A Confederate Statue Graveyard Could Help Bury the Old South

[SoonerPride]

An estimated 114 Confederate symbols have been removed from public view since 2015. In many cases, these cast-iron Robert E. Lees and Jefferson Davises were sent to storage.

If the aim of statue removal is to build a more racially just South, then, as many analysts have pointed out, putting these monuments in storage is a lost opportunity. Simply unseating Confederate statues from highly visible public spaces is just the first step in a much longer process of understanding, grieving and mending the wounds of America’s violent past. Merely hiding away the monuments does not necessarily change the structural racism that birthed them.

Studies show that the environment in which statues are displayed shapes how people understand their meaning. In that sense, relocating monuments, rather than eliminating them, can help people put this painful history into context.

For example, monuments to Confederate war heroes first appeared in cemeteries immediately following the Civil War. That likely evoked in visitors a direct and private honoring and grieving for the dead.

More here:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-confederate-statue-graveyard-could-help-bury-the-old-south?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[Thomas Hurt]

1. The Treason and Bigotry Museum of America...

Big outdoor museum, the alt right, KKK and other winger whackjobs can pay to get in and cry over them.

[npk]

7. Nah. A museum would be of no use to them.

These alt right, kkk and neo-con don't really care about these statues or even the people they portray. They only care about them being displayed on public property and in front of and inside government buildings for the sole purpose of intimidating black people and other POC. Once you take that away from them, they have no use for them any longer. Trust me these alt right people could not give two shits about Robert E Lee or Jefferson Davis. They just like that the statues cause people they don't like pain and suffering.

[Sherman A1]

2. To the smelter with the lot of them

History is very available in those things called books.

[Hangingon]

3. Hopefully, book burnings are not next on the list

[SoonerPride]

4. I favor melting down too.

But the author’s proposal of toppled monuments laying in a field of weeds and allowed to rust and decay as broken relics of a toppled system of racism may be even better.

Not on pedestals.
Not towering over observers.
Not in a museum which conveys significance and importance.

But decapitated, toppled, and broken in a field of weeds seems maybe even more significant than merely melting them down.

I thought it was an interesting proposal.

[hatrack]

5. I think I found a good place for all the Confederate monuments . . . .

They'll be in good company.

[SoonerPride]

6. That video was fascinating!

Wow that was really neat.

Thank you so much for sharing it.

[hatrack]

8. Pretty trippy, no? The Golden Plastic Lenin at the end of the world . . .

[SoonerPride]

9. Yes. The recent pictures with the station buried but his head were awesome

That was quite something