Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“But what about the lurkers?”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / Down in Durham

Down in Durham

by | 180 Comments

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It was erected in 1924. Almost all Confederate veterans were dead by then. Durham County has always had a significant African American population so a statue supporting slavery standing in front of the courthouse has its own meaning.

Be careful out there.

Reader Interactions

180Comments

  3. 3.

    HyperSphericalCow

    First thought: that thing crumpled like a rag when it hit the ground. Not only was it a Confederate monument, it was a *crappy* confederate monument.

  6. 6.

    TenguPhule

    Sadly, the Fascists are gonna copycat. In the middle of the night more likely then not.

  7. 7.

    Zach

    Is there a legal defense fund for people doing this? Best thing I’ve seen since the woman took down the confederate flag a few years ago.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    @HyperSphericalCow:
    Bronze statues are usually a pretty thin shell. There’s not a lot of point in making them thicker and heavier than they need to be to support their own weight. Any heavier, and you’re just wasting money and material and making them harder to deal with.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: What are they going to do, knock over tombstones at a Jewish cemetery? Again… Destroy the Emmett Till monument and marker? Again…

    There’s a pattern here.

  12. 12.

    Mike in NC

    I believe there was mention on local TV news recently that last year the Republican-controlled legislature of North Carolina pushed through a dumb bill protecting such monuments from being removed. Oh, well. Maybe the GOP will waste taxpayer money standing them back up. That will play out well.

    The other night we had cocktails with friends who recently moved here from NoVA, where they said there is a serious effort underway to change the names of a lot of the streets and buildings — mostly schools — memorializing Confederate generals and politicians (i.e. Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington).

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Mike in NC: The thing that offends me most are all those Army bases named after Confederate generals, many of whom foreswore their oaths to the US Army and fought against it.

    Edit: I see Mike J and I are mind-melding.

  19. 19.

    efgoldman

    @Mike J:

    They already attacked the holocaust memorial in Boston today.

    I’d bet that whoever got arrested is shocked – SHOCKED – that his actions might have consequences.

  22. 22.

    germy

    According to BuzzFeed News, white nationalist figurehead Richard Spencer was forced to hold his post-rally press conference at his “office and part-time residence” in Alexandria, Virginia because no hotels in D.C. would rent rooms to him.

    His initial plan was to host the conference at D.C.’s Sofitel Hotel a few blocks from the White House, but after the secret location was revealed, Sofitel cancelled the event. Another hotel, the Willard, also canceled once that location was leaked and people began tweeting at their parent company asking them why they were allowing a white supremacist to host a press conference at one of their properties.

    Attendees then received an email claiming Spencer “secured a location in Old Town, Alexandria” that they would be escorted to — a location that turned out to be his apartment.

  24. 24.

    TenguPhule

    @Mike J:

    They already attacked the holocaust memorial in Boston today. Arrest made.

    Well they’re consistent, I’ll give them that much.

  27. 27.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    Copycat how? What statues to famous African-Americans or other POC are available to be pulled down?

    Any public monument that they think destroying will piss off liberals. Cleek’s Law, writ large.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    @Mnemosyne: Illinois Senate labeled neo-nazi’s as a terrorist group. I assume that you can ban terrorists groups, but I don’t know the law. If so, maybe that’s what states should do.

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    They are just going in reverse alphabetical order.

    Do you think they have black people under B, D or N?

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    @Zach: Meet Bree Newsome (from January):

    There were two officers guarding the bottom and a supervisor came over and told them to taze me. I’m attached to this metal pole with these metal clasps and that very well could have electrocuted me. At that point James [fellow activist] grabbed the pole and said, “If you electrocute her then you’ll electrocute me too.” Everybody else who was standing around videotaping at this point starting shouting and the police backed off. But that was what we wanted to show. This is attacking a potent symbol of racism with a new symbol that symbolizes a new way forward.

    Women like her, and Heather, and Hillary and Michelle, will save humanity if we work with them.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I keep wondering about Stone Mountain. A bas-relief of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. There’s no way to pull that down the way you could pull down a bronze statue. It would have to be sandblasted off, at great expense, time, and commitment by several jurisdictions. I love SM geologically, but I hate what it represents (and of course the mountain was once owned by KKK leaders). I would dearly love to see those images just disappear. Don’t think it’ll happen within my lifetime, though.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    Name one that they haven’t vandalized or destroyed yet. We’ve already had a fucking white supremacist murder people at the American Holocaust Museum. We’ve already had assholes leave nooses at the African-American History Museum.

    As Adam said, they constantly desecrate shit. It’s not going to make much of a statement the 20th time the Emmett Till memorial gets vandalized.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    More Manafort:

    CREAM TEAM
    Paul Manafort Sought $850 Million Deal With Putin Ally and Alleged Gangster
    Trump’s one-time campaign chair has a history of unorthodox real estate deals. But this may have been the wildest of all.

    LACHLAN MARKAY
    SPENCER ACKERMAN
    08.14.17 8:00 PM ET
    Paul Manafort partnered on an $850 million New York real estate deal with an ally of Vladimir Putin and a Ukrainian moneyman whom the Justice Department recently described as an “organized crime member.”
    That’s according a 2008 memo written by Rick Gates, Manafort’s business partner and fellow alumnus of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. In it, Gates enthused about finalizing with the financing necessary to acquire New York’s louche Drake Hotel.
    Two former federal prosecutors told The Daily Beast that the hotel deal was likely to be an item of focus for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I just Googled a picture of it. There’s plenty of room for some additional figures on there. Maybe Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and John Lewis? It’s past time for Rep. Lewis to have a statue anyway.

  41. 41.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Like I said below, I don’t necessarily agree with the manner in which this was done but can understand why and think it should have been removed.

    Not that surprised after Charlottesville to see this happen. The backlash is starting.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    He apparently has been arrested several times for beating up his mother, who is in a wheelchair. He’s also threatened her with a knife.

    No wonder she didn’t ask where he was going this weekend.

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

  47. 47.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    You could always dedicate other monuments there to slaves and other AfAm leaders, along with large plaques that give the confederate monuments context.

  49. 49.

    sigaba

    @HyperSphericalCow:

    First thought: that thing crumpled like a rag when it hit the ground.

    Like American conservatism more generally, It’s designed to weather the elements and look good, not for dynamic loads.

  55. 55.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Brian Klaas‏ @brianklaas

    Days to hit 61% disapproval (Gallup)

    Carter: Never
    Reagan: Never
    H.W. Bush: Never
    Clinton: Never
    W. Bush: 1,932
    Obama: Never
    Trump: 207

    1:12 PM – 14 Aug 2017

    People are just tired of all the winning.

  56. 56.

    mai naem mobile

    @lamh36: there’s a lot more people on the board including Richard Truman and somebody from the Teamsters. There’s the COS or former CEOS of 3M, Lockheed, Caterpillar ,Ford, Campbells, United Tech, GE, Novartis and Michael Dell. There were some others but i don’t remember seeing Google,Amazon or Apple.

  58. 58.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    As Adam said, they constantly desecrate shit. It’s not going to make much of a statement the 20th time the Emmett Till memorial gets vandalized.

    I think they’re going to step their game to more prominent targets. Not just the standard evil shit they’ve been doing all along. I’ve got a bad feeling that the next one is going to be quite noticeable and send a very unmistakable message.

  60. 60.

    Mike in NC

    @Mike J: @dmsilev: Yeah, I believe this topic was discussed here a while back, about how military bases mostly built during WW1 and WW2 were named in a manner that at the time was intended to unite the country against foreign enemies by naming them for both Union and Confederate generals. Would be interesting to read about which ones were eventually closed during the BRAC process beginning in the 1990s.

    Driving along I-95 near Spotsylvania, VA you will notice signs directing visitors to the “Stonewall Jackson Shrine” (the small farmhouse in which he died). I used to cringe every time I passed it.

  62. 62.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @JPL: He’s white, so Trump won’t attack him.

    Previously, Elon Musk resigned, as did head of Disney Bob Igor, and he didn’t attack them. He didn’t even attack Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who openly bashes Drumpf.

    But he made sure to attack the black CEO who resigned. Coincidence.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    I think they’re going to step their game to more prominent targets.

    Such as? Name one that hasn’t already been repeatedly attacked, vandalized, and/or desecrated.

  66. 66.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne:

    Such as? Name one that hasn’t already been repeatedly attacked, vandalized, and/or desecrated.

    I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. Their side keeps doubling down.

  67. 67.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    Then fuck them. No backing down, no surrender, no going back. The Germans in the 1930s did not have the advantage of hindsight. We do and we know that standing by and doing nothing allows evil to win. You can claim America failed last year, but I think this is going to be our finest hour.

  69. 69.

    ThresherK

    This should go on the newsreel with Iraqis (sic) tearing down that Saddam Hussein statue.

  71. 71.

    jl

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: You could repost the link you gave in the previous thread about ways other countries have dealt with problematic historical monuments. I gave some other ideas along the same lines.

    I think those ideas would be good things to attempt as an alternative to removigng all of the confederate memorials. I have doubts whether the reactionaries would accept them. I am sure the rest of the community would accept them more readily than the reactionaries would.

    The reason is that these monuments are not history to them. They are political weapons that they want to use in an ongoing struggle to roll back progress in civil rights. I think anything that de-weaponizes these monuments as political tools would not be acceptable to the fascists, Nazis and white supremacists.

    But it can be good to make an attempt for a more civil solution, even you have good reason to believe the offer will be refused.

    If Trump and his hard core racist flunkies, and their racist voting base, stay on their current course, all of the statues will eventually be removed. And they won’t have any place at all anywhere, not even in a museum, since their own defenders don’t want them as history or as commemorations of sacrifice in a war, They want them as political weapons. If they cannot let that idea go, all the statues will be removed, and I think the reactionaries will have themselves to blame for it, even if they will never see it that way.

  72. 72.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: there are just as many people, who DON’T have violent relatives who don’t say shit to those relatives and instead bitch and moan about how racist those relatives…

    so you ask “well did you say that’s bullshit”…uh..uh…

    “well then I sure wouldn’t want to be around that type of hate, did you say…stay away from me and mine with those types of racist BS…” …uh..uh…

    Posted this on one of the Friday or Saturday night of the violence in Charlottesville, and I’m posting it again…

    I get that with family sometimes it easier to not confront, but I just can’t accept that. I’m sure the issues that need to be spoken about is different if you’re white than for my predominantly Black family. Overt racism, antisemitic rhetoric, etc, is just not something I have to deal with at family gathering or when I visit my mom or my old uncle.
    I’m a firm believer that people will be who they will be, but I’ll be darned if I won’t speak up and speak out to friends and esp family about such things. Even if I wouldn’t change one thing with that speaking up, to do nothing, just to “keep the peace” within the family…no…nope. I am perfectly willing to never be in the presence of family members who refuse to change, and I have no trouble letting my family member know why.
    It’s about time for “good” white folks to stop just saying “well what can you do…” you can speak up, even if it comes to nothing. Silence in the face of familial bigotry IS CONSENT.

    Martin Luther King, Jr. – “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

  73. 73.

    japa21

    @Omnes Omnibus: Re: Your question on the last thread. Water levels looked good. Not too high at all. I was up in Hayward so can’t speak to other areas. Interesting story which I will tell another time. Talked to my conservative nephew and while may not have changed mind totally, he definitely was thinking about what I said in relation to Confederate statues. Back to unpacking.

  74. 74.

    efgoldman

    @Shana:

    And JEB Stuart High School.

    Daughter hopes that in the ~10 years until granddaughter goes to high school, the name of Washington & Lee HS in Arlington will have been changed.

  75. 75.

    A Ghost to Most

    If there are any traitor statues in Denver, my truck has a winch and 100 feet of stout cable.

  76. 76.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Mike J:
    I wish someone would put Whitney Houston’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner over it.

    /yes I know the natl anthem has some racist history behind it. It would still be cool

  77. 77.

    Eric S.

    @Adam L Silverman: I grew up on Stonewall Ave. In Woodridge, IL. A Chicago suburb. Jackson Blvd, Lee St., and Perry St. are other roads in that neighborhood. I bet there more I’m not remembering.

  78. 78.

    raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: And it is a huge exercise location for African American and other minority folks. I’ve climbed it for sunrise a couple of times and it’s incredibly diverse. For the town that held huge Klan rallies Stone Mountain, the city, is pretty African American.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Yeah, it’s more that if my son who was supposed to be my caretaker was beating me and holding a knife to my throat, I wouldn’t be real curious about where he was spending his time out of the house either.

  83. 83.

    lamh36

    @TenguPhule: If they were to do what you are suggesting…guess what…they will harm their cause MUCH more than the Liberal activist have or ever likely will..

    To do what you think they will…would have to involve…60s era proportions.. and this is NOT the 60s…the response is NOT likely to be in their favor…

  84. 84.

    hueyplong

    @lamh36: As a grad of Curry’s school, I really hope he did influence the Under Armour CEO’s decision. I have no doubt that he supports it at the very least.

  85. 85.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    Again, you need to read about the history of the Civil Rights Movement. You don’t seem to realize how many people were murdered over those years.

  86. 86.

    Gravenstone

    @Roger Moore: Performance of the 1812 Overture, with live artillery sited on the effigies? Not the properly corresponding war, but I’m trying to be creative.

  88. 88.

    A Ghost to Most

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    In one of my happier fantasies, I commandeer an A-10 Warthog plane, and empty the tank killer cannon into the face of that traitor propaganda.

  92. 92.

    raven

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    As with most of the memorials in Washington DC, the Lincoln Memorial is open 24 hours a day. While the public may visit at any time of day, the National Park Service Rangers, who administer the memorial, are on duty to answer any questions between 9:30 am and 11:30 pm each day. National Park Police officers make rounds through memorial park 24 hours a day. To reach the memorial rangers by phone, dial 1-202-426-6841.

  94. 94.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: Right…I think you know my commentary well enough on here, to know I am not talking about folks in an abusive caretaker/husband/son/daughter…whatever w/a vile racist bigot.

    But other folks in the articles were co-workers, classmates, a teacher who said he’d say racist shit or “let something slip” more than a few times…this same kind of quotes you always generally here WHENEVER this happens.

    For every abusive situation…there are more situations where abuse is NOT even a condition…and you have folks who STILL don’t speak up or take a stand..

  96. 96.

    NorthLeft12

    @David Canadian Anchor Baby Koch: Deadbeat Donald is just a cowardly lickspittle. If I thought he had the mind to be calculating enough, I might think he purposely attacked Mr. Frazier to appease his racist base. But really, I just don’t think he is intelligent enough to think any of this through and he just let his id loose. In Trump’s mind Mr. Frazier is an affirmative action hire anyway, so he might actually think that other CEOs approve of his ignorant insults.

  97. 97.

    schrodingers_cat

    Mumbai still has railway stations on its local railway lines (commuter rail) named after British governors, Grant Road, Elphinstone Road, Sandhurst Rd etc, from the top of my head. There is also a Grant Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital and no one much seems to care.

  99. 99.

    efgoldman

    @raven:

    As with most of the memorials in Washington DC, the Lincoln Memorial is open 24 hours a day.

    Haven’t been there since, I think, the late 80s, but I remember that place, in particular, as being totally wide open.
    Once upon a time, the public WH tour went thru ~twice as many areas as it does today. There was also a special advance tour available on congressional tickets that went thru places like the kitchens.

    ETA: As I recall, the National Park Rangers don’t carry firearms.

  104. 104.

    lamh36

    BTW…still hasn’t heard anything about this! I swear I saw on the LIVE feed in Charlottesville on CNN or MSNBC…the young man stumbling/running away, tripping from this structure…and no one thing anything but film it.

    @felicia4217
    Felicia Harris Retweeted Zach D Roberts
    I want justice for my son and all the other victims. This breaks my heart every time I see this. This is my child, my son this has to stop!

    Her son was assaulted in a parking structure that was RIGHT NEXT TO A POLICE STATION!!

  106. 106.

    Roger Moore

    @Felonius Monk:

    Whatever shall we do about a U.S. Army installation named Fort A.P. Hill?

    Why not rename it after a newer general? We could have Forts Pershing, Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Powell, Schwarzkopf, etc.

  107. 107.

    hueyplong

    Where I live there is a statue of an angel bearing a Confederate soldier to heaven.

    Courtesy of the US Army.

    Did the same to some Nazis.

  110. 110.

    Amusing Ourselves to Death

    First encouraging thing I’ve seen since November. Those nazi assholes are killing ppl in broad daylight now. Take the things they love away

  111. 111.

    jl

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Thanks.

    I think the crux of the problem is that the racists really don’t view these monuments as history. They see them as political weapons in a war that they cannot admit that they have lost. As long as they have that attitude, the dishonesty of how they use these monuments will grate at the rest of the population, and sooner or later they will be removed. And not to more appropriate sites, or outdoor museums with full context, or inside history museums. They will be destroyed.

    It wasn’t a bunch of super-annuated Civil War veterans, from the late 1940s onward who waved the Confederate battle flag commemorating their kin who were killed in battle (and I’ve read that they didn’t use it that way even back in the day long ago). It was a bunch of racists using history as political weapon, in the cause of denying civil rights to other groups.. Their racist ancestors polluted the very history they claim to cherish. It’s a sad result, but they committed the desecration of hisotry, not anyone else. So, today we see the sad results.

  115. 115.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There is also a Grant Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital and no one much seems to care.

    There’s a huge difference between eliminating a symbol of past wrongs and eliminating a symbol of contemporary, ongoing wrongs.

  116. 116.

    sm*t cl*de

    NC lege passed law prohibiting municipalities from removing confederate monuments

    Painting them bright pink is fine, though.

  117. 117.

    NorthLeft12

    @jl: Up here in Canada there are some lively discussions going on over some of the former governors of Upper and Lower Canada and their monuments. There were some brutal wars between English, French, and native populations. One governor in Nova Scotia put out a bounty on the natives that were fighting with the French against the English. These are sticky and difficult discussions. Personally, I prefer making sure the plaque on the statue details the crimes the guy was responsible for. Make it a real teaching moment.

  118. 118.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Rachel Maddow is really bringing it tonight. I’d grown weary of her long openings, but this episode is strong.

  122. 122.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mike J:

    Ft Bragg

    Never got why the US Military named one after Bragg since he was considered quite the horses south end by his fellow officers in both the US Army and the Confederacy.

  124. 124.

    Jeffro

    @JPL: I just saw that! I wonder if Trumpov will be equally venomous to a white CEO? Will his brain even be able to compute that there are white CEOs who think racism (and Trumpov) sucks?

  125. 125.

    Ithink

    @japa21:

    Alt-Right would designate those folks as “race traitors”; nothing else much to see or discus here otherwise. Just glad they’re (finally) all coming down!

  127. 127.

    TenguPhule

    Hey Adam, what’s your take on this?

    The State Department’s decision to halt participation in the Presidential Management Fellows program is the latest baffling personnel move that will have lasting consequences for our government’s ability to protect and advance U.S. national interests. So far, the State Department is the only agency that has formally stopped recruiting fellows, but others also appear to be slowing this initiative. This is, one commenter put it, akin to “a Major League Baseball team giving up all draft picks, & ending minor league & scouting.”

    Please tell me this is not as bad as it sounds. Pretty please?

  129. 129.

    chris

    @SiubhanDuinne: Never heard of it so googled a pic. There’s a giant lawn and there were little groups of people in lawn chairs all facing the rockface. That’s just creepy.
    Ropes, rockdrills and dynamite. Some assembly required.

  135. 135.

    different-church-lady

    I just thought of something. You know what would be great? If the company that owns the Tiki brand donated one dollar to the Southern Poverty Law Center for every torch they sell this summer.

  136. 136.

    TenguPhule

    @Honus:

    have to go some to top Oklahoma City.

    The guy they arrested for the bank bomb attempt was already trying.

  142. 142.

    lamh36

    Of course not, it’s Arizona…was Arizona even a part of the Confederacy…smh

    @dennis_welch
    Dennis Welch Retweeted Doug Ducey
    NEW: After strongly condemning hate groups, Gov. @dougducey says he’s not removing Confederate monuments on state property.

  144. 144.

    Another Scott

    @chris: That’s old-school. Flame-jet drills may be the way to go.

    Inspired by designs created by his father decades ago, Jared Potter is building an arsenal of ultra-powerful flame-jet drills. As seen in the NatGeo video above, one prototype directs a jet of burning hydrogen at 3200°F against a slab of solid granite.

    The rock doesn’t melt, as one might expect under such a blast of heat; instead, the high temperature causes the rock to fracture as it expands along existing micro-cracks in the material. After a short exposure to the flame-jet drill, a gaping, perfectly smooth borehole has been created in the granite.

    For deeper drilling jobs, in wet, high-pressure conditions where traditional bits jam and break, Potter has another prototype. This one burns at a toasty 7200°F, but the flame is used indirectly, to superheat a jet of water, which in turn bores through the rock and simultaneously flushes the fragments out of the borehole.

    It’s an amazing rock, but the carving needs to go (or be substantially changed).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  146. 146.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jl

    : I think the crux of the problem is that the racists really don’t view these monuments as history. They see them as political weapons in a war that they cannot admit that they have lost.

    Can’t admit, how about to blind stupid to realize? The Nazis; picked a fight with the entire world they knew they were going to lose, and lost it. The Confederacy, anyone who had been to the North knew the North was going to whip the South like a redheaded step child, like what happened, still did because it was awesome at the time. Racists are flicking idiots and that’s what makes them so dangerous.

  150. 150.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Yeah, I’m not making any excuse for anyone else in that article. They knew what he was like and they kept making excuses for him. It’s only his disabled mom that I’m not surprised was asking as few questions as possible.

  151. 151.

    Honus

    @raven: the police detectives were all over that area, going into businesses asking if the owners had any surveillance cameras. They are working to ID and arrest people. That parking garage has cameras all over it. It may be a few days, but I think they will ID the thugs that beat that kid.

  152. 152.

    randy khan

    @Mike in NC:

    Alexandria is making a real effort to change names, etc. that commemorate Confederates. Unfortunately, some of the names were adopted at the state level, and can’t be changed. The most egregious item – a statue at the point where Confederate soldiers left the city – also is protected by state law. When it was knocked down close to 20 years ago, the city was forced to put it back up.

  153. 153.

    TriassicSands

    @japa21:

    White people put them up. White people can take them down.

    There should be a deadline (No, not 2019 or later) set for the removal of all Confederate statuary, memorials, and monuments. Once the deadline passes, all such items should be moved to a landfill. It’s time to get this garbage out of public view. If it is to be saved, then it should all be housed in museums in areas devoted to atrocities. The South lost. It’s time they accepted it. People who fought for the right of one person to buy, sell, and own others should not be honored.

  159. 159.

    Seth Owen

    @Honus: At least one of the thugs has already been identified by the Internet. Should not be too hard for the police.

  160. 160.

    Wapiti

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Never got why the US Military named one after Bragg since he was considered quite the horses south end by his fellow officers in both the US Army and the Confederacy.

    I think most of the southern bases named after treasonous scumbags were created in the run-up to WWI, and were named after local military heroes in order to encourage enlistment. So Bragg might have been a NC favorite son, even if other Confederates didn’t like him.

  161. 161.

    TriassicSands

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    At the very least, a large sign should be posted pointing out that these men fought for the right to buy, sell, and own other people. That they do not deserve to be honored and nothing will be done to maintain the bas relief as nature gradually reclaims the face of Stone Mountain.

    I’d prefer to see it removed completely.

  165. 165.

    Marguerite Hill

    @lamh36: Silence, in the face of bigotry, is not golden. It is appeasement. It is unspoken consent, unvoiced stamp of approval.

    Some white people believe they have the luxury, the privilege, the undeserved honor of remaining silent in the midst of chaos. That is cowardly and unconscionable.

    When my cousin married a Latina, some in my African-American family (there had been a few AA/white marriages/relationships previously) wanted to bigoted idiocies, but a few of us banded together, spoke as one voice, and nipped it in the bud. It wasn’t easy because these were individuals we loved and revered. But it had to be done. Since then, it has become old hat, and love abounds. Do one or two still cling to their foolishness? Probably so, but when we all attend family gatherings their action is Academy Award worthy. Good.

    One last thing, how will history remember you? Will you be able to hold your head up proudly knowing that you stood up for American values? Or will you hide in shame because you refused to help your country in its darkest hours?

    I have heard so many people moan about the spineless Democrats. Well, this time political party is secondary. We must all stand as Americans against white supremacists, kkk, neo-nazis, skinheads, and other thugs and criminals.

  166. 166.

    Fair Economist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Mumbai still has railway stations on its local railway lines (commuter rail) named after British governors, Grant Road, Elphinstone Road, Sandhurst Rd etc, from the top of my head. There is also a Grant Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital and no one much seems to care.

    There’s not a major movement trying to get India back under British rule. It’s a dead issue, so they can treat it as history. (Although they did change the name of Mumbai from Bombay, so sometimes they care.)

  167. 167.

    Honus

    @TriassicSands: there’s a big sign in front of the statue of Lee today that says “Heyer Memorial Park” Everybody I talked to was in favor of making it permanent, so it might happen. Hopefully with a nice big statue of Heather directly in front of lee, with a plaque explaining the significance. We could clean and polish Heather’s statue every day, leaving lee covered with bird shit. Governments have a right to express political opinions so there would be no 1st amendment problem. Anybody found cleaning the lee statue could arrested under the state law barring the removal or desecration of such monuments for interference with and alteration of a war memorial.

  168. 168.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Also, I think many of us have said this, but:

    Yes, I used to not speak up when my family would say racist shit. I am ashamed that I didn’t speak up, but I can’t change the past.

    That free pass for them expired on November 9, 2016, and it’s never being renewed. Now that I know what the consequences are for letting things slide, I will never do it again.

    Interestingly, my family has never tested this. All of them have kept their damn mouths shut since the election, except for one cousin who avoids me now.

  173. 173.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: My non-confrontational mom (yeah, I take after my dad) has quit avoiding political issues with relatives. Specifically, she has always avoided politics with a first cousin who was like her sister when they were growing up. The cousin went off the rails on religion while her husband was on his second tour in VN as an artillery officer. Mom has started dropping comments about medicaid (cousin’s mom – a staunch Dem who gave her donkey glasses to my mom because her kids were goofy – survived on medicaid for years) and the GOP’s crusade to kill it. Cousin couldn’t believe it – did research and said “That’s wrong, but Hillary….” Now she will do the white supremacist angle. Cousin lives in LA and volunteered her ass off after Katrina. It may have not effect, but mom wants to make sure that at the very least her cousin is made uncomfortable.

    Me, I will not speak to any of the cousin’s kids. I walk past them without speaking at family events.

  174. 174.

    BruceFromOhio

    @gene108: This. Alas.

    And so we confront the banality of evil. Having fought a civil war, and then a world war, and now we must confront the same old fears, the same old hatred again. My regret is that these paths are littered with choices poorly made, and the blood and bodies of the innocent.

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    @gene108:

    I think new targets will involve a body count.

    They already have. I am friends with someone who’s friends with someone in Charlotteville who was in the path of that car on Saturday. Fortunately, she escaped with a broken arm and some impressive bruises.

    They are going to start killing people to try and intimidate us. We need to be mentally prepared for that and not allow it to scare us into standing down.

  180. 180.

    David Evans

    The Indians have adopted a civilized attitude to at least one monument commemorating a British victory, by placing a statue of their own fallen hero in front of it:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6242346.stm

    It’s not surprising that they have kept British names for some railway stations – we Brits built the damn railroads, after all. And unlike some other people I could mention, we neither enslaved the Indians nor drove them off their land.

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