Confederate statue in Hemming Park defaced

[Tacachale]

If we're really going to compare a person being actively descriminated against versus defacing property, then we should have an entirely different discussion. One is an act against a person, one is an act against property.

Maybe I just don't draw as much distinction as the next guy between explicit and implicit racism.

To me, forcing black Americans to give up their bus seats to white passengers ain't that much different than requiring black Americans to live in a metro where their City Hall, Federal Courthouse, Main Library, and transit station all surround and open up to an overtly racist 60-foot statue of a Confederate soldier - a soldier who fought a bloody war in hopes of maintaining the forced enslavement, abuse, and often rape of their entire race - with a plaque dedicated to the Confederacy calling the soldiers "our heroes." What black family wants to walk under that on their way to the library, or as they're going to court, or on the way to City Hall?

Personally, I don't see a major distinction between Rosa Parks saying no when someone tried to take her seat and someone else saying no and attacking a statue that - regardless of intent or history or whatever "heritage" nonsense anyone wants to throw out there - is rooted in human enslavement and has become a symbol of organized, institutional racism throughout the country, particularly here in the South.

Reducing the argument to a "vandal" spray-painting "property" as if it's just some random teenager tagging a highway underpass is equivalent to saying that Ax Handle Saturday was simply about a hot dog and a Coke, and totally ignores the underlying reason it was defaced - namely the long history of institutional oppression that has taken place in Jacksonville.

The difference is that the rule Parks violated was morally unjust, and it was done in the service of a movement. "Don't vandalize statues" is not an unjust or unreasonable rule, and violating it works against the movement to actually do something about these monuments. It's frankly silly to put a vandal in the same sentence as Rosa Parks.

It ignores the fact that 60% of the children in Jacksonville living below the poverty line are black; that blacks make up 23% of the elementary school population, yet receive 69% of the referrals; that 30% of our local population is black, yet 65% of those shot by our local police are black. It ignores the fact that 86% of those sentenced to death in Duval County are black. It ignores the fact that, because of our state laws, 25% of black citizens cannot vote, serve on a jury or hold public office. It ignores the fact that one of our city judges just had to step down for saying "black people should go back to Africa." Not to be confused with Chief Judge John Santora of the same circuit, who had to step down 20 years ago for racist remarks against blacks. It ignores the highways built through Jacksonville's proudest black neighborhoods. It ignores 50 years of post-consolidation policy that has funneled tax dollars out of minority neighborhoods, made it very difficult for minorities to access our major job centers, and perpetuated this vicious cycle where poverty leads to poor education leads to crime leads to prison leads to legal disenfranchisement. Rinse, repeat.

All that will still be true whether the monuments are there or not.

God forbid some discourteous minority take a stand during a time of intensifying racial insanity in our country and spraypaints "Free Slaves" and "KKK" across a statue that - for better or worse, due to its size, history, and location - perfectly personifies their grievances.

Would I do it? Probably not.

Am I, as a white, educated, advantaged member of Jacksonville society is any position to pass judgement on a black citizen for choosing to deface a Confederate monument, particularly amidst today's horrifying political climate.

Probably not.

Only sane solution:

If you don't want to deal with vandals, don't keep a giant racist statue in the center of your city.

Society is progressing, and hopefully 10 years from now, we'll consider the removal of confederate statutes to be as much of a "do the right thing" no-brainer as the passage of HROs, or the legalizing of same-sex marriage, or the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, or the passage of the Civil Rights Act, or whatever.

I hadn't heard if the vandal was identified. Whoever it was, it would be easier to do something about the monuments if people weren't defacing them. All that does is get the dander up on the minority of people who care one way or another, and harden them into their positions.

[Adam White]

They're the same thing. It may be a difference of degree, sure. But the actions of Parks and the unidentified statue defacer lie on the same continuum.

I've no issue with this sort of direct action. Should've done more than just painted it, though.

Edit: we don't actually know that this was done as a protest, right? There does exist the possibility that the street art is pro-KKK street art.

[Gunnar]

Not sure how a vandal with spraypaint is remotely comparable to Rosa Parks.

It's exactly the same thing. Takes the same strength and determination.

[Gunnar]

What I dislike about the whole discussion is that it comes down to Southern / Confederate = racist, Northerner = not racist, fought for racial equality.

First of all, this implies that there was no widespread racism in the North like, say, Sundown town, race riots where white mobs attacked African American Neighborhoods.

Then this would assume that white Northerners' main reason (or any of their reasons) to fight was to free the slaves. Seriously ?

Also, what would non-slave owning Southerners' reason to fight have been, which I assume was the largest part of the population.

I agree that in the North they did not care much about slavery since there simply was no need for it there.

[thelakelander]

What I hate about this discussion is that true southern and Jacksonville history has been lost or totally ignored. Jax had just as many union loyalist as confederate and many of them were white. This city was also pretty insignificant in its importance to the war effort on either side. Also, Jax was majority black for most of its history leading up to consolidation in the late 1960s. Does anyone really think these monuments and school names would be plastered all over town if the local black population (largely comprised of former slaves and union veterans) would have not been kicked out of political positions and terrorized into submission during the 1890s?

What this whole discussion has shown me is people who call themselves Jaxsons really don't know Jacksonville. It's sort of like the idea today that the Great Fire of 1901 destroyed most of the city. It didn't. It just destroyed the portion where most of the white population resided at the time. Neighborhoods like LaVilla, Brooklyn, Campbell Hill, Eastside, etc. were untouched and still today have buildings that date back to the 19th century.  However, they still get demolished with little push back, care, thought or recognition of the people, businesses and cultural contributions associated with them. It's crazy to think we took out an impressive neighborhood like Sugar Hill with an expressway (really, was the black neighborhood with the nicest houses the only alignment we could select for a highway?). It's even crazier to think we flat out demolished an entire neighborhood of national cultural heritage like LaVilla in the late 1990s. That type of urban renewal largely died out in our peer communities decades earlier. With that said, the reality is the majority of the population really doesn't give a damn. I'm also not surprised about the vandalism. I don't think Jax can ignore and hope things go away this time around. We can ignore, but that's not going to stop these objects from continuing to be damaged. Alright, that's my rant for today!

[MEGATRON]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

[Adam White]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

The Allies are long gone and a) you don't see new monuments going up and b) there are laws against that sort of thing anyway. German laws passed by the German people.

[MEGATRON]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

The Allies are long gone and a) you don't see new monuments going up and b) there are laws against that sort of thing anyway. German laws passed by the German people.

Absolutely.  I also don't see new monuments going up around here.  By the way, plenty of monuments to Wilhelm II who was ruthless towards African tribes.

[Adam White]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

The Allies are long gone and a) you don't see new monuments going up and b) there are laws against that sort of thing anyway. German laws passed by the German people.

Absolutely.  I also don't see new monuments going up around here.  By the way, plenty of monuments to Wilhelm II who was ruthless towards African tribes.

The implication of your statement was that there were no Third Reich memorials in Germany solely because of the Allies' actions. That's simply not true. Maybe (maybe) the Allies took down all the memorials - but there is clearly no German appetite for such memorials and legislation reflects that.

That's why I mentioned the fact that the Germans haven't been erecting memorials - if the Allies were the reason there were none, surely some would've sprung up once the occupation ended. But while we're on the subject....

WWII ended in 1945. Since then - no Nazi memorials in Germany. The Civil War ended in 1865. Many of the offending memorials didn't crop up until 100 years later. So yeah - maybe no one is going around erecting CSA memorials at the moment (not really true though...check out the massive Confederate flag on I-75, for example) - but it clearly was happening in the USA well after the event. Maybe the Germans will change their view on it, who knows.

As far as Kaiser Wilhelm is concerned - yeah, he was a dick. Like most European imperialists. That's a whole other kettle of fish. But maybe, if there are any memorials to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tanzania or something, they should be taken down. We should probably leave that to the Tanzanians to decide.

[Gunnar]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

The Allies are long gone and a) you don't see new monuments going up and b) there are laws against that sort of thing anyway. German laws passed by the German people.

Absolutely.  I also don't see new monuments going up around here.  By the way, plenty of monuments to Wilhelm II who was ruthless towards African tribes.

As are monuments of King Leopold II in Belgium who was probably the worst in terms of atrocities in the colonies. Same for other countries whose colonial policies had catastrophic effects on millions - just think of the British state sponsored Opium trade in China which caused mass addiction, a population decline and disintegration of Chinese society.

The there's the monument of Philip Sheridan that's in front of the Albany State Capitol, using brutal scorched earth tactics against Native Americans - that is also still there.

Then you have monuments for Winston Churchill who said - to quote the Guardian:

Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.

[Josh]

Have you guys ever been to Germany? What is the most striking thing to me is how they have all these statues of Hitler and Nazi soldiers all over the country.  Sure, they were terrible people who ruined the country, but it helps Germany remember their history and honor their military.

Not going to get into trying to compare the CSA to Nazi Germany, but the Allieds tore down every monument celebrating Hitler and the Nazis.   It wasn't the German people.

The Allies are long gone and a) you don't see new monuments going up and b) there are laws against that sort of thing anyway. German laws passed by the German people.

Absolutely.  I also don't see new monuments going up around here.  By the way, plenty of monuments to Wilhelm II who was ruthless towards African tribes.

Define "here."

There have been 32 confederate monuments erected since 2000.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/confederate-monuments-civil-war-history-trump

[Gunnar]

As far as Kaiser Wilhelm is concerned - yeah, he was a dick. Like most European imperialists. That's a whole other kettle of fish. But maybe, if there are any memorials to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tanzania or something, they should be taken down. We should probably leave that to the Tanzanians to decide.

I find that to be a reasonable approach - take down monuments where they are particularly offensive or divisive (with the exception of the extreme cases - monuments of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot wouldn't be acceptable anywhere). Otherwise you just open the door to taking down pretty much all monuments anywhere.

So in the case of a monument for Confederate soldiers, I feel they would be OK in a civil war graveyard but probably not in front of city hall.

[Adam White]

As far as Kaiser Wilhelm is concerned - yeah, he was a dick. Like most European imperialists. That's a whole other kettle of fish. But maybe, if there are any memorials to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tanzania or something, they should be taken down. We should probably leave that to the Tanzanians to decide.

I find that to be a reasonable approach - take down monuments where they are particularly offensive or divisive (with the exception of the extreme cases - monuments of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot wouldn't be acceptable anywhere). Otherwise you just open the door to taking down pretty much all monuments anywhere.

So in the case of a monument for Confederate soldiers, I feel they would be OK in a civil war graveyard but probably not in front of city hall.

I think a lot of people play this as a zero-sum game in a way to deflect from the issue at hand. Let's deal with the CSA monuments. If people take issue with other monuments, we can have those discussions then.

[MEGATRON]

As far as Kaiser Wilhelm is concerned - yeah, he was a dick. Like most European imperialists. That's a whole other kettle of fish. But maybe, if there are any memorials to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tanzania or something, they should be taken down. We should probably leave that to the Tanzanians to decide.

How is it another kettle of fish?  He enslaved people and did so more recently than anyone in our country.

[Gunnar]

I would say no more or less that in other colonies, and you could argue that working conditions in US owned plantations across central and South America were factual slavery well into the 1920s, i.e. after WW1.