Texas A&M QB: Sul Ross statue must go

[Ex Lurker]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29314689/texas-kellen-mond-supports-removing-controversial-statue%3fplatform=amp

As debate continues about a controversial statue's place on the Texas A&M campus, senior quarterback Kellen Mond has taken on a role as an outspoken critic of the monument and those who wish to keep it, saying the statue represents someone who "killed and disenfranchised blacks."

Last Wednesday, the statue of Lawrence "Sul" Ross, a former Confederate general, Texas governor and A&M president, was vandalized, spray-painted with "Racist" and the acronyms BLM and ACAB, and a clown wig was placed atop the statue's head. This weekend, there were protests for and against its removal in front of the statue in the center of campus.

Critics of the statue say it should be moved based on Ross' past as a Confederate general and historic claims of suppression of indigenous and black citizens in Texas. Supporters claim the statue represents his role in saving the university and honors him in that context, and that any claims of white supremacy are untrue, citing his fight to protect funding for Prairie View A&M, a historically black university, in addition to other services for black Texans he created as governor.

There's probably no other college outside the service academies that venerates its traditions like A&M, so this would be huge.

[Demovictory9]

1. picture of vandalized statue

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[gratuitous]

2. I'm reading Glenn Frankel's "The Searchers: Making of An American Legend"

Ostensibly a book about the John Ford-directed movie "The Searchers," Frankel devotes the first third of the book to the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, her abduction by Comanches in 1836, and the decades long effort to find her and bring her back to the White community. The participation of Sul Ross in that effort, both in concert with the Parkers and against them, makes for a fascinating tale of frontier politics and duplicity. Can't say I'd honor him with a statue all these years later.

[BannonsLiver]

3. There's a whole college named after him in Alpine, Tx

Pretty cool little college. Didn't know about the treason connection.

[GoCubsGo]

6. That's actually what I thought of when I saw the subject line of the OP.

I was expecting an article suggesting a name change for that school.

[Laurelin]

4. Tradition!

I have mixed feelings on Sully. His statue isn't mounted, which allegedly means he's not being honored for his warrior era. He's being honored for saving the university. And by being honored, I mean, he has a statue. I don't think anyone ever put a penny on Sully to honor the guy. I didn't know who he was when I was at A&M. We put pennies on Sully for luck with exams, or presentations, or...

I guess more people know who he was, now, because of the controversy. But where will the next generation of Aggies go for luck?

Seriously, I'm for removing anything that honors the confederacy or slavery or racism or abuse. But there is bad in everyone, and most of the world's heroes from earlier generations were racist and sexist. I'm still glad there was a Thomas Jefferson and a George Washington, despite their extreme shortcomings.

If it were up to me I'd leave some statues somewhere for history or beauty, with information about the evil as well as the good. And I'd get busy putting up new statues, of Harriet Tubman and Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie and many other heroes. They may have been flawed products of their times too.

But it's not up to me, so sing hullabaloo and make new traditions, maybe.

[Igel]

5. People aren't complicated enough these days.

Never have been, but enough were. Now everybody's all good or all bad--depending on what the current outrage is.

In a very conservative church I was in in the '80s--less so the doctrines than many of the people--a music student played something by Tchaikovsky. Monday the pastor got a serious complaint from an outraged parishioner, how dare he allow music by a *gay* composer, obviously _______ music, be played in God's worship.

All good or all bad silliness. Except these days, the only thing that really counts is "bad". Because being one sided is "fair", and to even defend good things done by bad people (something that's a non sequitur, of course) is to participate in their badness. We're all inquisitors now--you don't know what some minor, obscure person did that's bad, somebody's taken upon themselves to show how virtuous and moral they are by digging and finding every secret or forgotten offense. Congregation for the doctrine of the party, I guess, gotta burn the unfaithful at the pole ... uh, polls.

The pastor had that problem from his local scolds. Ban Tchaikovsky or allow his music--worse yet, it's even now, decades later, still a "suspicion", one that in additional assumes that a person is clearly in one group if he's not obviously in the other (more of the stark binary simplistic thinking). The result was a plan of who'd play what for the year, to be approved in advance. Meaning that if little Sue wanted to take cello lessons and perform this year she'd have to have notified the PTB by December, get her name on the list with what she'd be playing. Can't just work on it until your teacher says it's ready and then get it added to the list. But that way the pastor was the authority behind the list, meaning that individual scolds had to decide--pick on peers or take it to the pastor.


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