should statues be removed pros and cons should statues be removed pros and cons
It would be odd for me to condone other people doing something I would not do. Valerie Strauss, Christopher Columbus: 3 Things You Think He Did That He Didnt, washingtonpost.com, Oct. 14, 2013, 22. Explore the Southern Poverty Law Centers Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy resource, which promotes the removal of confederate statues. From a religious/Christian. Activism forces a reckoning with what our values are. Kehinde Wiley, Instagram.com, June 4, 2020, 34. Pros. The SPLC reported at least 160 monuments were removed in 2020 after George Floyds death, more than the prior four years combined At last count, about 704 Confederate monuments remained on public land. The monuments go up because, without Washington, there likely would not have been an American nation. The states declared they had not been fighting to preserve slavery and, instead, fashioned a set of ideas and arguments that they were fighting to hold back the massive industrialization of America, they were trying to preserve rural agrarian civilization, according to David W. Blight, PhD, American History Professor at Yale University. Or they go up because of T.J.s views on separation of church and state and other values that we hold dear. 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. For example, a statue of black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass was damaged over the July 4, 2020 weekend in Rochester, New York. [20] [21] These statues, like their Confederate counterparts, serve a revisionist purpose, allowing people to maintain a racist ideology. Confederate symbols and flags have been removed from public display in the South since the end of the Civil War. Becky Little, How the Cult of Robert E. Lee Was Born, history.com, Aug. 14, 2017, 18. Of those who support the idea in the latest poll, 84% . Common faults are, by definition, common. Some people argue that these statues are a reminder of the countrys history and should be left in place, while others believe that they are a symbol of oppression and should be removed. NPR Morning Edition, For Stanton, All Women Were Not Created Equal, npr.org, July 13, 2011, 46. Adam Serwer, The Myth of the Kindly General Lee, theatlantic.com, June 4, 2017, 19. 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. And I also grew up hearing stories from my family or reading in archives the terrible things those men did to my people.. In the United States, Confederate generals were overthrown or voted out. Why are Confederate statues being removed? 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. Slavery is represented in statues by people who distort history and commemorate individuals who perpetuated it. The removal in recent years of several monuments depicting Confederate leaders and other controversial historical figures by both politicians and unsanctioned activists have generated debate over whether their removal is justified. At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, a significant portion of anti-imperialist and Bolivarian thinking was based on those ideas. That, my friends, is what we must work toward eradicating. [50], Ellis Cose, Senior Fellow at the ACLU, states that the statues should remain, with plaques and other material in place that point out that these men were traitors, not American heroes, and that their ugly legacy haunts us still. Taking them down is to censor, whitewash, and potentially forget that history. The removal of monuments erases the memory of those who fought against them in defense of the values they represent. "Historic Statue Removal Top 3 Pros & Cons." The statue in this state refers to the state constitution or an act of the legislature or initiative or referendum. In recent years, there has been a growing debate over whether or not political statues should be in public spaces. Dreamers and DACA supporters rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court. It does not disqualify him that he selected a husband for his daughter rather than allowing her to select one for herself. Both Washington and Jefferson were critical to the formation of the country and to the shaping of it in its early years No one puts a monument up to Washington or Jefferson to promote slavery I think on these two, Washington and Jefferson, in particular, you take the bitter with sweet. However, preservationism remains the dominant outlook of the sector. GREENE: Oh, so actually edit the arrangement of the statues. A: My first book (A City of Marble) was about the Roman emperor Augustus and how he used the built environment to shape civic identity at a time of great change for Rome. They must be removed, according to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Conocie una fugacidad de las personas y conocie una inscripcin hablada de un poder. When we get into Confederate monuments specifically, again, they were purposely put up at times when Blacks were beginning to gain more rights as citizens, and very often, they were erected in public, civic spaces, often on courthouse lawns, specifically to let Black people know that even though, legally, they had more rights, those rights wouldnt be upheld there. GREENE: But what about historical figures with complicated, often racist histories who were also Union generals or former presidents? Eventually, police descended on the. [47] Do we exclude the achievements of these figures from public display because they displayed controversial behavior? There are pros and cons to removing statues. New York Times, From 2017: Confederate Monuments Are Coming down dcross the United States. Theres one school of thought that says communities should be the ones to decide. Those who disagree with the beliefs upheld by the statues should work to understand the history these monuments represent, rather than trying to simply remove them and the history from sight. The record has been filed by the gobernantes, but the response has not yet been made. They provide a sense of identity and pride for many people. They represent the establishments value system at any given time, regardless of the circumstances. Tomorrow, a white nationalist majority mightuproot monuments to Martin Luther King citinghis adulteries and other indiscretions. 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. [27] [28] Statues celebrating the diversity of the country could help remedy symbolic annihilation of black Americans, women, and other groups. SINHA: Well, I think it is important not to go from one extreme to the other. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. During the globalBlack Lives Matterprotests 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-holdingFounding Fathers in general, as well as historic monuments to Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. Phil Davis, George Washington Monument in Druid Hill Park Spray-Painted with Destroy Racists, Anti-Police Sentiment, baltimoresun.com, June 21, 2020, 11. New Orleans a city of many nations America's largest slave market Should Confederate Monuments Be Removed. Other examples are the decisions to name towns in New York State, Illinois, and Indiana after the Roman consul,Marcus Tullius Cicero. Rebecca Klar, Arthur Ashe Statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue Tagged with White Lives Matter Graffiti, thehill.com, June 17, 2020, 50. When activists deface statues, ultimately what theyre doing is forcing the citys hand so that they either have to put money into restoration, which doubles down on whatever message that monument is sending, or they can just remove it. 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. I was really dismayed to see the statue of Grant, especially, come down because Grant was never comfortable with owning that one slave that was given to him by his father-in-law. The toppling of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol has led to a heated debate about memorialisation and what those statues say about their respective societies. 2. Then youre asking museums to do a lot of work they dont want to do and maybe shouldnt be doing. The Day of the Race has been condemned by social science as a result of its extreme racism, including the Nazism of World War II. As a student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, Arizona State University English Professor Natalie Diaz remembers seeing the Robert E. Lee monument every time her basketball team traveled to play the University of Richmond Spiders. But I think a better idea there would have been to actually remove the statues of the African American man and the Native American man and maybe let Teddy Roosevelt be there to commend him for his support of conservation and his support for the Natural History Museum. Many of the men with whom George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S. Grant were associated at the time were slaves. PRO Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. There has been much debate over which statues should be taken down, and whether this is an effective way to combat bigotry. Thus, George Washington is memorialized in statues and place names, although he held slaves. His policies were also deadly for thousands of Native Americans. procon@eb.com, 2023 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. In several cities, these tributes have been vandalized or torn down by protestors or removed by public officials. Petition Pushes for Parton Statues, arkansasonline.com, June 23, 2020, 30. Southern Poverty Law Center, Whose Heritage? We will know who Robert E. Lee was. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army GeneralsRobert E. LeeandStonewall Jackson. I think in general in this country, statues have held up a very white, male virtue. Many of them were erected decades after the fall of the Confederacy as a way to remind Black Americans of their place in society. It depends on who the person is and what the objections are. Adolph Hitler gets none, although he was kind to dogs. What you got in the interim before that happened was a kind of a battle over community values. Activists are campaigning for a statue of Cecil Rhodes to be removed from an Oxford college. The ceremony was whites only, and featured children forming a Confederate flag and singing Dixie.. 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. Preserving historic statues and place-names can serve a number of positive aims. But the traditional standard does help minimize political manipulation of history. In fact, even Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate statues. Hannah Natanson, Theres a New Way to Deal with Confederate Monuments: Signs That Explain Their Racist History, washingtonpost.com, Sep. 22, 2019, 53. These figures were not commonly known to be ridden by equestrians. Evan Andrews, How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Enslaved People?, history.com, Sep. 3, 2019, 45. Jasmine Aguilera, Confederate Statues Are Being Removed amid Protests over George Floyd's Death. The Shepherd monument would not have been returned to the National Park Service if it did not provide interpretive signs and returned it to its rightful owner. And the vast majority of these statues were erected during the height of the Jim Crow movement, as historian Kevin M. Kruse has shown. Like, what do you see is at stake here if the number of statues being removed really broadens? Go toProCon.orgto learn more. The statue was defaced, there was a lot of graffiti that dealt with defunding the police, and there are some incredibly powerful images that were taken during that time, some of which are going into the new time capsule. For many years people have been arguing whether certain controversial monuments, such as statues, should be destroyed or removed. [14] [17]. We can do that. 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. According to theSouthern Poverty Law Center(SPLC), 59 Confederate statues and nine markers or plaques were removed from public land in 19 US states between June 17, 2015 and July 6, 2020. There is no easy answer to this question, as there are pros and cons to both sides. Juan De Anda, Why Representation Matters Now, mediapost.com, April 21, 2020, 28. GORDON-REED: No. History protests Confederate Monuments and Other Disputed Memorials Have Come Down in Cities Across America. We should be able to discuss these historical figures and discuss what we admire about them and what we don't admire so much. Khushbu Shah, Atlanta's Confederate Monuments: How Do Context Markers Help Explain Racism?, theguardian.com, Aug. 3, 2019, 25. The announcement caused a stir because it made it clear that nothing else has been done to honor him until now: no other president has done so. The definition of a statue includes a work of art that represents something as well. When a king dies, his or her statue is also taken down, as are those of their ancestors. GREENE: Historian Manisha Sinha is the author of "The Slave's Cause: A History Of Abolition.". [35]. To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, discussion questions, and ways to take action on the issue of whether historic statues should be taken down in the United States, go to ProCon.org. A high-profile decision to tear down a famous bronze figure of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va., was halted by a court challenge, which was extended indefinitely on Thursday. The concept of La Raza -as* -as* is based on the idea that all latinos are united in EEUU and that they are committed to aquella tradition. A statue of Josphine de Beauharnais, who married Napoleon and became his first wife, was ripped down in Martinique. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. When the statues are publicly owned, removing them by wanton destruction still usurps decision-making authority from the public. The bus will arrive in Che Guevaras honor. 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. Any statue removal may result in the removal of monuments from any individual with a problematic history. Claudette Colvin was a member of the Womens Missionary Union before Rosa Parks was born. They can be offensive and hurtful to certain groups of people. Brian Palmer and Seth Freed Wessler, The Costs of the Confederacy, smithsonianmag.com, Dec 2018, 5. Those who argue against keeping political statues in public spaces typically make the following points: 1. 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. Other statues of historic figures, such as slave-owning presidents or imperialists like Christopher Columbus, promote similar oppressive and revisionist messages. A black resident of Richmond, Virginia, Tommye Finley, remarked of the citys Monument Avenue, which is home to five Confederate statues, When I first moved here from Mississippi, I thought these statues were ridiculous. Squares with statues of ostensibly virtuous civil leaders at the center often came out of the City Beautiful movement. 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. There are many other people who deserve statues that better represent the countrys historical progress and diversity. Question: Why do we have monuments and memorials? When I found out they were taking the statue down, it was close to my birthday and felt like a lucky birthday present, Diaz said. Were trying to let the government know were not going to wait any longer for our freedom to happen. [19] Celebrations of Columbus have long been criticized due to his colonization and genocide of Indigenous people, as well as the false narrative that he discovered America when he never set foot on North America. They can be used as a teaching tool to help educate people about different periods in our past. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Protesters for. Its a pleasure to be a part of the politics of Los diferentes estrellas de la Avenida. Perhaps that is precisely why the standard is flouted by those who want to politicize everything. First and foremost, they are part of our history and should be preserved as such.
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