Statues celebrating slavers and reparations disconnect

[Ghost of a Rider]

I've read Shelby Foote's entire Civil War series twice and the only Confederate military leader I remember being mentioned as owning slaves was Lee and that was only because he married into it.

But again "who owned slaves" was never the point.

It was Tommy's point, apparently, and he is the OP after all. He said: "Those people who are arch defenders of the statues and want to pay tribute to the slavers........"

I don't think you're reading the OP's point correctly then. It looks like you're addressing what you'd like it to be. What the OP does is juxtapose statue-preservers (for lack of a better term) with reparations-deniers (ditto) and question the hypocrisy of taking those two stances simultaneously. He did not go into why said statues are being moved at all. I did.

I understood the OP just fine. But the way it was worded, he thinks the people depicted in the statues were all slavers. We both know that not all of them were. And by pointing out that Confederate statue supporters admire these figures for their military and political accomplishments, I was pointing out that it's not as simple as saying they are "paying tribute to slavers". So it's a false paradigm and not necessarily hypocrisy.

What appears to be your hangup here is that you're taking a phrase from the OP far too literally and exclusively. When someone describes a statue as "paying tribute to slavers" that in NO WAY limits the description of the subject to figures who personally individually owned slaves. "Slavers" in this context can and does mean the Confederacy itself, which by its own declarations existed for the express purpose of maintaining Slavery. Thus ANY statue glorifying the Confederacy is by definition "paying tribute to slavers".

Um, no. If I can't generalize then neither can you or Tommy. That's exactly what he did when he said "paying tribute to slavers". This implies that he thinks all of them were slavers and furthermore, the unspoken implication is that every person opposing the tearing down of the statues is a racist hypocrite who idolizes slavers for being slavers.

That said, it's not a hangup to interpret a sentence the way it's worded. A slaver is someone who bought, owned and sold slaves. If that is the case then he should have said "paying tribute to those who owned slaves". Not all of them did. That's my point.

As far as marrying into slaves you might be thinking of Grant (?) but it doesn't matter, it's not the point.

That's true, my mistake. However, I may be confusing the two. After doing a little quick research, it turns out that Lee also, in a sense, married into it. He inherited his father-in-law's slaves when his father-in-law died and the will stipulated that they were to be freed in five years. Although this was after he inherited his mother's slaves upon her death.

The point is moot, as described above. It makes no difference whether Lee specifically or Beauregard specifically, or Silent Sam (who isn't even a real person) or whoever the subject is, "owned slaves"; what matters in this question is that they all fought for the cause of it. But as long as we've brought up Robert E. Lee, it's also pertinent to point out that Lee specifically thought such statues to be a BAD idea, and the reasons he thought so are being borne out by exactly the conflict we're talking about. He was right. As I've often said, statues of Lee ought to be affixed with a placard reading "Lee specifically told us not to do this but fuck him, we're gonna get some propaganda mileage out of this regardless what he thinks". This of course ushers in the question of what "paying tribute" actually means --- paying tribute or scoring propaganda points on the backs of corpses who aren't here to object?

If my point is moot then so is yours. None of what you say has anything to do with why people today oppose tearing down the statues or whether or not they are hypocrites for feeling this way.

And that brings us straight back to the definition of what these monuments ARE, which is absolutely required before we proceed to judge them.

That is your hangup. You're stuck on historical minutiae that is irrelevant to the OP. The definition of what they are is irrelevant to why they oppose tearing them down.

The point is the Cult of the Lost Cause and its massive propaganda campaign that erected these statues expressly FOR that purpose --- not for the benefit of the subjects whose images were depicted but to push a massive history revision about what the war WAS.

It doesn't matter what the motive was behind the propaganda campaign because most of those who oppose taking down the statues sincerely admire these figures as accomplished military leaders, not because they owned slaves.

AGAIN this is speculation. Show your basis.

I don't have to show you anything. Despite being a Yankee from upstate New York, I've lived most of my life in the South and have had and heard this discussion many times with people here. Once upon a time I even stood where you are now about twenty years ago and argued against displaying the Confederate flag with a coworker who's from Florida. I know whereof I speak.

I've heard people claim it's "erasing history" which we've already covered. I have yet to hear "accomplished military leaders" as a reasoning. But even if true it's still IRRELEVANT to the motivations of those who erected them --- the UDC and the Lost Cause Cult --- which defines what they ARE.

Irrelevant. Who put up the statues and why has no bearing on why people oppose their removal today and has no bearing on the OP.

This is the part you keep trying to change to "because they owned slaves". NO. Not "because they owned slaves", but because it's part of a massive propaganda historical revision campaign foisted on public property, specifically foisted there for maximum propaganda value. That's why the entities that have been taking such monuments down are CITIES. It's public property. And as such those cities choose not to be a part of a massive propaganda campaign ----------------------------- which is absolutely their right.

What? You've taken my words completely out of context and are arguing against that. What I said was that many Southerners admire the figures depicted in the statues for their accomplishments, not because they owned slaves. This was addressed to Tommy in my first post.

AGAIN -- it absolutely matters what the motive was, for that defines what these monuments ARE. And AGAIN, "because they owned slaves" is **STILL** a strawman and not legitimate as argument. AGAIN --- Washington, Jefferson, Madison, any number of POTUSes and Founding Fathers can also be defined as having owned slaves (including Grant). What they cannot be defined as is having fought to PRESERVE it. So this "because they owned slaves" canard hasn't changed since yesterday --- it remains irrelevant. It's a dishonest argument.

Blah blah blah. Arguing with you is tedious because you insist on bogging down the discussion with historical irrelevancies. The motive for putting up the statues does NOT matter to the people who oppose tearing them down. They oppose tearing them down because, good or bad, they feel that the statues and memorials represent their history and heritage.

While you're looking for justification for your theory above, find me anybody who's in the camp of preserving statues --- for any reason at all --- who is black.

Strawman and irrelevant.

And think about what that means. These monuments went up in a furious rush at the same time Jim Crow was being laid down, at the same time lynchings were rampant, at the same time enormous race riots like Tulsa (1921) and the "Red Summer" (1919) took place; at the same time the Ku Klux Klan re-founded and spread nationwide; at the same time Major League Baseball incited its "gentlemen's agreement" that kept blacks out of baseball for six decades between Moses Walker and Jackie Robinson; at the same time water fountains, restaurants, hotels and public events were being segregated, at the same time the movie "Birth of a Nation" swept the country and Al Jolson was entertaining white audiences in blackface. ALL of that is related.

Irrelevant to the OP.

It not only matters, it's CRUCIAL. Without those motives, these monuments do not exist. And again, WHY the statue-preservers want to preserve them ISN'T RELEVANT to how they got there and what their function is.

No, it isn't. But it IS relevant to the premise of the OP which I was responding to. It's Tommy's thread and Tommy's question and it had nothing to do with why the statues were erected. His premise is the hypocrisy of people today "paying tribute to slavers" while denying reparations. My response merely pointed out that not all the figures represented in these statues and memorials were slavers and is not why statue supporters memorialize them in any case. Hence, claiming hypocrisy may be oversimplifying the issue.

And in doing so you're still using the "because they owned slaves" as a point of departure, and that as already noted is not honest. See, I'm not addressing the OP's question of hypocrisy vis à vis "statues vs reparations".

Maybe you're not but I am. Which is why all this is so tedious.

I'm defining what these statues ACTUALLY ARE as a first step. You cannot proceed in a discussion without defining what it is we're talking about. Now that we've established that, we must conclude that those who would preserve such monuments where they are (a) think it's perfectly OK to distort history with disingenuous propaganda, and (b) think that municipalities may have no say in their own property being used as talking sticks to do it.

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Mitch Landrieu is a fucking idiot. And again, irrelevant to the OP.

We're talking about two different things here. I'm talking about Southerners and you're talking about Southern governments, legislatures, politicians and people in power. The average poor Johnny Reb who didn't own slaves and slogged through the mud was fighting to expel what he saw as an invading army from a dictatorial government coming to infringe their rights. For a lot of them, slavery was secondary to that or not an issue at all.

Some

may have, if they bought the propaganda of those people in power. A lot of them were there because they were DRAFTED, which sat not at all well (speaking of hypocrisy) with common folks who just heard these PTB railing about the Big Gummint in the North, only to strike exactly the same pose in drafting teenagers for their war, states rights be damned. Nor were they amused by the fact that residents who either owned twenty slaves, or could pay for a substitute, could be exempted, which merely underscored what they already knew, that this was a rich man's war with the Haves sending the Have Nots to do their dirty work for them. A lot of them either deserted or dodged that draft, and some of the latter became "Home Guards" who would simply attack ANY army infringing on their community. So the sentiment was anything but universal. I've already mentioned West Virginia and East Tennessee. I've already noted Seacy County, Winston County, the Free State of Jones, the Texas Hill Country etc. This myth of "expelling an invading army" was heavily sold by the Lost Cause Cult but not borne out by a lot of real events.

Nope. I've read enough about the Civil War to know that this is exactly the way some felt.

Did you watch my videos at all?

No, I did not. But make no mistake, I didn't not watch them because I'm avoiding the truth.

I could drive a truck through this hole right here.....

If you don't quote the entire thing, of course you could drive a truck through it.

Tell me, what did I say after that? Did I or did I not say that I was sure it was all true? Talk about dishonesty...

I think you should though, if your interest is genuine, if you believe as I do that learning has no end point.

The next section is just reiterating what's already been done, the denial of what the point here is.

I never expressed any interest at all, genuine or otherwise, in that aspect of the erecting of the statues. You brought it up, not me.

It's something I may pursue in the future but for now, for the purposes of discussion of the OP, I don't give a shit.

The motive behind the propaganda being central is only relevant here as a matter of history. As I said, those who oppose tearing them down today have their own reasons for feeling as they do. If you asked a million of them why they oppose tearing down the statues you'll likely get a million different answers.

Again --- speculation. And why would you get a "million different answers" for something some body of people obviously already agrees on?

It's just an expression for Christ's sake. And you know as well as I do that if you ask a group of people that agree on a core belief why they feel as they do, you'll get different answers. The existence of God, for example. C'mon man.

I'm not suggesting you mean literally the number "one million". I'm asking why you would think there would be such a diversity of reasonings, when you've come up with only one, and a specious one at that?

Uh uh, my friend. I've made it clear from the beginning that these arguments are theirs. I never indicated in any way that they were mine.

But at the core is their admiration for these historical figures but more importantly, they view it as an attempt to erase history.

Already debunked. Nobody keeps history in statues. The function of statues is to glorify. There's no argument about that.

As I said, I'm not the one saying it.

We've heard that argument, and it's absurd, as we do not record history in monuments. We glorify events and people with them. The actual history is where it's always been since the beginning of time ---- in the history books. Therefore they cannot be taking their stance on the basis of "preserving history". They can however be taking it on the basis of preserving glorification.

You don't have to convince me, I'm not the one saying it.

What are you beating your head for? I'm NOT the one saying it and I never did.

I never indicated in any way that this was how I felt on the issue. For the record, I'm against taking them down, not because I think they preserve or represent history or any of that. All of that may or may not be true but I oppose it because I know one thing: it won't stop there.

This country is in the grip of a religious mania on the topic of racism and it has fostered hysteria and paranoia that has already ruined peoples' lives, reputations, jobs and livelihoods for the most idiotic reasons.

 

[basquebromance]

when the goths conquered Rome, they didn't ask for "goth privilege"

the same should go for white folks, my friends!

 

[Dick Foster]

I agree that any slaves held by Americans prior to 1865 still extant deserve something from the Democrats.

The oppression continued long after slavery was abolished.

I think it's about time they tore into the British since they started all of that slavery shit in the first place.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

So, what reparations do Tainted Tommy and his countrymen owe us Americans, for the tyranny and oppression that they tried to impose on us two centuries ago, and for the blood and resources we had to expend to defend ourselves from them?

 

[Pogo]

I agree that any slaves held by Americans prior to 1865 still extant deserve something from the Democrats.

The oppression continued long after slavery was abolished.

I think it's about time they tore into the British since they started all of that slavery shit in the first place.

Actually that would be Portugal, followed by other Euro colonials.
The first African slaves brought to this continent came with a Spanish guy in 1526.