• Confederate Memorial Vandalized in Charleston
    507 replies, posted
I'm pretty sure the monument itself is not history, rather it is a monument TO history.
[QUOTE=The Calzone;48050274] Not all white people that live in the South are racists, but there sure as hell are a lot of them! And a lot of them like to think that they're "not racist, but"[/QUOTE] "Not all black people are criminals, but if you look at these statistics..." Why is it that the people in the "anti-prejudice" camp are the most prejudiced people? I've seen liberal masses spewing hate for the South and Southern culture unashamedly all week. Ps I'm from New Hampshire, not even southern. Please step back and acknowledge the hypocrite that you are
[QUOTE=AwpersAreBad;48053592]"Not all black people are criminals, but if you look at these statistics..." Why is it that the people in the "anti-prejudice" camp are the most prejudiced people? I've seen liberal masses spewing hate for the South and Southern culture unashamedly all week. Ps I'm from New Hampshire, not even southern. Please step back and acknowledge the hypocrite that you are[/QUOTE] The South is a convenient place to project your own racism onto because they were honest and wrote their racism into laws instead of making a complex de facto racist system, like other parts of the country did. It's easier to make the South into a viper's den of racism and feel better about yourself for living in the parts of the country that "were on the right side of history" instead of looking at your own region's history and seeing that it was also racist as hell.
[QUOTE=Coppermoss;48053423]People will overlook the cruelty of the war for the South or say that we deserve it for trying to leave the Union. Who would want or trust a government that would do what they did to people who in there own words were still citizens of the country they were trying to leave? The devastation of the area also hurt the newly free slaves, who resorted to sharecropping since everyone else was starting over from scratch as well.[/QUOTE] In an ironic twist, there were even more poor whites working alongside with the black sharecroppers since pretty much everyone in the South had to start over as you said.
[QUOTE=Lambeth;48053002]I don't think they've been lying. Though it's hard to pin a blame on a movement when it might just be one person doing wrong.[/QUOTE] I don't think they're lying. I just don't think they're interested in the truth. As far as I can tell they just don't care. It's all about pushing the agenda. So if any event might possibly be useful, then they'll jump on it and ask questions later, if at all.
[QUOTE=Ziron;48053627]The South is a convenient place to project your own racism onto because they were honest and wrote their racism into laws instead of making a complex de facto racist system, like other parts of the country did. It's easier to make the South into a viper's den of racism and feel better about yourself for living in the parts of the country that "were on the right side of history" instead of looking at your own region's history and seeing that it was also racist as hell.[/QUOTE] I agree there can be the moral middle ground of recognizing that the North did not exactly have the best intentions in going into the civil war (if we wanted to 'actually' fight racism we wouldn't have thrown them into the racist north but had an actual sustained battle against prejudice. That being said, that is still NOT a reason to support these monuments. This is a call to EXPAND critique to so called liberal bastions north of the Mason-Dixon, not to be silent about the south.
[QUOTE=The Calzone;48050652]Every single white person benefits from institutionalized racism. All you have to do is acknowledge it, acknowledge that it's bad, and choose to fight against it. If you take offense to the notion that white people benefit from racism and say that it "strains racial tensions," that's on you personally. [B]You have to learn to understand that when black people say "white people are bad," they're making a blanket generalization that comes from a place of hurt.[/B] You are white, but you don't have to include yourself in the blanket generalization. You can listen to the meaning of the words they're saying instead of taking offense to the choice of words. White people are bad, but Steven (who is white) is not a bad person and makes an effort to do good things. You feel me?[/QUOTE] I don't even know where to start with this post. You're rationalising and defending racism against white people. Not all white people are responsible for institutionalised racism, even if they 'benefit from it'. This bullshit idea that we all need to apoligise for things that our ancestors and complete strangers did/are doing is wrong, and quite frankly, racist. I don't have any obligations due to my race, sorry, that's just not how it works in a free society. I may as well point out while I'm at it, your opinions on the civil war and WW2 are quite frankly appalling. We're supposed to be able to honour both sides in any conflict, particularly those on the frontline who did not fight for ideology, but because of necessity. German soldiers were not Nazis, and the confederate soldiers were not part of the political elite. In those particular wars, the soldiers on either side were remarkably similar; young men fighting for their homeland. Memorials are not the place for scrawling your modern agendas, they're there to remember the dead, the lives lost in conflict, simple as that. Black lives matter no more than whites, but I doubt you believe that, you're too busy thinking less of white people for opressing blacks simply by existing.
[QUOTE=Menien Goneld;48054441]I don't even know where to start with this post. You're rationalising and defending racism against white people. Not all white people are responsible for institutionalised racism, even if they 'benefit from it'. This bullshit idea that we all need to apoligise for things that our ancestors and complete strangers did/are doing is wrong, and quite frankly, racist. I don't have any obligations due to my race, sorry, that's just not how it works in a free society. I may as well point out while I'm at it, that your opinions on the civil war and WW2 are quite frankly appalling. We're supposed to be able to honour both sides in any conflict, particularly those on the frontline who did not fight for ideology, but because of necessity. German soldiers were not Nazis, and the confederate soldiers were not part of the political elite. In those particular wars, the soldiers on either side were remarkably similar; young men fighting for their homeland. Memorials are not the place for scrawling your modern agendas, they're there to remember the dead, the lives lost in conflict, simple as that. Black lives matter no more than whites, but I doubt you believe that, you're too busy thinking less of white people for opressing blacks simply by existing.[/QUOTE] Not all white people are responsible for institutionalized racism, but a fairly large portion of white people do see the benefits of it. It's not some happy accident that black people are represented far more in prison than in the rest of the population: [QUOTE]In 2013, by age 18, 30% of black males, 26% of Hispanic males, and 22% of white males have been arrested. By age 23, 49% of black males, 44% of Hispanic males, and 38% of white males have been arrested. According to Antonio Moore in his Huffington Post article, "there are more African American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined." There are only 19 million African American males in the United States, collectively these countries represent over 1.6 billion people.[/QUOTE] It's also not some happy accident that most of the black population still lives in the same places where they were brought to be slaves Compare 1860: [IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/SlavePopulationUS1860.jpg[/IMG] To 2000: [IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/New_2000_black_density.gif[/IMG] White flight, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining"]redlining[/URL], and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_steering"]racial steering[/URL] are also not happy accidents - they're real things that white people typically did do to the black population, and it may still be a major concern today. The black population in the U.S. is in a terrible position due to things that were done to it by the white population, and while slavery is an important part, it's not the only transgression. I highly recommend the book [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_by_Another_Name"]Slavery by Another Name[/URL] for a look into the slavery issue, as well.
"German soldiers were not Nazis" [quote]We could be said to find it increasingly difficult to imagine that any real person actually supported the regime. Was it in fact not the exact same logic ‘unfortunate Nazis’ such as Martin Heidegger used to defend their membership of the party? Boiled down to the essentials, that defence consisted in saying, “It may be that I was a ‘Nazi’ (i.e., a member of the NSDAP), but I most certainly was not a Nazi (i.e., guilty of the Holocaust or other demonic evils). In reality I was an internal critic.” Just like no one could today be justifiably called a Nazi in our current ideological environment, so too, apparently, there were no real ‘Nazis’ in Germany in the years from 1933-45. In hindsight, everyone was an internal critic. [/quote]
[QUOTE=daschnek;48054539]Not all white people are responsible for institutionalized racism, but a fairly large portion of white people do see the benefits of it. It's not some happy accident that black people are represented far more in prison than in the rest of the population: It's also not some happy accident that most of the black population still lives in the same places where they were brought to be slaves White flight, [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining"]redlining[/URL], and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_steering"]racial steering[/URL] are also not happy accidents - they're real things that white people typically did do to the black population, and it may still be a major concern today. The black population in the U.S. is in a terrible position due to things that were done to it by the white population, and while slavery is an important part, it's not the only transgression. I highly recommend the book [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_by_Another_Name"]Slavery by Another Name[/URL] for a look into the slavery issue, as well.[/QUOTE] I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, white people see the benefit of there being more black people in prison than any other race? How is less non-incarcerated black people good for white people? If you're suggesting that these black people have been incarcerated unjustly due to racism, then sure, that's bad, but how is that a benefit to most white people? A lot of black people live where they do in America because they were brought there as slaves, that's true, but I don't really see the relevance to institutionalised racism. Also you should really thumb those images. The practices you mention sound awful, and I'm not debating that there are racists out there. What I do disagree with however, is the notion that all whites as a race share responsibility for these acts. [QUOTE=Flameon;48054543]"German soldiers were not Nazis"[/QUOTE] That quote is referring to Nazis who backpedalled after the war, if you honestly think that all German soldiers were Nazis, you are seriously delusional, and ignorant.
[QUOTE=Snake7;48052923]It's ridiculous that these monuments were ever put up in the first place. Even ignoring slavery, the Confederacy and those that fought for it were traitors. People that fought to defend it did so with the intention of splinting the Union apart and helped to contribute to one of the worst losses of American lives in history. There is nothing more anti-American than a confederate memorial/flag. It would be like having a memorial to the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.[/QUOTE] Actually the south was just as American as the North. The Confederacy fought The Union over votes in the electoral college when western territories expanded, leaving states that would turn the tide in whether the U.S. would allow slave states or not. It was also the tariffs and taxes from trading with Britain that would only benefit the north, which had strong infrastructure, a more urban culture and institutions of education. The south was pretty much all farms. I would also argue that the south too fought for freedom because after Shay's rebellion, the state began addressing the problems of the disgruntled white poor, ensuring that they could own firearms, a horse, own land, and other things. This set the precedent that white are inherently superior to blacks, but let's face it the north didn't give a shit about blacks either. They were promised 40 acres and a mule for joining the war and not a single person saw it. No one paid taxes in the south because the government was run by the articles of confederation, focusing on a weak central government that could only tax states that wanted to. Obviously all the slave states were ran by rich, white plantation owners who were involved in government. But poor white farmers were not taxed either. Surrendering to The Union would force all citizens to pay taxes to the government for community infrastructure that do not benefit the south. It's naive to think that the north fought the civil war to free blacks, and wait 100+ years before considering them as peoples or citizens. And ignorant to think the South fought purely to own people as property.
[QUOTE=Menien Goneld;48054685]I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, white people see the benefit of there being more black people in prison than any other race? How is less non-incarcerated black people good for white people? If you're suggesting that these black people have been incarcerated unjustly due to racism, then sure, that's bad, but how is that a benefit to most white people? A lot of black people live where they do in America because they were brought there as slaves, that's true, but I don't really see the relevance to institutionalised racism. Also you should really thumb those images. The practices you mention sound awful, and I'm not debating that there are racists out there. What I do disagree with however, is the notion that all whites as a race share responsibility for these acts. That quote is referring to Nazis who backpedalled after the war, if you honestly think that all German soldiers were Nazis, you are seriously delusional, and ignorant.[/QUOTE] What I'm trying to say is that identifying these issues is not being racist towards whites. Whites have done terrible, oppressive things towards blacks - that's just the identification of a historical reality, even if The Calzone worded it a bit harshly. Blacks being in prison does disenfranchise them politically and economically and benefits major corporations - the phenomenon is called the Prison Industrial complex and it makes for a highly interesting read.
[QUOTE=Snake7;48052923]It's ridiculous that these monuments were ever put up in the first place. Even ignoring slavery, the Confederacy and those that fought for it were traitors. People that fought to defend it did so with the intention of splinting the Union apart and helped to contribute to one of the worst losses of American lives in history. There is nothing more anti-American than a confederate memorial/flag. It would be like having a memorial to the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.[/QUOTE] Yes! Let's burn any monument dedicated to fallen Wehrmacht soldiers, including the many conscripts which had no choice but to enroll! The regime they fought for was an evil one, so let's not remember them. If they really cared about freedom, they should have just killed themselves, that would've saved us the trouble! I cannot believe that people who see history in such a black a white manner exist, real life isn't an action movie.
[QUOTE=JIDF-Shlomo;48050578]You may have an idea, but as a white, you do not know the struggles of the oppressed, since you are an oppressor.[/QUOTE] It is dangerous and shortsighted to fight racial ignorance with more racial ignorance. While white people do undoubtedly benefit from being the majority race, and while this does make it more difficult for them to understand on a personal level what racism and prejudice [I]feels[/I] like, it does not make anybody any less capable of understanding its [I]damage[/I] or stupidity. I grew up in Saint Louis, I've been living in Ferguson for the past two years (during the height of the unrest. I have seen racism in all its forms play out. I have seen how goddamn stupid it is, seen how cruel it is, seen how ugly it is, seen how pervasive it is. I recognize the hand of racism not just in the overtly ignorant mouthbreathers who throw "nigger" around behind closed doors, or in the obviously exploitative nature of our justice system, but in the quiet social creep of it that leads to segregation, and in our predatory healthcare system, and in our credit agencies and financial institution, and in essentially every other avenue of our lives. This shit isn't hard to see, you just have to be willing to see it. So yeah, I may not have experienced prejudice firsthand, but I know what it looks like, and I know how deeply it is poisoning this country. As far as you go, I'd offer this bit of advice: alienating allies is an ugly policy that will bite you in the ass. It is building a wall where there should be a bridge. The disappointingly long road to ending racism only gets rockier with such exclusions.
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;48055421]Actually the south was just as American as the North. The Confederacy fought The Union over votes in the electoral college when western territories expanded, leaving states that would turn the tide in whether the U.S. would allow slave states or not. It was also the tariffs and taxes from trading with Britain that would only benefit the north, which had strong infrastructure, a more urban culture and institutions of education. The south was pretty much all farms. I would also argue that the south too fought for freedom because after Shay's rebellion, the state began addressing the problems of the disgruntled white poor, ensuring that they could own firearms, a horse, own land, and other things. This set the precedent that white are inherently superior to blacks, but let's face it the north didn't give a shit about blacks either. They were promised 40 acres and a mule for joining the war and not a single person saw it. [B]No one paid taxes in the south because the government was run by the articles of confederation, focusing on a weak central government that could only tax states that wanted to. Obviously all the slave states were ran by rich, white plantation owners who were involved in government. But poor white farmers were not taxed either. Surrendering to The Union would force all citizens to pay taxes to the government for community infrastructure that do not benefit the south. [/B] [B]It's naive to think that the north fought the civil war to free blacks, and wait 100+ years before considering them as peoples or citizens. And ignorant to think the South fought purely to own people as property.[/B][/QUOTE] Well apparently according to what I was told about 4 pages back in this thread the Civil War had nothing to do with economics and slavery=/=money. :v: [QUOTE=LordCrypto;48048792]i provided a specific example that [B][U][I]proves[/I][/U][/B] the entire fucking secession was based pretty much solely on slavery[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Menien Goneld;48054685] That quote is referring to Nazis who backpedalled after the war, if you honestly think that all German soldiers were Nazis, you are seriously delusional, and ignorant.[/QUOTE] The quote is referring to Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil. What does it mean to be a Nazi if not that you are part of the Nazi party? Nazism didn't function because every soldier hated Jews deep down inside, it worked because there were a bunch of people 'just following orders'. Making us have to find the "real" Nazis amoung the Nazis, i.e: (“It may be that I was a ‘Nazi’ (i.e., a member of the NSDAP), but I most certainly was not a Nazi (i.e., guilty of the Holocaust or other demonic evils). In reality I was an internal critic.”) is an impossible burden because you can't see what people are thinking. As such, we can only judge them by what they *did*. Confederates fought for a cause which championed slavery, as such they were pro-slavery. Do I think all German soldiers were Nazis? Not the ones that refused orders or deserted. But all the rest, yes. [editline]26th June 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=_Axel;48055915]Yes! Let's burn any monument dedicated to fallen Wehrmacht soldiers, including the many conscripts which had no choice but to enroll! The regime they fought for was an evil one, so let's not remember them. If they really cared about freedom, they should have just killed themselves, that would've saved us the trouble! I cannot believe that people who see history in such a black a white manner exist, real life isn't an action movie.[/QUOTE] If we want to make a monument to the soldiers that died, then the monument shouldn't be praising them for their patriotism but instead condemning the government for forcing them to conscript. I.e: good people being forced by larger structures to die. The current monuments do not condemn those structures because it celebrates the soldier's sacrifices FOR that structure.
[QUOTE=Flameon;48057057] Do I think all German soldiers were Nazis? Not the ones that refused orders or deserted. But all the rest, yes. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Jzzb;48049729]This is the same logic that Nazi-hunters use to justify putting 90 year old Aushwitz janitors to death for crimes against humanity, just let it fucking go[/QUOTE] We've already established that evil by association is ridiculous. Plus, you make it sound easy for people to "desert" or leave. The Nazi regime wasn't the fucking boyscouts, you seriously think that risking the life of both yourself and your family in order to escape is a tantalizing idea when being lumped into a system committing evil acts on both others and its own people?
[QUOTE=Flameon;48057057]Do I think all German soldiers were Nazis? Not the ones that refused orders or deserted. But all the rest, yes.[/QUOTE] Haha oh wow, yeah sure if you're not brave or insane enough to defy such a powerful entity as the Nazis that must mean you agree with them. That's a nice armchair humanist opinion right there. Let me guess, if your country were under Nazi occupation during the war you would have joined the resistance movement without any second thought, knowing full well that it would greatly endanger your and your family's life? Just think for a moment about what you're saying, you're not even bothering to try and put yourself in their shoes. [QUOTE]If we want to make a monument to the soldiers that died, then the monument shouldn't be praising them for their patriotism but instead condemning the government for forcing them to conscript. I.e: good people being forced by larger structures to die. The current monuments do not condemn those structures because it celebrates the soldier's sacrifices FOR that structure.[/QUOTE] Oh so in the case of this monument to confederate soldiers, you think the right moral thing to do for those Charleston inhabitants would be to refuse conscription and let northern soldiers slaughter them and burn their city to the ground? Again, history is written by the victor and no faction is all white when it comes to war. Depicting a side as the heroes and the other as the villains is a 12-years-old's take on history, not a grown man's.
[QUOTE=Snake7;48052923]It's ridiculous that these monuments were ever put up in the first place. Even ignoring slavery, [B]the Confederacy and those that fought for it were traitors. [/B] People that fought to defend it did so with the intention of splinting the Union apart and helped to contribute to one of the worst losses of American lives in history. There is nothing more anti-American than a confederate memorial/flag. It would be like having a memorial to the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.[/QUOTE] This is hilariously ironic considering you're from the US. What's the entire population of the united states then?
[QUOTE=_Axel;48057877]Haha oh wow, yeah sure if you're not brave or insane enough to defy such a powerful entity as the Nazis that must mean you agree with them. That's a nice armchair humanist opinion right there. Let me guess, if your country were under Nazi occupation during the war you would have joined the resistance movement without any second thought, knowing full well that it would greatly endanger your and your family's life? Just think for a moment about what you're saying, you're not even bothering to try and put yourself in their shoes. Oh so in the case of this monument to confederate soldiers, you think the right moral thing to do for those Charleston inhabitants would be to refuse conscription and let northern soldiers slaughter them and burn their city to the ground? Again, history is written by the victor and no faction is all white when it comes to war. Depicting a side as the heroes and the other as the villains is a 12-years-old's take on history, not a grown man's.[/QUOTE] I'm not saying I would join the resistance - you are right, its hard to say the strength of our will when we are not in moments of serious moral strife. That being said it isn't "guilt by association" either. Plenty of Germans i'm sure were also just following orders when they shot Jews or executed Gypsies. I don't think that many of them believed, at least fully, that Jews were subhumans. Never the less, they were just following orders, and we need to remember that all it takes (and what it often takes) is good men to follow orders for injustices to happen. For all your critiques of my aparent moral black-and-white world view, you are the one that is stuck believing in the existence of a sort of Kantian malevolent evil. You seem to think I am saying confderates are hellspawns. Thats not what I'm saying. I'm saying evil is banal, routine, mechanical, and unintentional. Those fighting for the confederacy were fighting for a war to keep slaves - that is messed up. Similarly those fighting a war to 'liberate the south' were fighting for external economic reasons. As I said before, we should be critical of the north and the south. Whats your defense of a memorial that praises people dying to protect slavery? If you want to honor these people, make a memorial to them detatched from the institution of evil that conscripted them and made them lose their lives.
[QUOTE=Al Bundy;48052693]I may be late on this, but why not re-purpose the monument as a memorial for ALL the soldiers that died in that battle? The way the base is engraved implies a heavy bias towards the Confederate soldiers. The words "Confederate" and "Confederacy" have the connotation of racial oppression behind them, like it or not.[/QUOTE] Why should a town honor the troops that intended to destroy the town?
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48060476]Why should a town honor the troops that intended to destroy the town?[/QUOTE] Because they were just people following orders too.
[QUOTE=Flameon;48060457]For all your critiques of my aparent moral black-and-white world view, you are the one that is stuck believing in the existence of a sort of Kantian malevolent evil. You seem to think I am saying confderates are hellspawns. Thats not what I'm saying. I'm saying evil is banal, routine, mechanical, and unintentional. Those fighting for the confederacy were fighting for a war to keep slaves - that is messed up. Similarly those fighting a war to 'liberate the south' were fighting for external economic reasons. As I said before, we should be critical of the north and the south. Whats your defense of a memorial that praises people dying to protect slavery? If you want to honor these people, make a memorial to them detatched from the institution of evil that conscripted them and made them lose their lives.[/QUOTE] So wait, you're saying that both sides are messed up in their own way, and then say that the Charleston memorial is morally wrong because they "died to protect slavery"? Even though in the very post you're quoting I'm making it pretty clear that they died to defend their hometown? In this case it's not the conscription that was responsible for their death, if they didn't come to their city's defense they'd have been slaughtered all the same. If we actually followed your logic all the way through the monument should be blaming the north for attacking the city in the first place...
[QUOTE=The Calzone;48044507]Good.[/QUOTE] Yes, good, let's piss ALL over American History because America got "triggered". Thanks guys, how about I take a piss on the Declaration of Independence because it made me slightly uncomfortable now because of an unrelated event.
[QUOTE=Flameon;48060457]I'm not saying I would join the resistance - you are right, its hard to say the strength of our will when we are not in moments of serious moral strife. That being said it isn't "guilt by association" either. Plenty of Germans i'm sure were also just following orders when they shot Jews or executed Gypsies. I don't think that many of them believed, at least fully, that Jews were subhumans. Never the less, they were just following orders, and we need to remember that all it takes (and what it often takes) is good men to follow orders for injustices to happen. For all your critiques of my aparent moral black-and-white world view, you are the one that is stuck believing in the existence of a sort of Kantian malevolent evil. You seem to think I am saying confderates are hellspawns. Thats not what I'm saying. I'm saying evil is banal, routine, mechanical, and unintentional. Those fighting for the confederacy were fighting for a war to keep slaves - that is messed up. Similarly those fighting a war to 'liberate the south' were fighting for external economic reasons. As I said before, we should be critical of the north and the south. Whats your defense of a memorial that praises people dying to protect slavery? If you want to honor these people, make a memorial to them detatched from the institution of evil that conscripted them and made them lose their lives.[/QUOTE] The German example isn't starting to sound like a good response now that I think about it, I mean, when you say "Germans" are you talking about the Wehrmacht? The traditional German military was deemed as not inherently a criminal organization despite war crimes. The Waffen-SS and all associated branches are however, a different story. The political elite directing the confederacy sounds more akin to that.
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