'Oh! Susanna' songwriter's statue removed from Pittsburgh park after criticism

[luckynumbah7]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

I was wondering myself what the fuck he did to deserve honor-

I was quite serious when I said 'Columbus's ad campaign', though he was dead at the time. They actually had to promote the concept of Columbus himself, and part of that was to ingratiate America to Italian immigrants. Though I'm not sure I still have the link to that bit. Probably not, I don't save years' old history on a consistent basis.

“When I gave a seminar over the summer to a bunch of high-flying Fulbright students from the U.S., all of whom were history majors, none of them were even aware of the Columbus-Columbia connection,” Jones said. “They were fascinated by it, having grown up with ‘Columbia’ as a name and an icon but never really having thought about where she came from.”

Where she did not come from, not really, was Christopher Columbus the man. Columbus as a historical personage, rather than as a symbol, wasn’t really visible until Washington Irving’s 1827 biography essentially re-imagined him, Bushman explains.

“That’s the first time he really appears, as far as I could tell. His remaking by Washington Irving really changes the whole way he’s considered. It’s a beautiful whitewash job.”


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...rfect-icon-new-nation-looking-hero-180956887/

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-U...-Christopher-Columbus-become-so-controversial

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

Do you have a link?

[Text: Removed]

http://lmgtfy.com/?iie=1&q=rappers+donate+to+charity

 

[bankside]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

This. People who act like public monuments are some kind of warning are lying through their teeth. When I see a statue in public I assume it's someone being honored for accomplishing something great, which is the intent of erecting these things. I'm soooo perplexed at people trying to actually spin this as some sort of educational tool. But we all know how they'd react if statues of notorious black panthers started popping up.

You’re really bitter because you think people who disagree with you favour some kind of white sumremacist delusion of the status quo. Self absorbed lying through the teeth bla bla bla. It’s bullshit. You’re just mistaken. There are lots of people who say they want the past kept to educate us about the past, not recreate it, really mean what they say. They should be taken at face value. Hidden among them will be a few who really yearn for the rise once more of Stalinism or Jim Crow or Apartheid or theocracy of whatever flavour, but it’s really easy to catch them out. The historians will say “Yes, let’s keep the statue and yes, let’s add another one because now we’re only getting one side of the story. We’ve done nothing to show where we stand now or honour the victims or tally the costs.” A racist or a tyrant will turn green at that point because we’ve caught them.

The bitterness though, and the baseless accusations especially, based on a misunderstanding, don’t help anybody.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

[Quoted Post: Removed]

I said our past cannot be reduced to slogans, rants etc etc. And I also think statues are ineffective methods of displaying whatever. I would have objected to this statue if I was around in 1905 or whenever it was proposed.

People should put up statues on their own property not on public land. It is idolatry.



And I don't think much of this dead man's simplistic music.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

You’re really bitter because you think people who disagree with you favour some kind of white sumremacist delusion of the status quo.

False, mcbrion disagrees with me and on some points so does Lucky. The only people I throw that charge at are the usual suspects who take the same stance in every discussion about race, some of whom are so unapologetically anti-black that it's making white people want to leave the site. In the past month I've had to beg no less than three members to ignore the white nationalists [and the mod team that lets them get away with it] and to stay here cuz it's still a fun and interesting place. You've failed to convince me that the white supremacy on JUB is cooked up in my imagination, points for effort though- but when it gets so bad that non-blacks are even offended, you'll have better luck convincing me the earth is flat.

 

[luckynumbah7]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

There are lots of people who say they want the past kept to educate us about the past, not recreate it, really mean what they say. [STRIKE]They should be taken at face value.[/STRIKE] Hidden among them will be a few who really yearn for the rise once more of Stalinism or Jim Crow or Apartheid or theocracy of whatever flavour, but it’s really easy to catch them out. The historians will say “Yes, let’s keep the statue and yes, let’s add another one because now we’re only getting one side of the story. We’ve done nothing to show where we stand now or honour the victims or tally the costs.” A racist or a tyrant will turn green at that point because we’ve caught them.

No. An emotion is not a fact. Believing you mean what you say must be contrasted with what you actually do. 'Belief' often brings a warm, rosily emotional 'I'm doin' good, I'm right' glow without introspection or work. Beliefs are often based not on fact, but 'faith'.

There's considerably more than 'a few people' who are just fine with the idea of a group being considered lesser by their physical or (assumed) mental attributes, particularly as unconscious bias influences action. The general public are not historians and the general public do not, on the whole, examine their unconscious bias without a swift kick in the ass and a beady eye. That's why the general public here, largely, has a lack of promotion for additional information and the relocation of statuary. No; what they argue for is 'Keep it, it's benign.' And then all the self-serving arguments that surround keeping it unmodified and attached to its place of public virtue get trotted out.

 

[Cormac135]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

you’re really bitter because you think people who disagree with you favour some kind of white sumremacist delusion of the status quo. Self absorbed lying through the teeth bla bla bla. It’s bullshit. You’re just mistaken. There are lots of people who say they want the past kept to educate us about the past, not recreate it, really mean what they say. They should be taken at face value. Hidden among them will be a few who really yearn for the rise once more of stalinism or jim crow or apartheid or theocracy of whatever flavour, but it’s really easy to catch them out. The historians will say “yes, let’s keep the statue and yes, let’s add another one because now we’re only getting one side of the story. We’ve done nothing to show where we stand now or honour the victims or tally the costs.” a racist or a tyrant will turn green at that point because we’ve caught them.

The bitterness though, and the baseless accusations especially, based on a misunderstanding, don’t help anybody.

Very well said.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

Are you really still trying to fat shame people, pathetic.

I'm promoting health-consciousness dear, there's no shame in being out of shape.

 

[Latimer]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

I was wondering myself what the fuck he did to deserve honor--Again, for what, I couldn't guess in a thousand years.

I take it that you believe we should dismiss the achievements of all of the men who set out from Europe to navigate, explore and map the world: Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Cook and many others. You seem to forget that you are the beneficiary of their explorations. Perhaps if they arose from anywhere other than the European continent you would feel otherwise. But they didn't. The great world explorers of the 15th through 19th centuries are white Europeans. Likewise the mapmakers and the inventors of new tools of navigation. Likewise the scientists who in time accompanied--at great risk to their lives--the sailors on these voyages, and whose discoveries added immeasurably to our knowledge of the natural world. These are great and heroic men.

As to why Columbus deserves honor, I suggest you read the great historian Samuel Elliot Morrison's fine and much praised life of him, "Admiral of the Ocean Sea". Morrison was himself a sailor, and sailed the Atlantic a number of times on a ship "near enough to Columbus's...in rig and burden...to cross the ocean under conditions very similar to those of his day, and to view islands and coasts as through his eyes." You will discover that Columbus was a brave and brilliant man. A great one, too, far greater than those petty politicians ignorant of history and eager to jump on the latest bandwagon and propose that monuments to his achievements be torn down.

 

[luckynumbah7]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

@LatimerRD,

Columbus is being honored as a 'discoverer of America' and an 'important historical figure for America's founding', which was, I assume, why you brought him up in that 'lil list above about racism in North America & its Days of Celebration & monuments.

Not this 'he was a good sailor no really!' shoddy fucking reasoning you seem to be desperately trying to morph your past argument into. The base of which was supposed to be ''American Accomplishments and Notable Accurate History. All to keep that genocidal 'I can't find gold, slaves will do' monument/day of, ahem, abject lies.

As the common story goes, discovered by accident. He was not actually the first on the scene as he hadn't stepped foot on North American soil. Nor was he under the impression he'd found a new continent. There is nothing there in America's 'discovery' to laud.

 

[luckynumbah7]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

We live in a complex, contradictory and confounding world. What some find to be "either/or" others believe to be "both/and".

You'd best be trying again; that doesn't fly when your original proposition involved Notable (True) American History and its monuments.

Not pretty lies shifted on the fly so you can pretend to have an argument for keeping an incredibly racist statue in a place of honor, let alone unmodified.

But, you know, I would hate to be called unreasonable. I'm willing to turn 'Columbus Day' into a history lesson of exactly what he did, and did not, do.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

You’re really bitter because you think people who disagree with you favour some kind of white sumremacist delusion of the status quo. Self absorbed lying through the teeth bla bla bla. It’s bullshit. You’re just mistaken. There are lots of people who say they want the past kept to educate us about the past, not recreate it, really mean what they say. They should be taken at face value. Hidden among them will be a few who really yearn for the rise once more of Stalinism or Jim Crow or Apartheid or theocracy of whatever flavour, but it’s really easy to catch them out. The historians will say “Yes, let’s keep the statue and yes, let’s add another one because now we’re only getting one side of the story. We’ve done nothing to show where we stand now or honour the victims or tally the costs.” A racist or a tyrant will turn green at that point because we’ve caught them.

The bitterness though, and the baseless accusations especially, based on a misunderstanding, don’t help anybody.

Well, I'm not particularly conversant with this person or statue, but I can speak about statues of people like Stonewall Jackson, Lee, and others who (Like Lee at the Texas Capitol) are lovingly ensconced and glowingly admired in inscriptions placed prominently on main park paths where it is impossible to ignore them. They aren't there to promote history, they are there to promote a fantasy of the "Old South" and just like Gone With the Wind, represent no reality that ever existed, except in the minds of 20th century racists longing to be Master of the Plantation.

Let's be clear who these guys were, and let's be clear that there were no statues and memorials planned in 1865 - they were traitors who rebelled in order to keep back people cattle. Period. Fighting valiantly in favor of a cause so obscene does not make you a hero, it makes you a monster.

Then there is the fact that these statues were not raised by the Old South to commemorate a glorious past, they were raised by a 20th century South that was at pains to remind the "Colored" that Jim Crow ruled and they'd better not ever forget it. They are symbols of modern repression, General Lee was there to remind you that White was Right - while your daddy swung from the tree.

Finally at least in the South, the people who are most vocal in keeping them, unfortunately do seem to be the most racist.

You know, when I was in Germany I did see Nazi memorabilia, it was right next to the story of the death camps, there was no way to separate the one from the other. I'll stop complaining about statues when Lee, in all his equestrian glory, is standing right next to the images of White people picnicking in the parks he graces, while black men swung from the oaks above them.

- - - Updated - - -

[Quoted Post: Removed]

[Text: Removed]

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

Finally at least in the South, the people who are most vocal in keeping them, unfortunately do seem to be the most racist.

excellent post, this was worth repeating, the same people shrugging this off or angry about the statue being taken down are more than vocal about their perceptions of black Americans and their white-washed, softened version of American history.

I never thought I'd see the day somebody sincerely referred to C Columbus as some sort of icon or hero.

 

[bankside]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

Well, I'm not particularly conversant with this person or statue, but I can speak about statues of people like Stonewall Jackson, Lee, and others who (Like Lee at the Texas Capitol) are lovingly ensconced and glowingly admired in inscriptions placed prominently on main park paths where it is impossible to ignore them. They aren't there to promote history, they are there to promote a fantasy of the "Old South" and just like Gone With the Wind, represent no reality that ever existed, except in the minds of 20th century racists longing to be Master of the Plantation.

Let's be clear who these guys were, and let's be clear that there were no statues and memorials planned in 1865 - they were traitors who rebelled in order to keep back people cattle. Period. Fighting valiantly in favor of a cause so obscene does not make you a hero, it makes you a monster.

Then there is the fact that these statues were not raised by the Old South to commemorate a glorious past, they were raised by a 20th century South that was at pains to remind the "Colored" that Jim Crow ruled and they'd better not ever forget it. They are symbols of modern repression, General Lee was there to remind you that White was Right - while your daddy swung from the tree.

Finally at least in the South, the people who are most vocal in keeping them, unfortunately do seem to be the most racist.

You know, when I was in Germany I did see Nazi memorabilia, it was right next to the story of the death camps, there was no way to separate the one from the other. I'll stop complaining about statues when Lee, in all his equestrian glory, is standing right next to the images of White people picnicking in the parks he graces, while black men swung from the oaks above them.

Many if not most statues or monuments are put somewhere to promote a particular viewpoint of history. Here's one of King Louis XIV in Québec City. It wasn't there to express an inclusive democratic tribute to our human rights. It was put there to signify that Louis XIV really had unquestionable absolute divine rule over all his subjects. It was put there to claim North America for France (that is, everything belonged to Louis XIV and whatever heirs God would grant him). It was put there to intimidate every Protestant who might ever see it: this land was Catholic, truth and justice were Catholic. This land was the King's and not anyone else's because God said so. You can't toss a golden cherub at Versailles without hitting a basket full of injustices and excesses and delusions of the monarchs of the day. And this statue stands for all of that.

Also it was put there by a toady of the king hoping to curry favour with the monarchy and show what a good little stooge he was. It stood there from 1686. Then as fashions change and monarchs change and entire regimes change, it went away for over 200 years until France (now a Republic) made a gift of a reproduction to Canada (Now a British democratic monarchy). There for another few decades until it "got in the way" (political moods changing again). Until finally it's been back in Place Royale since 1964. Now wouldn't you say the statue has come to stand for something more? The friendship of two democracies. The respect for the symbols of history with the refusal to be bound by the limits of the past. The national memory and the aspirations of Quebecers within Canada to live as Canadians but not be erased by the British monarchy as though we could cut out all our roots? Or are we still proclaiming the sovereignty of a dead king by divine command.

Playing "Let's Hide the Embarrassing Statue" is a mug's game. It always ends up back there. If there are important political points to be made about it, add them to the public square. Educate people in the same public square. Relieve people from monarchist propaganda, or communist propaganda, or segregationist propaganda, in the very same public square. You can't delete it, you can only answer it.

 

[LilBit]

There's a statue on the campus of my grad school alma mater that's been a source of controversy for decades. Here's the latest:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article210156804.html

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

There's a statue on the campus of my grad school alma mater that's been a source of controversy for decades. Here's the latest:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article210156804.html

Cue the "It wasn't so bad, here go those over-sensitive whiny blacks crying about nothing again" in t-minus 5...4...3...

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Re: A statue- complete with banjo-pickin slave, honoring a racist songwriter was taken down and white people are calling it reverse racism

Playing "Let's Hide the Embarrassing Statue" is a mug's game. It always ends up back there. If there are important political points to be made about it, add them to the public square. Educate people in the same public square. Relieve people from monarchist propaganda, or communist propaganda, or segregationist propaganda, in the very same public square. You can't delete it, you can only answer it.

If I understand correctly, you want America's parks, where families take their kids for leisurely strolls, to become artistic history lessons with statues to remind people that America used to murder and torture blacks? even I'm not that desperate to be argumentative.

"Daddy, who's that?"

"That's John Such-and-such he was a respected business man who raped a few of his slaves and had a big ole brood of bastard children."

"Wooooooooow."

 

[LilBit]

Cue the "It wasn't so bad, here go those over-sensitive whiny blacks crying about nothing again" in t-minus 5...4...3...

Nah, most of the objections are the usual "We can't erase HISTORY!" nonsense. As if removing a statue and putting it in a museum will suddenly undo the thousands upn thousands of books and articles written on the War of Northern Aggression©.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Nah, most of the objections are the usual "We can't erase HISTORY!" nonsense. As if removing a statue and putting it in a museum will suddenly undo the thousands upn thousands of books and articles written on the War of Northern Aggression©.

It's news to me that parks and public displays are suddenly an integral part of the education process, it's practically being begged that these are a legitimate supplement for actual history lessons in school, complete with books and a teacher to explain everything. Nah, who needs that when you have a rusty old statue with a plaque that summarizes the object's story in two or three short, choppy phrases [if you're lucky complete sentences]

 

[opinterph]

… removing a statue and putting it in a museum

a rusty old statue

I grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

… So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and before the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the mount with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the genuine discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, pray together; to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom forever, )mowing that we will be free one day.

And I say to you today my friends, let freedom ring. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the mighty Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only there; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we're free at last!"

[Link]

What Will Happen to Stone Mountain, America’s Largest Confederate Memorial? (Smithsonian; August 2017)

A monument to MLK will crown Stone Mountain (Politically Georgia; October 2015)

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE that the members of this body recognize and commend the proposed Liberty Bell monument at Stone Mountain for its nobility of spirit, cultural value, and historic significance. (Georgia General Assembly; 2017-2018 Regular Session - SR 913)​