Silent Sam wasn't a Confederate memorial, it was a monument to lynching and Jim Crow https://t.co/uHQ9TG1vJV pic.twitter.com/QrqN70zaPl
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 21, 2018
Once again, in a less news-intensive week, the protest where a notorious monument to treason in the defense of slavery was pulled down would’ve been a leading headline and the excuse for much punditorial thumb-sucking…
I haven't been following Silent Sam events in detail, but I would bet cash money that the prevailing feeling at higher administrative levels in UNC is not anger or regret at loss of heritage, but blessed relief that protestors neatly resolved the school's self-inflicted crisis.
— Kieran Healy (@kjhealy) August 21, 2018
But of course the WUT ABOUT MAH HURTIGE?!? crew — and we’re not talking UNC students, we’re talking Repub opportunists and the revanchists who support them — will not let their bronze idol go unavenged. Per the local News & Observer:
The UNC Board of Governors will hire an outside firm to look into university and police actions at the protest where Silent Sam was toppled this week, the board’s leader said Wednesday.
At least one board member, former Republican state Sen. Thom Goolsby, posted a YouTube video with his questions about the incident, including what’s being done to repair and reinstall the statue.
Harry Smith, who became chairman last month, said Wednesday in an interview he wants an independent group to study the facts of what happened, or what didn’t happen, during Monday’s rally. A group within a crowd of about 250 protesters used rope to pull down the controversial Silent Sam Confederate monument Monday night, more than two hours into a rally…
In a Facebook post Wednesday, state Rep. Bob Steinburg said he was outraged protestors got the opportunity to tear down Silent Sam.“It is absolutely inexcusable and those responsible, including security who stood by and let it happen, need to be prosecuted, no excuses!!” Steinburg posted.
In a telephone interview, Steinburg said he was appalled at the reaction of law enforcement officers — standing back, “even smiling” as protesters took down Silent Sam.
“Whoever was on that security detail that allowed this to take place and are seen in this video and can be identified … need to lose their jobs,” Steinburg said.
He added that he’s heard from many constituents, even Democrats, who want to keep the monuments in place…
On Wednesday, Goolsby, the UNC Board of Governors member, tweeted: “NC State law is CLEAR. Silent Sam MUST be reinstalled,” along with a link to the 2015 state law governing historic monuments. The law says, in part: “An object of remembrance that is temporarily relocated shall be returned to its original location within 90 days of completion of the project that required its temporary removal.”
Smith said he went to see the Silent Sam statue Tuesday, which he said was being stored in “a secure location.” He said the statue did not appear to be seriously damaged.
He said the process for deciding the future of the statue is a little unclear. But he expects campus trustees and Folt will consider next steps with the statue, make a recommendation and then the Board of Governors would “have a seat at the table.”…
(Video of the protest at the link.)
The statue's inscription suggests treason's more important than going to school and the 1913 speech dedicating it praised Confederate veterans for coming home after the war to lead lynch mobs and preserve white supremacy.
Adi-fucken-os https://t.co/zmvzGOHQON
— zeddy (@Zeddary) August 21, 2018
Silent Sam was erected in 1913, 48 years after the end of the Civil War. For comparison, that’s like if neo-nazis had erected a statue to Hitler in 1993.
— Jacob Remes (@jacremes) August 21, 2018
Frank J. Cirillo had a good, forwardable summary in the Washington Post on “Why ‘Silent Sam’ had to go”. Eugene Scott’s WaPo report is even better:
"It is more than past time." Must-read @washingtonpost piece on the long shadow of Silent Sam, by my fellow @UNC alum @Eugene_Scott. https://t.co/K8h8islbTJ
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 22, 2018
… For more than a century, individuals walking across the northernmost part of campus at the country’s first public university often set eyes on Silent Sam, one of the tallest — and most offensive — monuments on campus.
But for most of the 100-plus years that Silent Sam stood on the campus, what people did not see was a memorial honoring the black people enslaved by the university and others who built some of UNC’s oldest buildings. While UNC became America’s first public university in 1789, it was not until 2005 that it dedicated a much smaller, less visible and not nearly as grand statue recognizing the enslaved black people whose blood and sweat built the university.
As I tweeted the news about the destruction of Silent Sam, I was greeted with much pushback. Some people seemed to question the very fact that enslaved black people helped build the university and wanted names of those involved as proof. Others protested the method in which Silent Sam was removed, cautioning against the spread of anarchy and advocating for confidence in the state legislature’s process to remove similar memorials.
Given the elevated profile of white supremacy in these fraught times, fears that the worldview that led to the erection of Silent Sam could become more dominant should outweigh concerns about a student body that is no longer interested in looking up to a memorial that celebrates “the purest strains of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
Based on the Twitter photos and bios of those objecting to my tweet, I’m guessing none of these individuals knows what it is like to be a descendant of black people who were enslaved in North Carolina and to be studying on a campus that repeatedly honored those who supported that very enslavement. I do.
And for me, my main hope is that future Tar Heels who look like me — and who look nothing like me — can complete their college education in an environment that does not include a statue that was dedicated with a KKK supporter recounting how he “horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds.”…
For those most concerned about honoring Southern culture, there has to be a way to do so without continuing to romanticize the dehumanizing abuse of some of the people who have made some of the most significant contributions — and sacrifices — to the South. I am confident that if there is a place that has the ability to do this honorably, it is the University of North Carolina. It is more than past time.
Gozer
Confederate monuments, the ultimate participation trophies.
As my Bronx cousins would say “Geddafuckouttahere!”
Adam L Silverman
Here’s the transcript of Julian Carr’s speech at the installation of Silent Sam. Be aware, this is not pleasant to read, even as a historical document from the Jim Crow era in North Carolina.
http://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html
SiubhanDuinne
Is that yours? I love it! The English language has been waiting for that word.
Viva BrisVegas
Not racist at all.
“One hundred yards from where we stand, less than 90 days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady,” Julius Carr said when he delivered the dedication speech on the steps of Silent Sam in 1913.
Keith P
How about replacing it with a statue of Serious Sam and see if anyone notices.
burnspbesq
Given the composition of the NC Legislature and the recent history of academic and athletic scandals at Chapel Hell, we’re a long way from knowing how this will play out. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone blames the whole thing on Duke and/or State students.
Mary G
Amusing: Paris Dennard, who Twitler was so pleased with on CNN, has been suspended after it has come to light that he was fired from ASU for sexual harassment, according to WaPo. Some gory details:
EWWWW.
Can they not find one Trump supporter who’s a good person? I guess not.
Adam L Silverman
@Keith P: I’m kind of partial to this one:
https://aa1a5178aef33568e9c4-a77ea51e8d8892c1eb8348eb6b3663f6.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/p/full/a5148dc7-5dee-4d5e-a53a-ade13a24a5e6.jpg
Corner Stone
@Keith P: I propose Yosemite Sam.
Corner Stone
Damn it to effin hell.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Actually, he licked a subordinate’s neck. So he should more properly be referred to as a sexual assaulter.
hueyplong
I am learning this week that I have an almost endless capacity for Schadenfreude.
Here is the text of a letter to the editor in today’s Charlotte Observer:
Does the fact that the statue was pulled down change history? Not hardly. During the Civil War a large representation of the UNC Chapel Hill campus left the institution to go fight for the right of state sovereignty, the right not to be coerced by other states in the union.
This fact seems to be lost on present day “feel-gooders” who only want to destroy what they say are vestiges of white supremacy. Are we pulling down symbols of racism or insulting those who stood for principles of individual liberty and justice?
Judging by the actions of the UNC administration it seems they’ve cast their lot with the Marxists. Id do not want my state tax dollars to fund this institution.
Jonathan Varnell, Elm City
– – –
Dude typed that, read it, satisfied himself that it was the apogee of pwning the libtards, and hit SEND. There is something to love in nearly every sentence, but my favorite is the Nazi-like insistence that Confederates stand against Bolshevism.
More importantly, his bitter tears are delectable with Irish whiskey.
This business week still has two days to go, and I’m feeling greedy.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Too slow!
Aleta
From the Atlantic
Corner Stone
After Pecker inserted himself into this issue, I can not wait to see highlights from the Fox interview w/ Trump tomorrow.
Betty Cracker
Oh hey, the POTUS just took his domestic white nationalist movement global:
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Dear Christ. I am ashamed to acknowledge this brute as a fellow human being. Horrified.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
I second this proposal. Let the people be amused.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I almost bolded that, but decided not to. As well as the bit about Confederate soldiers being the protectors of white Christendom.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
Phrasing!
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
How about Silent Bob?
:)
Mr Stagger Lee
If they have to erect a statue, how about Michael Jordan, with James Worthy and Brad Daugherty. Don’t forget Dean Smith.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: This part where he basically says the South lost the war, but won the Reconstruction, is awful:
Viva BrisVegas
@Betty Cracker:
I resent that! Our racist potato headed Prime Minister in waiting has already been there for months.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: But then Jay is going to want a statue and then where does it end?
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Yep. You’ve got both the Southern men saved white Christendom crap in there and what I’ve stated here many a time: the Confederacy lost the war and won the peace.
hueyplong
… the Confederacy lost the war and won the peace, whining every step of the way.
Finished that for you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
It is truly sickening.
Suzanne
@Mary G: As an ASU alumna, I am very pleased. Fuck that guy.
Ommes Omnibus
: @Adam L Silverman: I shall say” Gah!”
Mr Stagger Lee
I seem to recall, that Zebulon Vance th governor of North Carolina. during the Civil War, ran the state like a dictatorship, and used the Home Guards to hunt down Confederate deserters, as well as any Tar Heel who refused to fight.
Mandalay
So Maggie Haberman gave up tweeting a couple of months ago? She’s sent out 25 pearls of wisdom today.
There must be something about being in the loop that makes life unbearable when you exile yourself from the loop.
Or maybe there’s not a lot of stenography to be done at the moment.
Inventor
Every southern state except South Carolina supplied regiments to the Union Army. In some cases, such as Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas, significant amounts. A stroll through the Vicksburg battle ground will reveal monuments to both the Confederate and Union soldiers of the same state.
Replace monuments to traitors with monuments to patriots from the same state. A much better lesson for the children….and the adults.
AM in NC
UNC Alumna here. School administrators should have handled this long ago. Good riddance to an awful symbol that was very prominent on campus.
Yarrow
So there’s this.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: So much eloquence in the service of Mammon.
Good riddance, Silent Sam.
Amir Khalid
@Viva BrisVegas:
There’s another story at the Sydney Morning Herald about the question mark over Peter Dutton’s eligibility to sit in Parliament at all. How is that playing out, especially for his effort to unseat Turnbull as PM?
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Is he really that stupid?
Shit. The answer’s in the question.
Mary G
@Mandalay: FTFNYT did a redesign of their web site and removed all the bylines, so now Maggie has to promote her stories again.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Also a bonus “these kids today!”
Kelly
via Oliver Willis a useful video on how to defend yourself from a knife attack,
https://twitter.com/Garvinsnell/status/1031869373617786880
Jeffro
@hueyplong: Oh, is THAT what they were fighting for? “State sovereignty”? How intriguing! It’s almost like the history books are all wrong and this guy has a lock on The Truth.
EBT
As a WNC native who’s ancestors crossed the line and fought for the union (a common occurrence; the civil war memorial on the AB Tech campus has 12 union slates and half of a single confederate slate.), fuck silent sam; fuck the racist old white piece of shit they quoted, and fuck every other racist piece of shit crying about a symbol of oppression being pulled down.
Aleta
–from a fucked up both sides article (not linking) Names in Brick and Stone: Histories from UNC’s Built Landscape
History/American Studies 671: Introduction to Public History, UNC-Chapel Hill
Dmbeaster
@Betty Cracker: The story from Fox is itself a lie. Murders of farmers in South Africa at 20 year low.
Viva BrisVegas
@Amir Khalid:
The eligibility of a member of parliament can only be determined by a court, but first the parliament has to vote to refer the case to the court.
Labor brought up the vote and lost 69-68. Of course one of those 69 votes was Dutton’s. So Dutton voted to save his own job.
Yes, it’s that kind of government.
There is also a little matter of improperly using his ministerial position to get two au pairs who were being denied entry to the country, instant visas. That is simmering in the background.
The Libs have canceled this sitting of parliament until Sept 10. Presumably by then they will have decided which dickhead they want as leader.
Schlemazel
I posted this on a thread last night, it is from the dedication speech for
fuckheadSilent Samhttp://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html
Amir Khalid
@Viva BrisVegas:
I’m gobsmacked.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Truth is not truth.
Locks are not locks.
The is not the.
:)
Mary G
Manafort juror speaking out on Fox News – one women held out from guilty on all counts:
phein58
Why are there no statues of Nat Turner in the Carolinas? Why not on the Capital grounds? Slave revolts are as much a part of Southern Heritage as Confederate soldiers, and at least they adhered to American ideals. Nat Turner is a true American hero, no doubt about it.
Mary G
@Mary G:
Keith P
@Corner Stone: We should be inclusive and have displays for several cultural Sam’s.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
That depends on what the meaning of “is” is. ;)
Chyron HR
@Betty Cracker:
Why is a Good Man like Paul Manafort in jail for “alleged” crimes while Mandela Nelson is a free man? SAD! MSAGA!
Shell
Okay, why is he called Silent Sam?
NotMax
@EBT
whose
/inner editor
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel:
I see many got there before I did. This ugly truth has to be shoved in the face of everyone of these treasonous bastards until they choke to death on it
Cheryl Rofer
Not everyone in America is post-racist. This is a white supremacist talking point, directly from Tucker Carlson’s lips to The Orange One’s tweet button.
tobie
@Mary G: I just got wind of this. I guess the evidence really was so overwhelming that even the holdout couldn’t claim reasonable doubt on all 18 counts. That the vote on ten counts was 11-1 does make you wonder about that one juror.
Chyron HR
@tobie:
No, it makes me wonder how the deep state stacked the jury with ten globalist soy elite cucks (brain dribbles out ears)
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
Jesus H. Christ, what a wind bag. People could stand around in the southern heat and listen to this guy? Never mind the casual racism of his speech, but goddam what a pompous fuck.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
Replace it with the statue of a kneeling football player. UNC is a big football school right? I’m sure nobody would mind that…. //
cain
@Corner Stone:
I see what you did there. And I like it.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
There was a real-life basis for the Foghorn Leghorn stereotype.
Viva BrisVegas
@Shell:
Because it hurt his feelings when they called him “racist Sam”.
tobie
@Chyron HR: Heh. Not 10, 11. The Deep State found 11 tree-hugging, vegan, PETA-supporting people for the jury. How can a cheating, lying, stealing friend of brutal autocrats get a fair trial in Alexandria, VA?
Mary G
@tobie: Makes a good case for a retrial on those 10 counts.
Brian Stelter’s daily email has the next Time cover, by the same artist who did “Nothing to See Here” and “Stormy” with the wind and rising water in the Oval Office. The new one is called “In Deep” and now the Oval is full of water and all you can see is Twitler from the chest down flailing to stay afloat.
cmorenc
I am a UNC-Chapel Hill alum, and for decades all “Silent Sam” represented to all but a negligible fraction of students and townspeople was the standing joke that Sam only fired his gun when a virgin walked past, and he hadn’t fired the gun in decades. Frankly, hitherto decades of UNC students have given little thought to Sam as a memorial to Confederate soldiers, and vanishingly few knew of the circumstances and timing of the statue’s establishment on-campus – the statute was simply a campus landmark that brought a really stale (and somewhat sexist) joke to mind to the vast majority of students and townspeople, which statue sparked vanishingly little thoughts about the Confederate or racist past of the state. I’ll bet that a week ago, (or pick any week in the past 40 years) you could walk up to 100 students and ask what the inscription on the statue said, and vanishingly few would have any idea.
This obsession some on the progressive left have with pulling down by mob force every statute memorializing Confederate soldiers or a particular southern state’s past as part of the Confederacy is frankly counter-productive. You really think you’re going to pull down the obelisk in virtually every southern courthouse square or state capital dedicated to that location’s confederate soldiers who died in the war? And by doing so, change anyone’s mind that needs changing? These statues were for decades artifacts forgotten in plain sight by the vast majority of even the white population.
Any confederate statues that need to come down should be done by lawful persuasion of local or state governments. That worked to get even South Carolina to remove the confederate flag from the statehouse, and a confederate statue removed in New Orleans. True, a hard-core modern Confederate sympahtizer group (“the Secessionist Party) has, since that removal, counter-protested by raising the flag on state grounds every year on the date of the removal, but the group was small to begin with, and has been smaller every year.
You frankly do more to keep this Confederate crap alive than to kill it off by vandalizing statues rather than strategically pushing for legal removal of the most egregious ones (e.g. honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest).
Platonailedit
Forget the turd’s noise machine.
cain
@Shell:
Because in real life the fucker was a long winded entitled prick. In death, we can finally heave a sigh of relief that he’s finally shut the fuck up.
NotMax
@tobie
The employment make-up. Also racial make-up, which I find an unnecessary data point to disclose.
Platonailedit
@Mary G:
And of course, cnn had to dig deep through the muck to hire him as a ‘trump supporter’.
Viva BrisVegas
@Amir Khalid:
It gets more amusing.
Current PM Turnbull has just announced that if he is turfed out of the top job he will immediately resign from parliament.
His seat is a blue ribbon inner city electorate which would rather fall into the sea than vote Labor. However they do have a history of voting for Independents when the government is on the nose. Should an unfriendly Independent take the seat, the government would immediately lose its majority. Then it will be on for young and old.
cmorenc
@Shell:
For decades, it’s been a running stale (and somewhat sexist) joke on campus that the statue of Sam only fires the rifle held in his hand when a virgin walks by – and he hasn’t fired it in decades. That’s why the statue is called “Silent Sam” – cause he hasn’t ever fired that gun in his hands.
Chyron HR
@cmorenc:
I don’t see how that’s any more unreasonable than the obsession some on the regressive right have with pulling down social security and medicare so they can give the money to a dozen billionaires instead.
cain
@cmorenc:
Surely, he fired when that fuck Dinesh D’Souza walked past..?
Jay
@Shell:
Out of ammo,
One of the mass produced, cheap, bronze plated Treason in Defence of Slavery Participation Trophies the Daughter’s of Confederation crowd funded their grift off, then had made in the North as cheaply as possible.
Basically a 1914 era MAGA hat.
Aleta
@burnspbesq:
Carr helped found Duke and has a building named after him there too.
Removing Carr’s name from buildings is called Carr-Washing.
Carr’s defenders at the university say
‘on the other hand he was a successful businessman’ ; and
‘he was so generous!” (gave $ to UNC, a Confederate group, Trinity-Duke, and a church); and he was the sole donor for a UNC CH campus building. (Therefore he was allowed to name it. He chose The Carr Building.)
“His most interesting contribution is to the city of Carrboro – located directly next to Chapel Hill. … The town of Carrboro is literally named after Julian Carr for sharing electricity to the town when their last mill was shut down.” The point seems to be that Carr is already unmentionable in so many places; isn’t that enough? Besides, Carrboro is a diverse community. But the former mayor wants to rename it !
Mike in NC
I visited UNC-Chappell Hill in 1984 when I left active duty Navy. Had a buddy there at the school. Seemed like a very nice college town.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: The next jury is coming from the DC circuit. And the next judge isn’t Ellis.
Calouste
So would that be the Angles strain, the Saxon strain, the Celtic strain, the Picts strain, the Roman strain, the Viking strain, the Norman strain, …?
NotMax
First of the rains underway as of about 15 minutes ago. And we’re still about a full day away from the real stuff.
Jay
@Calouste:
http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-on-diane-blain-trudeau-heckler-and.html?m=1
Delusions are unbounded,
Polliveau was asked today about Trudeau’s Nazi heckler, and I snorted my drink out my mouth,
He said he should have Jean Cretien’d her.
NCSteve
@cain:See reactionary screed above. Only fired off his gun when a virgin walked by.
The other piece of eyewash about Sam is this: he was supposed to memorialize the UNC students who died in the was. What they didn’t tell you is that the reason for their service is that they shut down the university for the duration and drafted the lot of them.
The sculptor, somewhat subversively, did a good job of catching some of that by putting a reluctant somewhat bewildered thousand yard stare resignation in his face. But it was the gas-bagging postbellum white supremicists that paid to put it up.
NCSteve
@Aleta Ah, Carrboro. Where the students without rich parents lived. Reminds me of how, back in the 80s, the DJ’s at the school’s college station called it Radio Free Carrboro.
Mary G
The juror who went on Fox News to talk about the Manafort trial is a full-fledged Trumpista:
She didn’t want Manafort to be guilty, but he was, based on all the paper evidence.
stinger
@cmorenc:
Fixed that for you.
Jay
@NCSteve:
Nope, Silent Sam is based on no ammo pouch,
Can’t fire,
A “stabbed in the back” post Reconstruction Treason in Defence of Slavery myth.
“Similar to his Daniel A. Bean sculpture, Wilson created a “silent” statue by not including a cartridge box on the subject’s belt so he cannot fire his gun.[11] Like the Daniel A. Bean statue, Wilson used a northerner—Harold Langlois, a Boston man—as his model.[10] This was part of a tradition of “Silent Sentinels,” statues created in the North (often mass-produced), depicting soldiers without ammo or with their guns at parade rest.[12] Like these other statues, Silent Sam is positioned to face north, towards the Union.[10]”
Это курам на смех
Don’t confuse me with the facts.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: I read that ASU is opening a satellite campus here in LA in the old Herald Examiner building.
Jay
@Это курам на смех:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age_tribes_in_Britain
Don’t ‘splode your brain.
NotMax
FYI.
Shall refrain from editorializing.
lgerard
I’ll bet some of those Silent Sam supporters cried when they saw the Iraqis tear down that Saddam Hussein statue
It was history!!
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Do you need paper towels?
Platonailedit
@Mary G:
With a scoldy ‘but fair’ judge right there? Typical trumpturd lying pos. With her blatant bias, how did she even make it into the panel?
cmorenc
@NCSteve:
You’re probably referring to my post above (post #69), and deliberately mischaracterizing it. My central point was that self-action by protesters to tear down the statues is counterproductive to your ultimate goal: 1) the predominant public perception is that the protesters are violent vandals, not legitimate civil rights protesters. 2) Pulling down the statues by force breathes life back into symbols that had hitherto been forgotten in plain sight by most of the citizenry. 3) the people you satisfy by pulling the statues down were already firmly on your side – you don’t bring others on-board with removal of the statues going about it this way. 4) you’re thereby creating martyr symbolism for the mouth-breathers and racists among the population to feed on, not killing it off.
It would be far better to go about this by galvanizing a majority of current UNC students and a large number of alums to press for removal of the statue. I would support that, and it would be far more meaningful if the University itself voluntarily (under pressure) removed the statue.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: I’m sure Trump will be by with paper towels soon.
celticdragonchick
@Platonailedit:
Judge Ellis rammed Voir Dior through in less than half the time it would normally take from what I understand.
hueyplong
@cmorenc: I do not see a basis for your assumption that the people outraged about the demise of the statute “in this manner” are people who can be won over.
It’s gone now, and after spending a while fulminating over it, the people who are outraged will be outraged about something else.
hueyplong
@celticdragonchick: I’d guess that a juror anxious to brag about her exploits on Fox News is someone who would have been willing to conceal her biases regardless of how long the voir dire process took.
Ellis wasn’t the best ever, but I’m not sure this juror’s presence is on him.
Jay
@hueyplong:
Yup x 1 million
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
So a legal question for a friend… are voir dire questions taken under oath? In this day and age that might be an intelligent change to the legal process if it doesn’t already happen.
Gary K
@celticdragonchick: Voir Dior? The judge didn’t even let them use the catwalk!
BlueDWarrior
@Jay: I love the “more people would agree with you if you weren’t so distasteful” argument when it comes to public monuments to the Confederacy.
As a black man in Louisana, it makes me chuckle in that way where you’re trying not to scream bloody murder.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]:
Yes.
Jay
@BlueDWarrior:
Yup, the comity police cometh.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
I guess you missed the part where the North Carolina legislature made it illegal for any city, county, or public university to remove any Confederate memorial statue from its current place. So getting a majority of students and residents to want to remove it doesn’t do a lick of good because the state mandates that it stay, no matter what the people who have to look at it every day think.
And, like it or not, when the government doesn’t give people any other choice but to break the law, they’re going to break the law.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Yup, shaming, shunning, then violent dissent,
joel hanes
@Yarrow:
That’s why Mueller has arranged for a separate trial on state charges, which Trump cannot pardon.
Gretchen
My grandson is descended from North Carolina slave owners, an the family still owns the land that the plantation was on. I am descended from starving Irish peasants who survived the famine. But they didn’t leave Ireland until a generation after the Famine. What did they do to survive when so many didn’t? Past generations did horrible things, some just to survive, some to keep their advantage. It’s hard to know how to feel about that as a descendant Is it my fault? Should I feel ashamed of something I didn’t have a say in? I don’t know.
joel hanes
@cain:
Ben Shapiro
Jay
@Gretchen:
We can’t change the past. We can however, acknoledge and make amends.
Victoria for example. The City has been working with First Nations to reconcile, on a huge array of past and present issues. Almost 3 dozen First Nations groups have engaged, from housing, education, jobs to policing.
Unforunately, the hundreds of First Nations delegates to the Commitee’s have had to, several times a day, walk past a hailographic statue of Sir John A.
He’s a chief architect of Confederation, the first Prime Minister,
But also the guy who united Two Nations, omitting and repressing the other 2, the father of the Residential School system, the attempts to extinguish First Nations culture, and the racist Indian Act.
So, Victoria pulled the statue and put it in storage, then erected a plaque, explaining why it was moved.
Unfortunately, the plaque keeps getting vandalized by Nazi’s.
CarolDuhart2
As an Af-Am, I’m tired of the handwringing about “heritage” when it comes to finally pulling down these appalling memorials to exploitation and treason. I’m sorry that Confederates had ancestors who fought (perhaps even heroically) for shitty leadership and an even shittier cause.
Fighting for keeping slavery going was no different than those who fought for Hitler, or General Custer at Little Big Horn, or those who fought in Namibia for the Apartheid South African Army. Good people can fight for terrible causes and even worse people. But compassion means at least acknowledging that fact, not raising statues or leaving them up to those causes and people.
Also, why should those taxpayers descended from the victims pay for and endure the memorialization of their oppressors, walking past their statues everyday? What does that say about feeling wanted and welcome and a full citizen? When a pile of granite and bronze has more protection and care, then the message is clear; the past isn’t really over. And we don’t care about your past suffering.
Jay
@CarolDuhart2:
Double yup.
Barbara
@Aleta: I lived on Carr Street in Chapel Hill. Never knew where the name came from.
Antonius
Yosemite Sam?
Barbara
@celticdragonchick: Rapid voir dire is the norm in the ED Va. This juror was biased but she still voted to convict. She makes it harder for defense lawyers to argue that Manafort’s conviction was tainted by bias. She did her job as a juror so I wouldn’t waste a lot of time on her.
Gvg
treason statues are about intimidating black citizens today. “Know your place, or else” is a threat. Or else is and was breaking the law. You are either blind, or defending thuggish threats on purpose. Look in your own mirror and try harder to imagine being in someone else’s shoes instead of being so stuck in your own point of view. How would you like a statue that said “if you make a black person upset, fairly or unfairly, they get to whip you and the law won’t stop them”? Then imagine being told to ignore the statue, and get over it, that it is counter productive to rip it down.
AM in NC
@Shell: Well the story everyone gets told as a freshman (or at least the story that was told while I was at school) is that Silent Sam is silent because he’s waiting for a virgin to walk by, at which point he would shoot the rifle he is holding. Car backfires on Franklin Street lead to a lot of finger pointing and questions around who’s the virgin in the group.
Citizen_X
BRONZE LIVES MATTER!
Citizen_X
I’ll add that we are supposed to cheer at the colonists tearing down George III’s statue in NYC, at Soviets and eastern Europeans tearing down Lenin’s statue, at Iraqis–er, American troops–tearing down Saddam’s statue, but a monument to our enemy a century and a half ago is sacred? Bullshit.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Various people: Silent Sam is silent because he has no ammo for his gun. It was a Thing.
Several months ago, when people started asking the UNC fans “but what about Silent Sam?”, I made the argument that he belonged in a museum as part of a display that talked about it being an unusual example of this type of installation. It was an actual sculpture instead of a mass-produced tchochke. We know the name of the young man who was the model. Install him in a museum with all that plus a nice, big, can’t-miss-it display about the speech and Carr, in context and surrounded by the history of Jim Crow and lynchings. Throw in one of two of the mass-produced pieces as contrast.
The town square obelisks and the tchochkes that top them? Pull the racist “Anglo-Saxon savior” stuff off, melt down the tchochke and recast it as a modern soldier, turn them into monuments to all the local soldiers from all the wars.
The Pale Scot
@Mary G:
God, I hope there’s no hurricanes this year, ’cause we be fucked
The Pale Scot
@cmorenc:
The Pale Scot
@The Pale Scot: Someday I’ll figure out how to use the strikethrough tag
J R in WV
@tobie:
How reasonable is a juror who is disagreeing with 11 other jurors? Not very. I was on a Jury in that position, except we were 11-1 in favor of acquital, and it took hours to explain that the hold out for guilty was being unreasonable. On my birthday. We finally broke out of the courthouse about 11:30, I are my slice of birthday cake the day after my birthday!
Barbara
@cmorenc: It is always better when things happen by consensus but consensus seems more remote than ever for most issues involving civil rights. My association with UNC is limited, I lived in Chapel Hill for a while and attended a few classes and had a summer internship there. I don’t even know where this statue is. Nonetheless, I find it grotesque that in 2015 a legislature in a southern state was willing to protect any and all confederate monuments and memorials. You think that isn’t a thumb in the eye of African Americans living in North Carolina and attending UNC-CH? “We allow you here at our sufferance and white people are still the most important.” I hated that aspect of living in the South. Most of the white southerners I ran into didn’t even notice it, but I was from the North, and for all the bigotry and racism that exists there, and it does, there is nothing like this fixed legal firmament that is in place to remind you every day that whites rule. So, you know, at the very least, seeing a bunch of kids toppling a statue and the overwhelming majority of students cheering is a good and useful reminder to the legislature that they might be able stick their finger in the dyke for a little while longer but they are fast manufacturing their own obsolescence.
J R in WV
@Platonailedit:
Ya think she nay have lied a little on the questionaire?
J R in WV
@The Pale Scot:
Looks like you have the strikethrough tag down pat. It’s more likely the /strikethrough (end /strikethrough) tag you may have trouble with!
;-)
NCSteve
@Jay: @cmorenc: Thing is, this sounds like the modern version of the Atticus Finch white southern “moderate” position on segregation that made no progress at all but gave white southern liberals comfort about the nothing that was happening.
NCSteve
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I find it odd that despite having lived in Chapel Hill for six years, went to school there and never heard that version of the name.
Barbara
@NCSteve: I had the same reaction. Those moderate Southerners who rankled at the idea of “outsiders” coming in and riling up “their” blacks, and promising that progress would come in due course. And don’t forget, this occurred after a concerted effort by the NC legislature to target “with surgical precision” the ability of African Americans to vote at all, the day after Justice John Roberts expressed certainty that racism no longer exists.
StringOnAStick
I got a notice for jury duty a month ago, but when the day came to check if my assigned number meant I had to show up, I wasn’t in the selected group and was dismissed. Dang it, I really wanted to serve on a jury, it’s been almost 40 years since I did and I find law (and new experiences in general) interesting! I suppose even wanting to serve on a jury would get me tossed on the first set of challenges.
Mike in NC
People outside of NC wouldn’t be familiar with Thom Goolsby, but he was a major scumbag state senator and like every Republican in the NC General Assembly, an enthusiastic neo-Confederate asshole.
John
The best way to assess the sincerity of Neo-Confederates is to ask how they would feel if Japanese-Americans started erecting statues to Tojo and Yamamoto as a way to celebrate their heritage. It’s been over 70 years since WWII, more than the time that elapsed between the end of the War of Southern Aggression in Defense of Slavery and the erection of Silent Sam. Isn’t about time to honor the fallen heroes of Japan? There were good people on both sides, I’m sure.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NCSteve: The “no ammo” explanation? You probably wouldn’t have heard it on campus. It’s not well known outside of the monument geeks; I heard about it in a genealogy class on interpreting symbols on grave markers.