white man who freed him.

But that is, as I say, artistic errors that are in the eye of the beholder.  When looking up more info just now I was taken to the image page for one of the versions of this statue and from one angle is does look like Lincoln is patting the head of the slave.  Probably not what the sculpture intended but something becomes and error from him and as time passes.

Here is more on the statue itself:

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc87.htm


As you can see freed slaves paid for the statue...but a committee of solely white people designed it.

A secondary link (that admittedly doesn't like the statue) adds some information of the original sculpture the statue was based on and what changes were made:

https://medium.com/@raulspeaks/a-monument-to-white-supremacy-stands-uncontested-in-our-own-back-yard-672f26db429c


...


Lastly, for the same link some early criticism of the statue that matches today:




More at that link.

So in the end it is up to the viewer to decide what the statue says to them but if the subjects of the statue feel it is unflattering perhaps we should listen to their views a little more than our own. IMHO.

I can find nothing to disagree with in this post; except it should be up to the majority of the viewers and it damn sure shouldn't be a bunch of lawless vigilantes.

[BmorePat87]

anyone else see these ads at the bottom of the site?






Quite ironic...

[HarleyDog]

(07-19-2020, 03:13 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: anyone else see these ads at the bottom of the site?






Quite ironic...

Ads are personally focused. I haven't seen these ad's. It has to do with the cookies in your browser or whatever you look at regularly. Has nothing to do with the boards or any preferences by members on the boards. I know when I look up stuff at Lowes or other sites, I will see ad's repeatedly for things I looked at online. JS.

[BmorePat87]

(07-19-2020, 04:41 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Ads are personally focused. I haven't seen these ad's. It has to do with the cookies in your browser or whatever you look at regularly. Has nothing to do with the boards or any preferences by members on the boards. I know when I look up stuff at Lowes or other sites, I will see ad's repeatedly for things I looked at online. JS.

I know, I meant the message of a Trump ad rejecting the past given his views regarding confederate statues

[GMDino]

[GMDino]

DJT just tweeted:

Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2020

 


And, full disclosure, I am putting it HERE and not THERE because I wanted to expand on it with this story about how he didn't really do anything as it relates to the topic of THIS thread which is the statues.

https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/no-trump-didnt-make-an-ex-post-facto-law-to-punish-people-destroying-monuments/

Quote:In today’s edition of Our President Obviously Never Learned Middle School Civics and Government, Donald Trump went on a tweetstorm this morning to announce that he had “authorized” the federal government to arrest people who vandalize monuments “with up to 10 years in prison.” He even managed to make people think that he was making constitutionally prohibited ex post facto laws.

I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

 

.....This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

 

The tweets were a follow-up from an interview on Monday, when Trump vowed to sign an executive order demanding that cities “guard their monuments” in the wake of anti-racism protesters who have been toppling Confederate statues.

In his zeal to rush to the defense of monuments, Trump accomplished little more than a meaningless self back-pat. While we’re talking statues and statutes, let’s follow along with serpentine path of Trump’s failed logic.


For starters, any executive order on this topic is utterly impotent. Trump didn’t “authorize the federal government” to arrest people under the Veteran’s Memorial Destruction Act. That act has been on the books since 2003, and it already authorizes fines or imprisonment for the destruction of veterans’ memorials on public property. So, the feds have had the power to protect statues for a while now. Thanks, though, Don.

Technically, Congress authorized the federal government to do this when it enacted criminal penalties for defacing war memorials in 2003. DOJ doesn't need - and doesn't normally seek - the president's authorization to enforce existing laws. https://t.co/9EfQJtjPkI

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) June 23, 2020

Local law enforcement also already has the power to protect property from being destroyed illegally – and they didn’t even require any special law. However, because of that whole federalism thing (on which I’m guessing the president is also a little fuzzy), Trump has no power to order local or state government to act as a monument security force serving at his personal beck and call.


Speaking of monuments and the law, though, a plain reading of the text suggests that the Veterans Memorial Destruction Act wasn’t aimed at glorifying the Confederacy. The act, as law professor Steven Vladeck points out, protects “service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.”

In case you were curious, here’s the (rather specific) operative language of the Veterans’ Memorials Preservation and Recognition Act of 2003:https://t.co/KjeiEWYfZZ

Note the statute’s focus on “service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.” pic.twitter.com/8mmeBOx1Rv

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 23, 2020

 


I’m pretty sure the Confederacy doesn’t count as “armed forces of the United States,” what with that whole insurrection and treason thing they had going on. Across the country, statues of confederate soldiers, slave owners, and other controversial historical figures have been coming down; some have been officially removed by local authorities, while others have been forcibly taken down by protesters. Many, including Trump, have been asking: Who’s next, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant?


Although Trump proclaimed to have taken action, “per the Veterans Memorial Preservation Act,” that Act appears only to protect “any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.” Therefore, even if Trump were looking for an existing statute to protect monuments to the personal heroes of MAGAmerica, this one wasn’t the right choice. Unless the statute in question was of a U.S. veteran in military uniform, the Act arguably wouldn’t apply.


Perhaps the most glaring problem with Trump’s tweet, though, was that he bragged that his new order “may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused.” The use of the word “retroactive” sent off alarm bells for those (apparently unlike the president himself) familiar with the concept of ex post facto laws.

Trump claims his new "law" will apply "retroactively"?! No it can not. It's called "Ex post facto" and is banned by US Constitution. But to a dictator like Trump our Constitution means nothing. The only that does matter is CRUSHING Trump November 3!

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) June 23, 2020

 

.....This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020

 


Article I, Section 9 Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from passing ex post facto laws. Section 10 of Article 1 prohibits the states from doing the same.


Generally, an “ex post facto” law is one that retroactively makes conduct illegal that had not been illegal when it occurred, or one that retroactively increases the penalty for particular conduct. The case law on ex post facto statutes is nuanced and complex, but in a general sense, the basic idea of ex post facto is simply prohibited. So if Trump’s executive order had actually attempted to make past incidents of statue toppling a crime, it would likely be illegal under the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. And let’s not even get into the whole mess Trump appears to be creating by assuming he can pass a criminal law by issuing an executive order. It’s Congress’s job to define what is and is not a crime; it’s his job to faithfully execute those laws.


Likely, though, there’s no ex post facto problem, as the law for which Trump is attempting to take credit has been on the books at least since 2003 — and I have no reason to believe it wasn’t passed properly.

[Belsnickel]

So this is an interesting one to discuss: https://www.whsv.com/2020/07/30/vmi-will-not-remove-confederate-statues-rename-buildings/

If you don't want to click the link, I get it. The tl;dr is that Virginia Military Institute (VMI) has said they will not be removing any statues or renaming any buildings.

Context: VMI is a public higher education institution in Virginia. It is government funded and is seen by many as the "West Point of the South," or at least was for much of its history. Stonewall Jackson was an artillery instructor at VMI prior to the Civil War, the cadets fought in the Battle of New Market where they marched from VMI down the valley (which means north) to New Market and routed Union forces. All of the statues and names used at the school are for instructors or students, many of whom fought for the Confederacy.

So on one hand, you have a public institution that is subject to the authority of the Commonwealth. On the other, VMI's role in the Civil War means the context of these memorials is more like those found on battlefields and in museums (which VMI has on campus as well as running the Virginia Museum of the Civil War in New Market at the battlefield).

I think this is an interesting case study for discussion.

[BmorePat87]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-overheard-boasting-speakerphone-lee-base-name-2020-7

Trump called Senator Jim Inhofe while Inhofe was at a DC restaurant. Inhofe put the call on speaker phone, allowing other diners to hear it. One of them went on to record the call.

In it, the two discuss ensuring that Robert E Lee's name remains on a military base, with Trump then bragging that he got 93k retweets (he got about a third of that) for a tweet in which he said he wouldn't remove the names of Confederates from US bases.