05-15-2017, 08:00 PM
(05-15-2017, 06:14 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Removing these statues doesnt remove them from history. If anything it removes the history of the actual statue on who made & paid for it, not the history it represents. It's like if a statue of Lincoln doesn't exist anywhere, does that mean he is erased from history? No, because history is found in books and now of course the interweb, though books is where the real history is told.
To the bolded above, a vast majority of these statues were erected in the decades after the Civil War ended when the south was in full segregation mode. It was almost as if they were put up to remind the black population that even though we lost the war, we did not lose the war on equal rights with you.
I get that argument. Would it not work in reverse as well, that removing the statues doesn't do anything to end to erase the history of the confederacy or its members? Essentially, my point is if the statues mean nothing then there is no argument for removing them, thus the statues mean something to some people. Memorials serve one purpose, to keep the event or person in living memory.
