The George Floyd Case Discussion Thread

[A Black Falcon]

Confederate statues and monuments, US military bases named for Confederate generals, and such, are all products of the early 20th century. They aren't from just after the war, people would never have put so much effort then into memorializing the pro-slavery losers of the war. Instead, they came from later, statements against black rights in monumental form. The statues aren't really about the Civil War, but about how Southern white people wanted to make statements about what their ideal is, a society built on open racism. (And that is why you never see statues of Lee's right-hand-man James Longstreet, since after the war he became a Republican and supported black rights...)

So, I certainly believe in remembering history and keeping some of them in museums is just fine. But why should so many cities be filled with memorials put up expressly as statements of how much Southern whites hate black people? No, take them all down from public places. The sudden rush of movement against Southern memorials and the use of the Confederate Battle Flag are fantastic and I very much hope they continue!


As for Columbus, he was a really quite horrendous person and taking down his statues makes a lot of sense. Seriously, read about the kinds of things he did.