Baltimore removes all Confederate statues overnight - Polidicks

That little Charlottesville march didn't really work in your favor, did it, Supremacists/KKK/Nazis? In all seriousness, I do hope they're put in a museum. It's still history and history should be preserved.

A precedent like this shouldn't be set, at the very least public submissions would've been nice.

I am sad to see this happen, again I hope they at least relocate them to a museum or at least keep the statues that were just dedicated to nameless soldiers up. This hurts me as someone with an extreme interest in history. Not the best precedent to set, but if the local populace has voted that they do not want these statues in the middle of their city and it has gone through the legislative process, then they are free to do so. Just again hope that they get put in a museum or something.

[QUOTE=Timof2009;52581127]Seems like a modern day Iconoclasm to me. [editline]16th August 2017[/editline] Assuming that everyone who fought for the Confederates fought for the right to own slaves is a gross over generalization and is utterly ignorant. The American Civil war is arguably one of the most complex issues in United States History. I don't support the ideas of the Confederacy or the people who came after them, but I will at least acknowledge that slavery wasn't the single thing that caused it. Maybe we do need these statues because people clearly are misrepresenting a complex topic as something black-and-white (No pun intended).[/QUOTE] It's nothing like Iconoclasm and it's tiring to see people come up with excuses for having these statues around. [quote]Maybe we do need these statues because people clearly are misrepresenting a complex topic as something black-and-white (No pun intended).[/quote] And what exactly do these statues do to educate people? Not a thing. They either romanticize or celebrate the Confederacy and it's soldiers, both of which is a harmful influence on the people around them. [QUOTE=Cinnamonbun;52581384]I am sad to see this happen, again I hope they at least relocate them to a museum or at least keep the statues that were just dedicated to nameless soldiers up. This hurts me as someone with an extreme interest in history. Not the best precedent to set, but if the local populace has voted that they do not want these statues in the middle of their city and it has gone through the legislative process, then they are free to do so. Just again hope that they get put in a museum or something.[/QUOTE] Museums are fine but these aren't anything to celebrate as overly historical. Almost all of these statues were put up in the 1910-1950s to help enforce the idea that blacks are still inferior and to make the presence of Jim Crow even more comfortable.

[QUOTE]Museums are fine but these aren't anything to celebrate as overly historical. Almost all of these statues were put up in the 1910-1950s to help enforce the idea that blacks are still inferior and to make the presence of Jim Crow even more comfortable.[/QUOTE] From the news report it seems that one of the statues taken down was a memorial to just the normal soldiers and sailors of the confederacy, I don't agree that those ones should be taken down. Robert. E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson I can see why, but not the nameless soldier ones.

Many statues were out up in that period (especially the ones dedicated to your "average" soldier, both the union and confederate ones) because those veterans were dying and the remaning wanted to help memorialize those they fought side by side with, and even those they fought against. This isn't true for every memorial, but people pointing out "but they were put up in the 1920s" I think miss a major mark for why in part there were so many put up in that period of time, especially when things like "it was to show the inferiority of blacks" is said.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52581416]Many statues were out up in that period (especially the ones dedicated to your "average" soldier, both the union and confederate ones) because those veterans were dying and the remaning wanted to help memorialize those they fought side by side with, and even those they fought against. This isn't true for every memorial, but people pointing out "but they were put up in the 1920s" I think miss a major mark for why in part there were so many put up in that period of time, especially when things like "it was to show the inferiority of blacks" is said.[/QUOTE] I would like to add on to this point that by the 1910s-1920s the last civil war veterans were dying (similar to the situation now of the last WW2 veterans are going to be dead in our generation) Many of these statues were put up for that reason, when the generation of the people who were fighting in the civil war on both sides began to die off people wanted to have statues put up as memorials to remind future generations of what happened. I think we will see a few more WW2 statues and memorials be put up with in the next 10-25 years due to the WW2 veterans dying off. Just a thought. EDIT: Here's an interesting image, here are some of the remaining civil war veterans meeting up to shake hands at the Gettysburg memorial from both sides in 1913 [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/LIPnpQT.jpg[/IMG]

[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/8Ukvs11.jpg[/img_thumb] SPLC made a cool chart recently showing when these monuments were dedicated. Most monuments were dedicated during the Jim Crow era, after Plessy vs. Ferguson passed.

Yeah, there were about 52,000 veterans at Gettysburg in 1913, with close to 9,000 of those being Confederate veterans. That period was also the 50th anniversary of the war, and 50 and 100 year anniversaries tend to be a big deal. The South also tended to start later with their monument building as the South was poorer than the north and monument building is expensive. The United Confederate Veterans in 1889 struggled with wanting to make a memorial of Davis, but try to keep it as apolitical as possible, and not want it to say "the south will rise again!". From our modern perspective this is a difficult argument to make, but its an issue that those who wanted these monuments struggled with. Again, it's not applicable to every single monument that was put up, but this was a general trend, primarily for that peak you see in Lambeth's chart.

[QUOTE=Cinnamonbun;52581409]From the news report it seems that one of the statues taken down was a memorial to just the normal soldiers and sailors of the confederacy, I don't agree that those ones should be taken down. Robert. E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson I can see why, but not the nameless soldier ones.[/QUOTE] The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument is arguably worse [QUOTE]The inscriptions on the monument are the following: (Inscription on front of base:) GLORIA VICTIS/TO THE/SOLDIERS AND SAILORS/OF MARYLAND/IN THE SERVICE OF THE/CONFEDERATE STATES/OF AMERICA/1861-1865. (On base, right side:) DEO VINDICE (On base, left side:) FATTI MASCHII/PAROLE FEMINE (On base, back side:) GLORY/STANDS BESIDE/OUR GRIEF/ERECTED BY/THE MARYLAND DAUGHTERS/OF THE/CONFEDERACY/FEBRUARY 1903 The Latin phrase on the base is "Deo Vindice, " meaning "Under God, Our Vindicator." The Italian phrase on the base, "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine" is Maryland's state motto, "Strong deeds and gentle words," although the direct translation is "Manly deeds, womanly words."[/QUOTE] I see absolutely nothing wrong with a city taking action to remove a monument like this from the public square to a place that would better suit celebration of the Confederacy, like a Confederate cemetary.

[QUOTE=Paramud;52580918]Late to the party but kind of important to note this from the article:[/QUOTE]I feel she knows where they went, but this is better than saying "they're going to be destroyed" and opening up yet another can of worms. Just a hunch.

Use high detail 3D photogrammetry and scan all these statues and store them in some online database of American physical history alongside important information like creation date, materials used, creator, etc. and then get rid of the shitty statues, physically storing the most important ones in a museum; not like we need every single statue to remember one of the most major events of American history. Obviously you can keep up statues that are, you know, not inherently honoring slavery as much as just dead soldiers who died in a war they didn't have much choice or political involvement in. Then you don't have to worry about vandalism, more people have access to the historical items themselves, and none of the real world is wasted storing statues honoring bad people or concepts.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52581416]Many statues were out up in that period (especially the ones dedicated to your "average" soldier, both the union and confederate ones) because those veterans were dying and the remaning wanted to help memorialize those they fought side by side with, and even those they fought against. This isn't true for every memorial, but people pointing out "but they were put up in the 1920s" I think miss a major mark for why in part there were so many put up in that period of time, especially when things like "it was to show the inferiority of blacks" is said.[/QUOTE] I mean you have a point, but at the same time, it's not like the 1920's wasn't a horrifically racist time. A lot of things jump to mind, but the illegalization of marijauana riding on the backs of blacks and mexicans being crazy murderous stoners was a common myth of the times. Birth of a Nation was a recent film release. I mean you're not wrong, but I also feel like you're missing some key context of the 20's.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52580663]I dunno, melting down/destroying antiques to make political statements doesn't sit well with me, no matter what they're representing.[/QUOTE] Political statements you say, but I don't understand how saying slavery is evil is even remotely on party lines? Hell, making them into coins that glorify the underground railroad would make them historic objects as well down the road. Preserve them then.

Also, they're already political statements to begin with, and they're growing more incendiary.

[QUOTE=bdd458;52581491]Yeah, there were about 52,000 veterans at Gettysburg in 1913, with close to 9,000 of those being Confederate veterans. That period was also the 50th anniversary of the war, and 50 and 100 year anniversaries tend to be a big deal. The South also tended to start later with their monument building as the South was poorer than the north and monument building is expensive. The United Confederate Veterans in 1889 struggled with wanting to make a memorial of Davis, but try to keep it as apolitical as possible, and not want it to say "the south will rise again!". From our modern perspective this is a difficult argument to make, but its an issue that those who wanted these monuments struggled with. Again, it's not applicable to every single monument that was put up, but this was a general trend, primarily for that peak you see in Lambeth's chart.[/QUOTE] How many monuments are there to the Union, I wonder.

I live in Richmond and the subject of removing the statues is very complex. We have an entire road called Monument avenue filled with confederate monuments, and we were the capital of the confederacy. Still, the city is majority black and we're deeply blue and very liberal. I don't think many people in this city have any affinity for southern identity or the confederacy; we're kind of one of those liberal hipster cities like Austin or Portland. Still, monument avenue is kind of iconic for Richmond. I'd like to see them remove the statues of confederates and replace them with iconic Virginians not involved in the civil war, or even statues to Union soldiers/generals. Maybe a statue for Mildred and Richard Loving. George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, etc. We've got so many significant Virginians in US history that there's no shortage of figures to memorialize

To me, bringing down the statues is tearing down history because feelings. History is history, it doesn't matter if you like it or don't like it, it happened, people should know about it in great detail, and the worse the event was, the more detail people should know about it. The civil war wasn't fought just because of slavery and just by racists vs non racists. It was about state's rights and the southern states wanting to get rid of federal laws they didn't agree with, some of which included slavery. It was when Lincoln won the election without a single southern electoral vote the south thought they weren't really even being included in the political system and took up arms and tried to secede. States legalizing marijuana and the federal government prohibiting it shutting down stores that sell pot is a similar modern day example of State's rights vs federal government Not all confederates gave a toss about slavery or were racist, not even most Generals that lead armies. Hell a lot of them didn't like it at all, but the fight was about being allowed to govern at a state level (Which states still have to fight with today). And in my opinion, statues and battlefields should be preserved. Now if people vote to remove them in their city or state, that's different. But defacing and vandalism and this whole fad of hating confederate statues because they're confederate seems ridiculous. It's a time when a part of the country felt like it had no representation or say in their own governance so they took up arms. Something that happened not even 100 years prior between the Colonies and England that birthed the USA. It's much more than Slavery vs No Slavery America jerks itself off constantly over the US Flag and our fight for our right to govern. Well that's essentially what the Confederate flag is to the south, too. There's nothing racist about it. Racists fly the US Flag, too, that doesn't make it a racist symbol. I just think people are over simplifying it all and getting bent out of shape about it

I'm curious to see what is going to happen with Stone Mountain in the coming years. It is a major tourism site for Georgia which means it is in the monetary interest for the state to keep it around. It is also effectively the largest confederate monument in the country and it can't be easily defaced or destroyed. On top of that it is also the site of the major revival of the KKK in the early 1900s.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52581795]How many monuments are there to the Union, I wonder.[/QUOTE] So I was curious and checked out the stats for my state (Connecticut). Through and through it was a Union State. I used this list to find each monument: [url]https://chs.org/finding_aides/ransom/townlist.htm[/url] Monuments range from statues, plaques, buildings, obelisks, arches, and roads (even a special grave marker). Some encompass multiple conflicts. In total, I counted 138 monuments in Connecticut. I then looked at the dedication dates for each and broke it down by decade (ie: 1890-1899), this is what I found. All percents were rounded to the nearest whole number. [B][U]Memorials by Decade[/U][/B] 1860s: 14 (10%) 1870s: 23 (16%) 1880s: 23 (16%) 1890s: 16 (12%) 1900s: 25 (18%) 1910s: 12 (9%) 1920s: 15 (11%) 1930s: 4 (3%) 1940s: 0 1950s: 0 1960s: 0 1970s: 1 (1%) 1980s: 0 1990s: 1 (1%) 2000s: 0 2010s: 0 Unknown date: 4 (3%) One of the unknowns was built after 1907, but before 1917 (General Nathanial Lyon's monument, the gentleman who gave an address at the dedication died in 1917, I volunteer at that gentleman's childhood home). However, since I would not be able to place a decade for sure I left it as unknown. A few of the monuments were circa (eg circa 1870) but they were specific enough for me to place them in a decade. So these are some of the important numbers from that, 76 memorials were built before January 1st, 1900 (55%) 58 were built after January 1st, 1900 (42%) 131 memorials (95%) were built by the end of the 1930s. The decade that saw the most building was 1900-1909 (25 memorials, comprising 18%) There have been 16 decades total since the war 10 decades saw memorial building 6 decades saw no memorials being built There were 8 decades of consecutive memorial building, 1860-1939. 5 number summary (not using the 4 unknowns) is: Minimum built in a decade: 0 Maximum built in a decade: 25 Quartile 1: 0 Median: 2.5 Quartile 3: 15.5 Inter Quartile Range is 15.5 Using IQR to determine outliers, there are no outliers. One monument from the 1870s had its pedastal placed in 1877, the full statue was placed in 1887. I counted it once, for the 1870s. A total of 7 monuments have been rededicated (5%). Rededication dates were 1883 1916 1961 (rededicated a second time in 1991) 1988 1990 1994 1995 The majority of the rededications have occured since 1900 (86%), with 5 of them (71%) occuring since the 1960s. So in short: a bit over half were built prior to 1900, with the peak building decade being 1900-1909, and it slowly tapering off from that. If I wasn't on my phone I'd check the style of monument per decade as well (eg building, statue, obelisk). Not sure if this is in line with the rest of the Union states, but I would be interested to see how it stacks up.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52581795]How many monuments are there to the Union, I wonder.[/QUOTE] In my city, Richmond, there was a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Isle_(Richmond,_Virginia)#Civil_War]notoriously cruel confederate prisoner of war camp called Belle Isle[/url]. It's now a public park where rednecks like to go to drink Coors and leave trash everywhere, but there's a plaque memorializing the Union soldiers who were treated so horribly there. Many of the prisoners died and the ones that were sent back to the North were so starved and maimed that they couldn't serve anymore.

I found a probably incomplete list on [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Union_Civil_War_monuments_and_memorials"]Wikipedia[/URL] My favorite is this [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_Lt._General_Winfield_Scott"]one[/URL] [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/MR2j4gA.jpg[/img_thumb] He looks so grumpy edit: here's the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America]same page[/url] for the CSA. There's either way more monuments commemorating the confederates than there are for the Union or the CSA monuments are way more documented.

So I ran the numbers for that chart Lambeth posted, for the whole of the South/Confederate monuments. I counted a total of 808 on that chart, however I could be off by a couple. Same deal as last time, by decade. 1860s: 20 (2%) 1870s: 27 (3%) 1880s: 34 (4%) 1890s: 43 (5%) 1900s: 154 (19%) 1910s: 199 (24%) 1920s: 69 (9%) 1930s: 53 (7%) 1940s: 23 (3%) 1950s: 38 (5%) 1960s: 62 (8%) 1970s: 16 (2%) 1980s: 13 (2%) 1990s: 25 (3%) 2000s: 27 (3%) 2010s: 5 (1%) What I find interesting that for my state, and the South as a whole the 1900s have almost the same exact percentage of monuments: 18% vs 19%. I'm curious to see how it would stack up statistically to the whole of Union monuments. So statisically speaking the same percentage of monuments were built for the south between 1900 and 1909 as in Connecticut. 14% of monuments are from before 1900 (124 monuments). 86% of monuments are from after 1900 (684 monuments). 43% were built between 1900-1919. 43% were built after 1920. 57% were built before 1920. So the halves equal the same percentage, the difference being that the 57% were built before 1920 rather than 1900. Percentage wise after 1920 the percentages are fairly similar to those of my state's. There's a small jump in the 50s and 60s, however without knowing the amount for the Union I have a feeling that was Centenarary related. Percentage Comparisons (Connecticut on the left, Confederates on the right) 1860s: 10%-2% 1870s: 16%-3% 1880s: 16%-4% 1890s: 12%-5% 1900s: 18%-19% 1910s: 9%-24% 1920s: 11%-9% 1930s: 3%-7% 1940s: 0%-3% 1950s: 0%-5% 1960s: 0%-8% 1970s: 1%-2% 1980s: 0%-2% 1990s: 1%-3% 2000s: 0%-3% 2010s: 0%-1% 5 Number Summary: Minimum: 5 Maximum: 199 Quartile 1: 21.5 Median: 30.5 Quartile 3: 57.5 IQR: 36 The 1900s were an outlier decade (IQR*1.5+57.5 = 111.5) The 1910s were an extreme outlier decade (IQR*3+57.5 = 165.5) We have an r value of .39, since this is above .3, but below .5 it is a weak positive correlation showing that the data is weakly skewed right. A better comparative statistic would certainly be the Union monuments vs the confederate monuments but comparing my state to the confederates has yielded some interesting information as well. Especially since CT tends to be a richer state, and I wonder if that has much to do with monuments being built pre-1900 compared to the south or poorer union states. I don't think confederate monument building is linked to racism nearly as much as some suggesting. I feel rather that economics, anniversaries, and the death of veterans were stronger factors for the monuments being built. However, to determine that for sure I'd need to look at all Union monuments and compare them to confederate. That wikipedia list is really incomplete. I found nearly 140 monuments for my state and there's only one listed for Connecticut on Wikipedia, so that might take a while.

There is certainly a lot more attention given to Confederate monuments, though I doubt they're more numerous than Union monuments overall. You will probably find more Confederate monuments in Southern states that didn't have much fighting and more Union monuments in Northern states that didn't have much fighting. Both will be remembering their natives killed fighting elsewhere, but wouldn't have much cause to build monuments to the other side's troops (since they didn't die there). The battleground states are probably pretty evenly divided with a slight bias toward the Union.

Destroying any historic relics is an absolute no-go in my mind, of course you can and should take down glorifying monuments, but they should never be destroyed. The historic value in any of these things is far greater than any damage their existence could possibly do. Store them somewhere only historians can access them or whatever, but never destroy history.

Nazi and Confederate types on Twitter are screeching ORWELLIAN 1984 shit about this. They're nuts aren't they?

[QUOTE=Itsjustguy;52580661]I feel like "It belongs to a museum" is a meme now. Like, they got a shit ton of them in museums, they probably don't need more.[/QUOTE] As someone who works at a museum, can confirm. Most museums are absolutely [I]swimming[/I] in various 'artefacts' from different eras, and most of them have absolutely no historical value, simply because they're so abundant. Our archaeologists are digging up shit from the early middle ages, and we are literally giving a lot of it away to children because they're so worthless. Archaeological junk, really. Not to mention the problematic customer-base you'd probably get by taking a ton of confederate heroes and putting their statues in one place. Sure, some school trips and casually historically minded folks might come visit from time to time, but you're also building an actual, physical cathedral for the whole neo-nazi and south-will-rise-again crowd to come jerk off in. Not that good of an idea. [editline]17th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=SEKCobra;52582741]Destroying any historic relics is an absolute no-go in my mind, of course you can and should take down glorifying monuments, but they should never be destroyed. The historic value in any of these things is far greater than any damage their existence could possibly do. Store them somewhere only historians can access them or whatever, but never destroy history.[/QUOTE] They hold no "historical value" at all. Historical value means that you can learn something new about something from studying them. 1800 and forwards sculptures hold absolutely zero information. They are historically worthless. Hell, they actually [I]gain[/I] historical value through their removal, since 50 years from now, you can probably do a paper or a book on the de-confederatization of the American south and bring this up as one of the major cases, in which case the statues selected and methods of removal and what is done with them from there on [I]is[/I] of historical value.

[QUOTE=Riller;52582792]Archaeological junk, really. .[/QUOTE] I feel like we're going to regret that if we ever discover a new form of extracting information from things. Think of all the people that threw shit away because they'd never imaged of carbon dating.

[QUOTE=MedicWine;52582799]I feel like we're going to regret that if we ever discover a new form of extracting information from things. Think of all the people that threw shit away because they'd never imaged of carbon dating.[/QUOTE] Nope. We're not. Some things simply contain no new information. "Oh hey another pig's jaw. Another brick. Another shoe sole." We already have literally thousands of those laying around from the exact same period. To be fair, the shoe sole would probably be put in storage and be forgotten forever there. Y'all gotta stop treating history like everything's sacred and special and unique. It's really, really not. Imagine being an archeologist a thousand years from now, and finding an IKEA chair or a 2005 penny. Woop de fucking doo, those are [I]everywhere[/I], everyone has them, everyone knows when and where they're from, what they were used for and so on. They hold no new value. Throw it in the bin and go dig for something new.

[QUOTE=Riller;52582810]Y'all gotta stop treating history like everything's sacred and special and unique. [/QUOTE] I'm not though. I'm saying we've already proven ourselves to be incapable of properly predicting what (and if you'll excuse the following word salad) archaeological technological breakthroughs we may make. And that destroying something is to say you're certain nobody will ever find benefit from what conclusions can be drawn from it. Imagine being somebody who archived something and destroyed it, and carbon dating later proved the timeline was completely wrong. Wouldn't you think "Damn I should've been one of the few people that held on to X item so it could be carbon dated. Good thing not everybody destroyed them" Edit: Okay extreme tangent but I cant research this at all because any time I google anything with carbon dating in it I get a bunch of "global warming and carbon dating are made up" and "carbon dating myths" articles above everything else. What the fuck google?