08-25-2017, 11:40 AM
(08-25-2017, 11:27 AM)Au165 Wrote: Yea, I think to say he is a symbol of white supremacy is basically to say the whole era is. I think you have to look at historical figures with respect to the time period they lived in. We kind of already condemn the time period for what it was, but you literally would have to tear every statue down if we start going this route.
Honestly, his writing in the book could really be used by white supremacists, and some of his policies while an elected official were pretty atrocious, as well. I don't agree with tearing his statues down, but I have no objections to context being provided. I'm not one that is much for idolizing people in general because they all have their flaws, and I think by making sure we say "here is this statue of someone that is important in our history. They did this, this, and this; however, as they also did this and here is the historical context" is not a terrible thing and allows us to look at these figures as men, not as people that are larger than life.
We often treat our history and our founding fathers as if they were demigods, but they were men. Their arguments were just as heated, their opinions just as divided, their personal lives just as racy. We like to pretend they were handed the keys to the kingdom in the form of the Constitution as if it was passed down like the tablets to Moses or the Qu'ran to Mohammed, but they were politicians that crafted the policy. It is imperfect, and so were they.
/rant
(08-25-2017, 11:27 AM)Au165 Wrote: Interesting to note Robert E Lee was all for unification post war and didn't want statues of himself made knowing they could be used as symbols for separatists to rally behind. In 1856 he actually called slavery evil, but also still maintained slaves himself. Another kind of weird paradox of the time.
Jackson actually had an illegal school for black children that he ran in Lexington, meanwhile owning a couple of house slaves and speaking out against slavery as well.
Personally, I would love to see statues of Lee survive as a committed educator (he spent more time as a college president between West Point and Washington College than he did as a Confederate general) and unifying force in the Reconstruction era. But that's not what people want. They want him in his uniform atop a horse, not in a suit behind a desk or podium.
