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Virginia Confederate memorial to be removed despite Republicans’ objection
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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I don't believe that any person of color should have to live on or work at an installation named after someone who believed that owning other human beings was appropriate and then fought for that belief.
I'm in whole hearted agreement with the renaming of our military posts named after Confederates.
That said, I'm not in favor of this removal, we as Americans must never forget, and memorials like this are an in-your-face reminder of what happened and the appalling legacy of slavery. My preference would be that it stayed with some educational materials nearby as a constant reminder of people behaving horribly.
Is the way to remember World War II with a big triumphant statue of Hitler on horseback? Or, is it by teaching history?
If you want that memorialize it like the holocaust museums. Don't celebrate it with a Monument.
What?
It's Arlington...
Imagine giving your life for your country, earning a spot at Arlington, and then being buried next to a racist statue.
Like, do you know it's history? We seized the land from Lee, the leader of Confederates and who was himself strongly and publicly against any monument honoring the South...
Which is why it wasn't installed till 50 years later when the rest of these racist monuments sprung up.
Aye this is it. Arlington National Cemetery was literally Robert E Lee's personal estate. The Union Army took it over and decided to start burying the Union dead there -- Lee was killing them, so he can keep them.
It's crazy they'd put a Confederate monument there, on what is basically a US Army cemetery, that exists entely due to how crazy bloody the Civil War was.
Long past time they removed it.
You know what would really remind people about the tragedies of the past and not require memorializing them with public statues?
Fucking GOP-controlled states not teaching that slavery was a good thing. Or those same states banning their racist redefinition of CRT to make children unaware of why the Civil Rights movement happened. Maybe we could, I dunno, teach that racism and slavery are unequivocally bad and the Civil War was a direct result of that, and that the following 150 years of American history is the result of not dealing with that?
If you want to never forget through statues and memorials, you do not make them of the oppressor. Germany has no problem remembering the Nazis in spite of there not being any statues or memorials to those fuck heads who were around for longer than the Confederacy.
The renaming of military 'posts' to non-Confederate names is already in progress for some time now. The removal of the monument from Arlington is part of that process.
Did you read the article: "Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, disagrees with the decision and plans to move the monument to the New Market battlefield state historical park in the Shenandoah Valley..."
Well aware that the re naming effort is complete. Mostly abysmal names, though Gregg-Adams and Novosel are pretty good. When you have amazing humans like Medal of Honor recipient Roy Benavidez and choose Liberty as the new name for Bragg over Benavidez, because he wasn't an officer, that's fucked up.
I think all of these memorials and artifacts should be placed in specific museums that celebrate the atrocities that made this country "great." If any racist-ass white folk wanna go reminisce about the good ol' times, they can go to that museum and pay an entrance fee that supports education and reparations.
Nah. There's literal slaves on the monument. One clinging to the baby of an officer saying goodbye. Another diligently following an officer to war.
It's conveying the Lost Cause Myth that slavery was a good thing.
There is an argument for a site talking about the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow, however I don't think Arlington is the best venue for it. Also you know motivations, you can bet that people involved with this Confederate stuff aren't doing it so that humanity won't forget how bad this was, they are doing it to honor it.
Yeah, 'never forget' when "mammies" were nursemaids.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/12/arlington-cemeterys-confederate-memorial-with-mammy-holding-white-child-soon-to-be-removed.html