Tempers Flare Over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

NEW ORLEANS — For Malcolm Suber, the Confederate monuments that dot this Deep South city stand for white supremacy, pure and simple. Instead of just taking them down, Mr. Suber, an African-American activist and organizer, would like to see the city pass out sledgehammers and “let everybody take a whack — just like the Berlin Wall.”

For Frank B. Stewart Jr., a white New Orleans native, the city government’s plan to remove the statues — an idea championed by New Orleans’s white mayor, Mitch Landrieu — feels like an Orwellian attempt to erase history. This week, Mr. Stewart, 81, a businessman and civic leader, argued as much in a letter he published as a two-page advertisement in The Advocate, a local newspaper.

“I ask you, Mitch, should the Pyramids in Egypt be destroyed since they were built entirely from slave labor?” he wrote.

Mr. Stewart added: “What about the Roman Coliseum? It was built by slaves, who lived horrible lives under Roman oppression, but it still stands today and we learn so much from seeing it.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tempers-flare-over-removal-of-confederate-statues-in-new-orleans/ar-BBAPJ9T?li=BBnb7Kz

[Ilsa]

2. I can't blame Landrieu for handling the removal this way.

The companies doing the work refused to bid unless their identities would remain secret. They all feared not just a boycotting, but violence against their companies and employees by white racists. The equipment being used has all identifying markers covered and employees operating the equipment are covered up to protect their IDs.

Allowing the general public to come out swinging sledgehammers would create an emotional scene, and the white supremacists and neo-nazis and southern white pride crazies would be out with their own sledgehammers and guns. There'd be blood running in the streets.

Landrieu did the right thing by keeping this as low-key as possible.

[BannonsLiver]

3. Conservatives sure love their false equivalencies

[Beartracks]

4. Mr. Stewart: Plantations and forts and other *places* still stand.

Those places, like the pyramids and the coliseum you mention, teach us about history.

But the statues of Confederate persons, or that represent the confederacy and its sympathisers, mainly serve to glorify their subjects when simply standing out in the public square. In a museum or some other sort of appropriate educational context, they can serve their important EDUCATIONAL purpose.

=========================

[ProudLib72]

5. Maybe a better idea

What if, instead of taking them all down, they put up placards describing how the people represented by the statues supported racism and slavery? Lay bare the evil of their deeds so that all may see.

[safeinOhio]

6. As a day to remember, lets make

April 9, National Surrender Day.

If kids all over the nation got that day off, they could remember the Confederate Army.

[Runningdawg]

7. I just visited one of my favorite deplorable forums

the word there is Soros and Obama bused in and are paying BLM and ANTIFA activists to tear down the memorials and the cops, apparently on their side, won't stop them. A few sane souls within their ranks tried to bring them to their senses and they were quickly called out as liberals and paid shills. They are calling it "The Battle of New Orleans" and hundreds of "patriots" (oath keepers, 3 %ers and keyboard commandos in their bunkers) swear they are on their way there to make sure the South rises again!
<SMH>

[Drahthaardogs]

8. No one practised slavery like the English

To compare Roman slaves (or even slavery in New Spain) to how the Saxons did it is dishonest. Sometimes I wonder if the world would be a better place had the Romans put every Brittania man to the sword. The cruelty of the Brits in their colonial times is unmatched.