American History, statues, and our "heroes".

[Caliman73]

This was a response from a thread that was locked. I am not sure what happened and I am not commenting on why but I think that this is a discussion worth having.

The issue that I was discussing came from a question that I asked about why the poster had brought up the particular subject. The answer was: "To provoke discussion". Other aspects of the response was about how the toppling of statues would lead to Democrats losing the messaging and handing the election to the GOP.

I totally understand that sentiment but I think that shying away from discussions for political expedience is not something that should be done. I may be wrong or people may certainly differ, but like I said, it is a discussion worth having. Here is my response.

Most people are pretty ignorant about actual American history. Not what we are taught in school (though many say that history is boring), but the actual events from the various perspectives. People see Andrew Jackson as, "the brave commander at the Battle of New Orleans" and the president who stood up to the "elites" about the national bank. They disconnect him from the forced removal of the Cherokee from the Southwest (whose own history is complicated too).

We have a very childish view of our own history and when the narrative is challenged many of us get very upset. We need to grow up and understand that our "history" came at the cost of others. It isn't an all or nothing situation. Most people are not totally evil or totally good. Some have definitely done WAY more evil than good, and should be remembered as such, but people and history is complicated.

The Confederacy in my opinion, is clear cut. They at very minimum, committed treason against the United States for the purposes of defending the institution of slavery. You can try to make it more complicated than that with "economics and livelihood" or the power of the Federal government v. states, etc... but the core issues were Secession and the reason for secession was in the constitution and most of their secession documents. Confederate soldiers and leaders were traitors, and we do not honor traitors.

The founders and other leaders are more difficult because as others have said, they created the country and set it on its path and gave it the ideals we strive for today, but they themselves fell far short of those ideals. Presidents and leaders in every period of our development, have done things that were bad and we should have discussions about that. Statues serve to commemorate ideas if not to celebrate people for what they did. Margaret Sanger for example, advocated family planning and created the precursors to what became Planned Parenthood which is a vital and needed help for many medical services for low income people. Sanger was also a bigot and a eugenicist. Both of those realities have to be understood and acknowledged. We shouldn't be ashamed of being American, but we should acknowledge the shame in many of our actions throughout the years and we should really have serious discussions about who we honor with statues or naming schools, streets, buildings, and military bases, and why?

With many of our citizens and residents SO ignorant of our history, they are not likely to be very fruitful discussions until people are better acquainted with what really happened and willing to accept that the issues are complicated.

So, this is my attempt to have a nuanced discussion about the issue, instead of focusing on the "optics" or "handing the election to Trump". What defines us as Americans and what do our "heroes" say about us?

[empedocles]

1. There are a lot of 'nuanced' issues worth debating, but not at the cost of our 70%

momentum polls, with the Election coming closer.

[Caliman73]

2. So talking about it here on a board with 300,000 readers is going to impede our momentum?

What is happening, is happening and is outside of our control. Most seasoned politicians are going to answer with the typical, "People should not vandalize, but ...something something, our history".

Trump is going to scream about Thugs and "radical leftists" which mostly fall onto the ears of his small but annoyingly vocal supporters.

A more direct question is...

Can we continue to function as an "advanced society" with such ignorance of our own history?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. It's a shame that these deeply important discussions get derailed by elections. I do think that at

least part of that impulse is due to the outsized focus some people have on electoral politics and what can be accomplished through them, for better and for worse. But there is never, ever a bad time to have a discussion about the racist, oppressive history of this nation, and how it permeates almost every institution in our government, culture and society.

[Caliman73]

4. Worse even is that we are constantly in "an election cycle".

Elections have become big business and as such, they are constant. I mean COVID-19 has truncated our current Presidential cycle, which I think is actually a good thing because the election cycle for 2016 began in 2014, which was an election year for at least the House, and part of the Senate. Therefore it can be "Never a good time, because we will lose the House, or the Senate, or the Presidency, or a Governor's race, etc...."

Our history is no better or worse than other country's. Every country has some kind of "exceptionalism" myth. I think because we are younger than some countries, that there is higher religiosity here, and we have not experienced the total devastation of modern wars, that there is an added sense of "divine purpose" that blinds us to our failings.