Judge voids Alabama law protecting Confederate monuments - Polidicks

https://abc3340.com/news/local/judge-voids-alabama-law-protecting-confederate-monuments BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A judge has overturned an Alabama law that prevents the removal of Confederate monuments from public property. A ruling issued late Monday by Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Graffeo says a 2017 state law barring the removal or alteration of historical monuments violates the free speech rights of local communities. Graffeo says the law can't be enforced, but the state could still appeal. The attorney general's office had no immediate response to an email seeking comment. The state sued the city Birmingham two years ago after officials tried to remove a 52-foot-tall (15.85-meter)-tall obelisk that was erected to honor Confederate veterans in a downtown park in 1905. Birmingham's population is mostly black, and the judge says it's indisputable that most citizens there are "repulsed" by the memorial.

But how will we remember what happened without statues to remember them by??? https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/205984/2f0c7aeb-12cd-4d90-be0b-24db53c83be0/image.png

Shrieks of "This is how Trump won!" continue to intensify as they gradually fracture into angry, incoherent scream-crying the more this happens -- and it couldn't be more beautiful a sound to hear.

Most Confederate statues were erected in two periods, the 1920s and the 1960s. The first burst was done since that's when the last Civil War veterans died (coincidentally also when the KKK had a resurgence), the second was a backlash to the civil rights movement.

The whole "forgetting our history" thing is a disingenuous argument to begin with anyway. If they meant it, they'd be all about teaching the history of racism in schools and making sure the Civil War is a major focal point of history classes. Instead they use it as a way to defend monuments to influential people that rebelled over their "right" to own other humans.

Well, it makes a lot more sense when you write it "forgetting our history" and place it context of 'majority white people from conservative states that rebelled against the Union over slavery'.

This bill was the only noteworthy accomplishment of the current governor of Alabama, that's gotta sting.

If it's a monument for the dead then it shouldn't be touched. If it's glorifying individuals who were notable slave owners or other bullshit then yeah fuck'em. But then again the distinction should be evident with anyone over 50 IQ level so they don't demolish actual memorial statues.

The culture of the American south is indelibly tied to white supremacy. Always has been. It's why the civil rights movement was viewed as a direct attack on their way of life. The only way to fix it is for population change to render that culture politically meaningless like in Virginia and soon North Carolina.

they should move them to museum grounds.

A lot of these 20th century era statues and the reasonings used to promote them are just an extension of the lost cause myth, and serve to perpetuate it. It’s a continuous attempt to fight the notion that Southerners were complicit in something reprehensible. They’re ashamed of their history so they changed the narrative into something they can put pride in. Unabashed racists want very badly to not feel like they’re racist, while bearing the fruits of doing so.

a lot of those monuments were built with the goal of reinforcing a false narrative that it was not about slavery though, even the ones honoring the dead because they were mostly built in the 20s long after the civil war

Graffeo says the law can't be enforced, but the state could still appeal. It's going to be appealed and will go to one of the most conservative state supreme courts in the nation, GG

I propose every single confederate monument be melted down into a moment of General Sherman.

Federal appeals courts then. Clear cut 1st Amendment violation.

Like it or not, they're a part of history How 'bout you just move them somewhere else? If only we had places where we specifically gather historical things..

They're not worth it. Most of these statues are cheap crap put up within the lifespan of most current museum curators that are too large and difficult to just drop into place.

A bunch of historical things weren't worth it in their time. Their value increases the older they are

Majority of the statues were made to oppress blacks during times of black civil rights or black people protesting: http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170816135714-gfx-monuments-over-time-splc.jpg Thats why you see a lot more monuments placed on school grounds during the whole intergration period. And the first spike was 35 years after the war: The first spike is around 1900. That's 35 years after the end of the Civil War. When the war ended, relatively few monuments went up in the South. The economy and social order were just too devastated. But after money was raised, sponsoring groups promoted the "Lost Cause" ideology -- the belief that states' rights, not slavery, was the Confederacy's principal cause. By 1900, many states were implementing Jim Crow laws, meant to disenfranchise newly freed African-Americans and prevent integration. It's in this climate that cities and states ramped up their construction of Confederate symbols. Source: https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/us/confederate-monuments-backlash-chart-trnd/index.html They are about as much as history as keeping nazi shit around after ww2, they were just icons to put the fear into the surges of black rights.

They were constructed to scare black people and they deserve to be thrown away. Here's the memorial that already replaces them.

I legit wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to murder the judge.

Mary Turner, who after denouncing her husband’s lynching by a rampaging white mob, was hung upside down, burned and then sliced open so that her unborn child fell to the ground. Jesus fucking Christ

Smash those damn statues into unrecognizable dust. I'm from Louisiana and the lost cause bullshit needs to die. The confederacy worship needs to die. It's not about pride or history it's pure barbarism.

When the mayor of New Orleans removed some statues, a Mississippi state rep wrote that anyone who removes the monuments should be lynched.

Seems like state reps are just plain retarded much of the time. Mississippi is the only place worse than Louisiana on that front.

It disgusts me seeing people fly the Confederate flag and claim it stands for southern pride. Bitch, you’re flying the flag of a traitor faction of slave owners. It’s everywhere in Florida.

Tell me about it, I have to deal with people flying them in goddamn Michigan; as in the home state of the famous Wolverine Brigade that killed the traitor general Stuart and was among the US forces that accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox, but somehow people around here fly traitor flags.

Steve King formerly had a Confederate flag in his office, despite the fact that Iowa lost the most people fighting of any state on the Union side. He removed it when a neo-Confederate shot some Iowa police.

I had a class in college (New Hampshire being a major Confederate state of course (???)) where some other student argued that it was fine to hang a confederate flag in her house because it reminder her of her grandmother, which made absolutely no sense as I doubt her grandmother was alive 140 years ago. It was mind numbing.

The only monuments worth keeping are general memorials to the common soldier on public lands. Monuments to specific officers and leaders of the confederacy should only be placed in historic battlefield parks. At the Gettysburg battlefield, there are statues of both Lee and Picket as much as General Meade, specifically where their lines were during the battle. That really is the only appropriate place to put specific historical characters to the war.