should statues be removed pros and cons

Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. [41]. I dont think theres any value there. The main duty is not to hide the bitter parts. [43]. Iconoclasm is not new; its been going on for thousands of years in different circumstances, Lamp said. Other statues of historic figures, such as slave-owning presidents or imperialists like Christopher Columbus, promote similar oppressive and revisionist messages. GORDON-REED: I suppose, if people want to, everything can pave the way to some other point. From a religious/Christian. The architect Daniel Burnham was a leader in the movement; he went on to do the McMillan Plan for the National Mall in D.C. [27] [28] Statues celebrating the diversity of the country could help remedy symbolic annihilation of black Americans, women, and other groups. [52], Next to the Peace Monument in Atlanta, Georgia, a plaque reads, This monument should no longer stand as a memorial to white brotherhood; rather, it should be seen as an artifact representing a shared history in which millions of Americans were denied civil and human rights. [24], Sheffield Hale, JD, President and Chief Executive of the Atlanta History Center, stated of the plaque, I do think it gives [people] a starting point, which is sorely needed right now, in our society, as a way to deal with contentious issues. The removal of Confederate monuments is usually around $1.8 million in total, but this varies by location. All rights reserved. Sophia A. Nelson, Opinion: Don't Take Down Confederate Monuments. Last modified on July 14, 2022. The removal of Confederate statues is a painful reminder of the countrys racist past and present. GREENE: But is there an argument that removing these statues could help further the fight for racial equality in our country? Copyright 2020 NPR. The Mdia Exterior de Chvez highlights how the country responds to its problems: through its actions, the country seeks to advance human rights, including the rights of foreigners, as a result of the decreto de 1817. First and foremost, they are part of our history and should be preserved as such. Confederate monuments, in particular, hold religious, cultural, economic, and political values. The monument divided the African American community, exposing various political philosophies on how to deal with white supremacy. 5. The statues are a painful reminder of past and present institutionalized racism in the United States. Lets talk about the history of these statues. These battles have a strong historical context, as they were influenced by a very Venezuelan tradition: Bolivarian political historicism. Activists are campaigning for a statue of Cecil Rhodes to be removed from an Oxford college. Cicero was a great orator, an outstanding lawyer, a spokesman for balanced government, and the single person most responsible for transmitting the Greek philosophical tradition to Western Europe. Colleen Walsh, Must We Allow Symbols of Racism on Public Land?, harvard.edu, June 19, 2020, 44. On October 12, 2006, a bust of Almirante was smashed in Mrida, Mexico, in the aftermath of the Columbus statues being torn down. Washington owned over 300, Jefferson over 600, and Grant worked on his wifes family plantation and inherited one slave upon his father-in-laws death. Robert E. Lee has become a target among those seeking to obviate history allegedly because he held slaves and fought for his home state rather than the nation. It is not acceptable to state that statues represent history if they do not represent the roles and responsibilities they serve. Robert E. Lees statue, for example, is regarded as particularly offensive due to his role in defending slavery and the Confederacy. Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to keep political statues in public spaces is a complex one. The standard traditionally applied is as follows: When deciding whom to commemorate by statues, place names, monuments, holidays, currency, or coins we select individuals who performed. It was a great energy to be a part of removing that statue and seeding something new in its place; a little piece of respect and love for the land, which is what I consider the poem to be.. There are now more than 30 statues and monumental pieces in his honor in the United States. You said that moving to statues like George Washington and the Founding Fathers is going from one extreme to another extreme. Pros And Cons Of Removing Confederate Statues. Elliot Ackerman, The Confederate Monuments We Shouldnt Tear Down, nytimes.com, July 7, 2020, 49. This equates to 1.57 jobs, $76,000 in wages and $14,101 in tax revenues for every 1,000 tons of material recycled. The main duty is not to hide the bitter parts. She won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for her explosive 2008 work, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.. Claudette Colvin was a member of the Womens Missionary Union before Rosa Parks was born. I think in general in this country, statues have held up a very white, male virtue. John Daniel Davidson, Why We Should Keep The Confederate Monuments Right Where They Are, thefederalist.com, Aug. 18, 2017, 37. During the global Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, calls to take down the statues were met with citizens not only actively damaging or removing statues of Confederate figures, but targeting statues of slave-holding Founding Fathers in general, as well as historic monuments to Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. This is why they put them up in the first place; to affirm the centrality of white supremacy to Southern culture. [1], Because the statues were intended to promote white supremacy, Richard Rose, President of Atlantas NAACP, argues, You cant contextualize racism or compromise on racism. He states that the contextualization plaques added to Atlantas Confederate statues establish that racism is valid. [24], The statues still appeal to white supremacists, as demonstrated by the 2017 rally to defend the Lee and Jackson statues in Virginia and in Dylan Roofs 2015 pre-massacre tour of plantations and a Confederate museum. BBC, Confederate and Columbus Statues Toppled by US Protesters, bbc.com, June 11, 2020, 21. I also think it gives credence to the kind of exclusionary work that they already perform. Richard Allen Greene, King Leopold II Statues Are Being Removed in Belgium. GAZETTE: In recent years, many have called for the removal of monuments honoring Confederate officials and other controversial figures, such as Christopher Columbus, with mixed results. Thats not fair, asking me as a law professor. The Confederate symbols and associated values that Americans hold in high regard are paid for by them. Lee was distinguished from his contemporaries by an exemplary career, both in the U.S. and Confederate armies, of competence and honor. Alex Parsons, Replace All Confederate Statues in Tennessee with Dolly Parton, change.org (accessed July 8, 2020), 31. Or they go up because of T.J.s views on separation of church and state and other values that we hold dear. Adolph Hitler gets none, although he was kind to dogs. [17] [18] The Lost Cause mythology was used to continue the idea that black people needed to be subjugated for their own good and as justification for Jim Crow laws. I got more interested in the U.S. history of monuments when I started to look around and wonder where all the neoclassical buildings came from. In a 5-4 vote, the court rejected the Trump administration's push to end an Obama-era program that gives nearly 700,000 Dreamers the ability to work in the United States and avoid deportation. It has also been suggested that statues shouldn't be removed but new plaques could be added which explain why the person is controversial, for example reflecting both the good and bad things. As contemporaries, Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II were both harshly criticized for their racist behaviors. Hannah Natanson, Theres a New Way to Deal with Confederate Monuments: Signs That Explain Their Racist History, washingtonpost.com, Sep. 22, 2019, 53. They can be used as a teaching tool to help educate people about different periods in our past. One claim for not removing certain statues of people who have committed egregious acts is that we should not treat people of another time as if they were second-rate citizens. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the other side of the issue now helps you better argue your position. We shouldn't shy from the fact that many of these men were slave owners, but we should also be able to judge each case individually. ProCon.org is the institutional or organization author for all ProCon.org pages. Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA, Natalie Leppard [5], The Virginia statues still stood amid the protests following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, though they were tagged with graffiti then (and later removed on July 10, 2021). Despite Nicole Douglas' team-leading 14th goal of the season, the Sun Devil soccer team was unable to claim its first Pac-12 victory of the season after falling to the Oregon State Beavers, 2-1 on Thursday night. Starting with the Reconstruction, we see them being used as a way to control public spaces and maintain white supremacy alongside other things like lynching, controlling school curriculums, etc. Since this fundamentally conflicts with American values and ideas, they should be removed. A statue of Cecil Rhodes being removed from the University of Cape Town campus, South Africa, 2015. Adam Serwer, The Myth of the Kindly General Lee, theatlantic.com, June 4, 2017, 19. 13.8K Followers. Statues and monuments of historical figures are commonplace in almost every city in the world. GORDON-REED: This moment feels different because theres been a great awakening in the country about police-on-citizen violence. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. [39] [40] [41], However, Washington led the Continental Army to victory over the British, held together the country as the first President over two terms, resisted calls to become King of the country, and, in his will, freed his slaves upon his wifes death. Following the murder of George Floyd, I think we started to see a broader recognition of how statues in civic spaces can exclude certain people. Its also important to distinguish statues from records of history, because thats not what theyre about. Confederate monuments can find an appropriate home in museums and cemeteries. So to me, if statues are performing this work of showing us what we most value as a society, once our values change, no, we shouldnt keep them. More than half of Americans support removal of Confederate statues, but 44% still think they should remain. The ornaments do not represent the history of the world; rather, they represent what the past chose to celebrate and commemorate. During the 1970s, a reformulated version of the Tariff Act of 1930 was enacted, which allowed the venezolano to dispensa a Cristbal Col*n. This reaccin is made up of two components: the poblacin fluctu and the condena a la indiferencia. Source: Abdazizar. Arguments for why Confederate statues should be removed include the Confederacy's shameful history of treason and white supremacy, as well as the original purpose of these statues, which was to intimidate Black Americans while celebrating white power. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Monuments of Hope, Memorials to a Poisoned Past, britannica.com, May 25, 2018, 23. GREENE: Historian Manisha Sinha is the author of "The Slave's Cause: A History Of Abolition.". The result is that, as a result, the Primera Guerra is no longer averse to it. The issue rose to prominence again in 2017 after an Aug. 12 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent and deadly. As Rod Dreherargues in The American Conservative,Americans should not make the same mistakes as France. In the 1930s and 1940s, revolutionary and reformist forces distrusted Columbus statues because they had been erected with a clearly racist and Eurocentric spirit. Rob Natelsonisa constitutional historian and former constitutional law professor, serves as asenior fellow in constitutional jurisprudenceat The Independence Institute, the Montana Policy Institute, and The Heartland Institute. Were holding them up as a model of civic identity, of what the rest of us should be doing. The idea is, this is a statue of a civil leader, and they are someone whose virtue or deeds were meant to emulate as citizens. The monuments go up because, without Washington, there likely would not have been an American nation. CBS News, Protesters in England Topple Statue of Slave Trader Edward Colston into Harbor, cbsnews.com, June 7, 2020, 8. GREENE: But what about historical figures with complicated, often racist histories who were also Union generals or former presidents? They must be removed, according to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Kehinde Wiley, Instagram.com, June 4, 2020, 34. PRO AND CON: Should Confederate monuments be removed? First, virtually everyone acts in ways consistent with contemporaneous social normsnorms of which later generations may disapprove. The Robert E. Lee monument, erected several decades after the Civil War to commemorate the Confederate general, was recently removed following more than a year of protests for racial justice. Between June 17, 2015 and July 6, 2020, 59 Confederate statues, nine interpretive markers, and plaques were removed from public land in 19 states across the country. Several years have passed since the debate over the removal of Confederate statues began. Becky Little, How the Cult of Robert E. Lee Was Born, history.com, Aug. 14, 2017, 18. Should we not honor the contributions of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant to the United States because they owned slaves, as did many men of their standing at the time, even though they struggled with the institution? An 1884 Confederate monument to General Robert E. Lee is removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 19, 2017. The argument is that these statues glorify individuals who have harmed marginalized groups, and that they should be removed from public spaces. There are valid arguments on both sides, and there is no easy answer. [14] [55], In June 2021, the US House of Representatives voted to remove all confederate statues and bust of Roger B. Taney (the US Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision) from the US Capitols Statuary Hall. The greatest tragedy in the history of the United States was the loss of over a thousand lives as a result of the countrys wars. The principal legacy of Confederate statues is white supremacy and slavery. The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the financial fallout, How Black protest may be key to finally ending racial violence, DNA shows poorly understood empire was multiethnic with strong female leadership. No one puts a monument up to Washington or Jefferson to promote slavery. ], [Editors Note: The MLA citation style requires double spacing within entries. [29] [30], Walmart donated $100,000 to help Arkansas replace statues of Confederate sympathizers Governor James P. Clarke and attorney Uriah Rose in the US Capitol, with statues of Johnny Cash and civil rights pioneer Daisy Bates. In June 2021, the US House of Representatives voted to remove all confederate statues and bust of Roger B. Taney (the US Supreme Court Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision) from the US Capitol's Statuary Hall. Explore the Southern Poverty Law Centers Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy resource, which promotes the removal of confederate statues. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. It depends on who the person is and what the objections are. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose a new oppressive regime in its place. [9] Trump argued the plight to save the statues is a battle to save the Heritage, History, and Greatness of our Country! [34], Citizens of the United States have the right to hold controversial opinions and build statues to honor their beliefs. And dont forgetthe Confederacy lost. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. [15] [16], However, after the Confederate States lost the Civil War, the South revised history.

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