Pensacola Mayor - "Not the right time" to remove monument

[packman]

Mayor Grover Robinson: 'Now is not the right time' to remove Pensacola Confederate monument




The mayor's attitude stinks of racism -

Across the U.S., cities and protesters have responded to the George Floyd protests by removing what some have called among the most prominent markers of systemic racism in public — monuments to the Confederacy.

After hearing calls at Saturday's protest at Graffiti Bridge for the city's Confederate monument to be removed, Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said Monday that he didn't believe the time was right to remove it.

"I'm not saying there may not be change at some point, but now is not the right time," Robinson said at his weekly press conference. "There's too much challenge and discord that we have and just moving forward with what we've got."


...

The city of Birmingham, Alabama, removed a 50-foot Confederate monument on June 1 after protesters attempted and failed to tear it down the day before.

Closer to Pensacola, the city of Mobile quietly removed a bronze statue of Confederate Adm. Raphael Semmes without any public announcement.

Pensacola's monument and the issue of whether to remove it in 2017 spawned the last large protest the city had seen until the George Floyd protests. In 2017, large groups both in support for keeping the monument and those pushing for its removal protested after former Mayor Ashton Hayward said he supported removing the statue from city-owned land.

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2020/06/08/pensacola-mayor-now-not-right-time-remove-confederate-monument/5320759002/

[The Magistrate]

1. The Time Is Always Right, Sir, For Removing Monuments To Treason

"I will fight the secesh till Hell freezes over, then fight on the ice."

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. When there is a senseless shooting...."Now is not the time to talk gun reform."

When the fuck is it time to talk about taking down symbols of Slavery, Racism, and a cause that was lost for the South?

NOW is the fucking time, Mr. Mayor! Enough!

[walkingman]

3. If not now.....when?

[d_r]

4. This is what

They said about school desgregation. That's why you s see schools being desegregated years after brown v board of ed

[0rganism]

5. i'm not saying i might not accidentally discharge a paintgun in the direction of a statue someday

but you know, accidents do happen, whether it's the "right" time or not.

[ECSkeptic]

6. I was at the protest last Saturday...

...and the 2017 protest in Lee Square in Pensacola. This one was much bigger (it's still going on!), so maybe there's some momentum building to take the monument down. Maybe, just maybe, people are starting to understand the real purpose of Confederate monuments, which is to intimidate African-Americans and stroke white pride. There's also the fact that the damn thing is ugly as sin. It's one of the janky, slapped-together statues shat onto public parks all over the country by the Daughters of the Confederacy and similar groups in the late 1800's.

As for the mayor himself, I'll be fair: he has done a good job of keeping the police in check during the current protests, which have been happily free of police brutality. Maybe he realizes that, after the murder of Tymar Crawford last year, people in this community are simply not going to take any shit. But as for real change, I would never expect him to rock the boat very much, especially regarding the Confederate Monument. Grover Robinson has an 800-lb gorilla sitting in his office, and that's the town's population of good ol' boys with heads full of Lost Cause bullshit that will slap him down if he pursues this issue.

As several speakers on Saturday said, Grover Robinson isn't a bad man, but he's definitely a man who wants to keep his job more than he wants to bring this lovely but often backward region into the 21st century.

In sum, I see growing support for taking it down, but I don't see Grover Robinson being the guy to do it. I would very much like to be wrong. And Robinson isn't going to be in office forever.