Do you think it does a good job representing all Southerners? Or just some of them?
What part of history?
This is what emboldened white supremacists look like
- Thread starter annabenedetti
- Start date
Do you think it does a good job representing all Southerners? Or just some of them?
What part of history?
It doesn't seem like they have all given up yet.
:duh:
Exactly.
A number of people have been commenting elsewhere in the public square on the nobility of my relative, the former Confederate general Robert E. Lee and suggesting his actions in relation to New Orleans outside of that war deserve a different treatment. They make the case for a number of good works done during Reconstruction and remind us of Lee's own act of freeing his slaves before that contest began. They say he is exceptional, beloved by many for things unrelated to the war and its cause...and that this should engender a different approach and respect.
The lamentable fact is that no amount of good or recognition of the ill of slavery on Lee's part, no compulsion to defend his state (which itself would not necessitate taking on the leadership of all the Confederacy's armies) pardons battling to champion a state established to protect and promote it.
If New Orleans had wanted to honor the other Lee it could have placed him on that pedestal without uniform. That it chose not to should inform us of its foundational intent, to pay homage to the myth of noble futility and the South that never really was...we don't need any of it. Southerners have offered the nation we nearly destroyed far better than that, more vital than that, and something we can all celebrate and go forward with together.
I'd be the first to admit that for years I got this wrong, had a one sided and romantically myopic view of those monuments fed by my culture and the treatment of that time in film and literature by many. But Lee, who had sworn to protect the Union, who divested himself of slaves and recognized the evil of slavery had an even greater obligation to history than most. Lee is more, not less culpable because he knew better and chose the wrong course. He called the evil what it was then served its masters. However he couched it, the idea that the "defense" of a rebellious state should trump that moral truth is indefensible. He is a tragic figure, but a tragedy of his own making. That isn't something to commemorate.
The lamentable fact is that no amount of good or recognition of the ill of slavery on Lee's part, no compulsion to defend his state (which itself would not necessitate taking on the leadership of all the Confederacy's armies) pardons battling to champion a state established to protect and promote it.
If New Orleans had wanted to honor the other Lee it could have placed him on that pedestal without uniform. That it chose not to should inform us of its foundational intent, to pay homage to the myth of noble futility and the South that never really was...we don't need any of it. Southerners have offered the nation we nearly destroyed far better than that, more vital than that, and something we can all celebrate and go forward with together.
I'd be the first to admit that for years I got this wrong, had a one sided and romantically myopic view of those monuments fed by my culture and the treatment of that time in film and literature by many. But Lee, who had sworn to protect the Union, who divested himself of slaves and recognized the evil of slavery had an even greater obligation to history than most. Lee is more, not less culpable because he knew better and chose the wrong course. He called the evil what it was then served its masters. However he couched it, the idea that the "defense" of a rebellious state should trump that moral truth is indefensible. He is a tragic figure, but a tragedy of his own making. That isn't something to commemorate.
Arthur Brain
Well-known member
Has this turned into the statute thread? - sorry, statue thread...
Yes, Tam. Those are well made and impressive. What they represent, however, wasn't. Recall the tragedy of those men and their efforts, but as they were and as it was, without ennobling the ignoble.
In a way, her efforts are appropriate. When you can't argue the cause, bury it under a lovely statue. Institutionalize a sort of respect for the disreputable and insinuate it into the fabric of a culture.
All the marble in the world won't alter the truth it mistakenly attempts to ennoble or the stench of the corruption underneath it, Tam.
You should attempt to join the discourse instead of burying it, unless you mean to continue to illustrate the folly of the effort and its aim.
You should attempt to join the discourse instead of burying it, unless you mean to continue to illustrate the folly of the effort and its aim.