Texas A&M refuses to take down Confederate statue

[Ex Lurker]

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/higher-education/2017/08/21/amid-debate-confederate-monuments-texas-am-will-remove-sul-ross-statue

AUSTIN — Texas A&M University will not remove a statue of Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross, a former campus president, governor and Confederate general, school officials said Monday.

"Anyone who knows the true history of Lawrence Sullivan Ross would never ask his statue to be removed," Chancellor John Sharp said in a statement. "It will not be removed."

The announcement came just hours after University of Texas at Austin President Greg Fenves announced the removal of four statues there, saying Confederate monuments had "become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism."

This pushback is expected. The fight will continue.

[Dustlawyer]

1. Hook 'em Horns!!!

[Proud liberal 80]

2. If the statue is of him

In his role as university president then I can actually see the schools point, but if it is him as a confederate general then that is different story.

[JoeStuckInOH]

3. Does the statue celebrate/depict him as the former Governor or University President... or as General

Looks to be quite a normal civilian statue of the man.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Keep the statue, just add that he was a traitor to the USA to the

inscription.

[Ilsa]

5. If he had just been a confed general,

my guess is that there wouldn't be that much of a fight. But because he was governor and campus president early in the history of tamu, their resistance will be more than just pushback. This one will take time to get done, probably many years.

[TomSlick]

6. If Wikipedia is to be credited

he was President of the predecessor of T A&M after the Civil War and is credited with saving the institution. I'm not convinced that service in the Confederate Army disqualifies from honor for later good deeds.

To the extent you believe that service to T A&M is a good thing (the jury is still out for me), I have no heart-burn with a campus statue of him as the school President.

[Massacure]

7. I think there is an important question that needs to be asked in all these statue cases

When asking whether a statute should be removed or not, I think it's pertinent to ask "Is this person an important historical figure who just happened to be part of the Confederacy, or is it the Confederacy that made this person historically important?" Statues should be allowed to stay in the first but not in the second.

In my opinion, Ross happens to be in the first category.

[flotsam]

8. Well-there's this:

On August 16, 1889, a gunfight broke out at the county courthouse, in which four persons were killed, including the sheriff. The Jaybirds won the fight and seized control of the county government soon afterward, with the collaboration of Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross, who established martial law in the county. The effects of the Post-Reconstruction feud echoed in local politics for decades. The Jaybirds effectively disfranchised the African Americans in the county by using a "whites-only" ballot in preliminary party voting from 1889 until 1953, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that this was unconstitutional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaybird%E2%80%93Woodpecker_War

If we are taking these down because of the treatment of blacks then this guy has to go also...

[Major Nikon]

11. I think there's more to it

If that is your only qualifier, then you'd have to start removing memorials to many of the founding fathers, who were slave owners. While I reject the slippery slope argument when applied to those who are being honored simply because they were confederates, it does have to apply at some level.

I think the problem with memorializing people is those memorials are often easy to go up, and very hard to take down. Certainly each one has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and maybe in this case it needs to come down, but I don't think it's as simple as black-and-white, so to speak. The biggest problem we have right now is some are still honored simply because they were significant figures of the confederacy, and those shitstains need to be power washed.

[Cosmocat]

9. I have been kicking conservatives asses over this "issue"

and people here might not like it in this instance.

Local control.

That is supposedly one of the most basic planks of their bullshit platform.

End of the day Charlottesville council voted to move that statue, and they or we have on say in what that community chooses to do, whether we like it or not.

The fact is, only the community or municipality know the back ground related to these statues, we can't really know as well as they do, and end of the day it is their property and community.

From some of the posts in this thread, I personally don't have a problem with this. We should not have the absolutist or extremist mindset.

[B2G]

10. And this is where it gets fuzzy.

I know it's the 'in' thing right now to espouse that anything related to the Confederacy must go because they were traitors. The problem is, half of our country at the time fought for the south. Many of them went on to do great things after the war. Are we to remove those contributions as well?

This is a perfect example of that.

[LanternWaste]

15. I'm bemused how you trivialize concerns about monuments to racists

I'm bemused how you trivialize concerns about monuments to racists as simply the "in thing."


I get it... many people believe convictions are fashion accessories, and treat them as such, even when held by others.
"Yours is a perfect example of that..." part II

(space to rationalize provided free of charge below...)

[Thrill]

12. Take it down for them

[Bettie]

13. It seems appropriate for this one to be there

as it has little to do with the war and much more to do with the history of the college.

[dalton99a]

14. It's time for an Aggie joke

It was reported that a small two seater airplane crashed in a cemetery near Texas A&M campus located in College Station Tx. early this morning. So far, the Aggie fire dept. has recovered 300 bodies and they’re still digging. Further developments will be posted.