Durham

[dualstow]

I mean statues aren't supposed to take the place of books, long or short.

Very seldom the costs and dark side of the history of the person/event involved.

There are, as you know, a growing number of museums dedicated to remembering massacres and tragedies, but how much do you really want crammed in to the base of a statue? Here's a statue of Jefferson. Oh, we better put in the fine print that he did own slaves.
Is that really where we're going with this? Should statues of Genghis Khan have some writing to appease visitors from other countries? Ridiculous.

[moda0306]

I mean statues aren't supposed to take the place of books, long or short.

Very seldom the costs and dark side of the history of the person/event involved.

There are, as you know, a growing number of museums dedicated to remembering massacres and tragedies, but how much do you really want crammed in to the base of a statue? Here's a statue of Jefferson. Oh, we better put in the fine print that he did own slaves.
Is that really where we're going with this? Should statues of Genghis Khan have some writing to appease visitors from other countries? Ridiculous.

Absolutely we shouldn't expect monuments to be something they're not. But I'm not the one making the argument that removing statues is the Orwellian equivalent of erasing history from books. Others are.

[dualstow]

I see what you mean. The quote may not be appropriate here, like you say. Removing a statue is not the same as renaming it.
By the same token, though, saying "I'm bored with statues and I prefer books" seems odd.

[Xan]

I see what you mean. The quote may not be appropriate here, like you say. Removing a statue is not the same as renaming it.
By the same token, though, saying "I'm bored with statues and I prefer books" seems odd.

There's plenty of renaming going on too: streets, schools, parks. All part of the same push.

[dualstow]

I see what you mean. The quote may not be appropriate here, like you say. Removing a statue is not the same as renaming it.
By the same token, though, saying "I'm bored with statues and I prefer books" seems odd.

There's plenty of renaming going on too: streets, schools, parks. All part of the same push.

How do you feel about it?

[Xan]

There's plenty of renaming going on too: streets, schools, parks. All part of the same push.

How do you feel about it?

Sad. Powerless. But then there are heroes like this:
Predominantly Black Dallas Group Forms To Protect Confederate Monuments

[dualstow]

I love it! I have seen African Americans speak in support of the confederate flag. Don't know if they're the same group.

[Cortopassi]

This is the kind of thing that is happening:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/08/16/ ... ve-owners/

I don't know if it is wrong or right. Going to be pretty hard to find any popular public figure that doesn't have at least one skeleton in their closet. Maybe we restrict future naming to animals and plants.

See the last sentence below. I guess cheating on your wife (and having a child with the mistress), and potentially abusing children and drugs is not bad enough to get you off the naming list...

Someone said it,.. no matter what, you'll piss some group off either way.
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Dukes said, even though Washington was the nation’s first president and led the American army in the Revolutionary War, he’s no hero to the black community.

“There’s no way plausible that we would even think that they would erect a Malcolm X statue in Mount Greenwood, Lincoln Park, or any of that. Not that say Malcolm X was a bad guy; they just would not go for it,” he said. “Native Americans would not even think about putting up a Custer statue, because of the atrocities that he plagued upon Native Americans. And for them to say to us ‘just accept it’ is actually insulting.”

The pastor also said President Andrew Jackson’s name should be removed from nearby Jackson Park, because he also was a slave owner. He said he’s not necessarily asking the city rename the parks altogether. He suggested Washington Park could be named after former Mayor Harold Washington, and Jackson Park could be named after civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson or singer Michael Jackson.