6 ms·

As a side note, his home town, Charlottesville, canceled the holiday celebrating Thomas Jefferson's birthday[0][1]. It seems to me that our society is too focus

by zcid 7y ago

As a side note, his home town, Charlottesville, canceled the holiday celebrating Thomas Jefferson's birthday[0][1]. It seems to me that our society is too focused on condemning historical persons for their flaws than celebrating them for their noteworthy deeds. [0]https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/2/charlottesville-drops-thomas-jeffersons-birthday-h/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jul/2/charlottesvi... [1]https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/03/as-trump-predicted-charlottesville-cancels-thomas-jeffersons-birthday/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/03/as-trump-predi...

bgilroy26 7y ago
" Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-utan [orangutan] for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?" -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia[1] He was a disgusting person who should be relegated to the annals of history, not celebrated with a birthday party like a blood relative. [1] https://www.stolaf.edu//people/fitz/COURSES/Jefferson--Notes.htm https://www.stolaf.edu//people/fitz/COURSES/Jefferson--Notes...
plurinshael 7y ago
Well, yes. It was unmitigated praise for men like Jefferson for a lot of years, which sent the message that those flaws you mentioned were nonexistent or unimportant. Now our society is attempting to demonstrate to people of color that those flaws as you say, which constitute extremely egregious crimes against humanity no matter how commonplace they were amongst the aristocracy of the time, were in fact real and were in fact important. The country remains rather divided on the subject but it sounds like these city officials are trying to say that black lives do, in fact, matter.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  The country fought a bloody war 160 years ago to settle that dispute and it was pretty resoundly settled. Not only that but there isn't a country on the planet that doesn't have equally horrific past. But that's horrific to us only because Jefferson and the colonists won. And their philosophy won. There's nothing inevitable about the destruction of monarchy. We might have been ruled by Kings and lords for another 2000 years. Who the hell knows? The people aggravating other people for celebrating American heritage have sick aims. No amount of time or human sacrifice will be enough until all pride in U.S. is snuffed out. And then, what are we left with?
  - pulisse 7y ago
    > The country fought a bloody war 160 years ago to settle that dispute and it was pretty resoundly settled. And yet laws that explicitly treated African-Americans differently were in force 100 years after that.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      Yes and yet Americans helped save the Jews from extinction and yet they defeated Nazism and imperialism and held off communism and prevented South Korea from being dominated and won two world wars that could have ended in all of the Western hemisphere being conquered. Of course, there's nothing black and white about history, it's all shades of grey. That goes without saying.
      - danbolt 7y ago
        If it's "all shades of grey", I feel like that leaves a lot of room for the feelings and discussion for how and what light they want to view their historical figures. I think "Never meet your heroes" is a popular saying for reasons like that. I'm not American, albeit, so I might be missing something on a deeper level though. My opinion here probably deserves some grain of salt.
      - rfrey 7y ago
        There is only one nation in the world where a large number of people believe America defeated the nazis.
- wahern 7y ago
  Nothing says thoughtful engagement like burying controversial subject matter. It won't be long before right-wingers succeed in building a sustained narrative around MLK's infidelity and communist flirtations that permits them to taint public sentiment. That's par for the course for the vast majority of American Black activists. All the accusations of wrongful equivocation, etc, won't matter, because it's always more convenient to vilify and bury. I guess it's technically some kind of social progress that traditional American icons are now being vilified and buried. There's the argument that white guilt is black empowerment. But it seems more like a lateral move and definitely not substantive empowerment of the disenfranchised. What the evolution of victim mentality over the past 20+ years has shown us is that whites and even the rich are able to play the role of victim at least as well as minorities. I suspect there were many more Americans reciting "blue lives matter or "all lives matter" than "black lives matter".
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    Infidelity and maybe being a communist is a lot better than literally owning other people as property.
lkrubner 7y ago
Jefferson raped a 15 year old girl till she got pregnant. I hope he's burning in the hottest rings of hell, where he belongs.
- dang 7y ago
  Please keep fiery denunciation off HN, regardless of how good you are or how bad someone else was. It helps nothing, and adds to the toxic fumes already poisoning this place. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - lkrubner 7y ago
    That he raped Sally Hemmings has been verified by DNA testing. Are you saying that we should not say anything negative about rapists?
    - dang 7y ago
      I'm saying that a comment like the one you posted doesn't help anything, and harms this site.
      - lkrubner 7y ago
        I was responding to someone who wrote "It seems to me that our society is too focused on condemning historical persons for their flaws than celebrating them for their noteworthy deeds." That comment seems to imply that we should forgive (or forget) the sexual assault of a slave because she was assaulted by someone who deserves to be celebrated "for their noteworthy deeds". Since you flagged my comment, will you also flag that other comment? Surely that other comment is more offensive than anything that I wrote?
        0815test 7y ago
        > That comment seems to imply that we should forgive (or forget) the sexual assault of a slave because she was assaulted by someone who deserves to be celebrated ... I don't think it implies any such thing. It's a reminder that our standards of morality can change a lot over time, so we shouldn't be surprised when some historical figure who is usually praised for their positive accomplishments turns out to have very severe moral flaws from our own POV. It's not exceptional, it's what we would expect to see in the first place.

by zcid 7y ago

bgilroy26 7y ago

" Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-utan [orangutan] for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?" -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia[1] He was a disgusting person who should be relegated to the annals of history, not celebrated with a birthday party like a blood relative. [1] https://www.stolaf.edu//people/fitz/COURSES/Jefferson--Notes.htm https://www.stolaf.edu//people/fitz/COURSES/Jefferson--Notes...

plurinshael 7y ago

Well, yes. It was unmitigated praise for men like Jefferson for a lot of years, which sent the message that those flaws you mentioned were nonexistent or unimportant. Now our society is attempting to demonstrate to people of color that those flaws as you say, which constitute extremely egregious crimes against humanity no matter how commonplace they were amongst the aristocracy of the time, were in fact real and were in fact important. The country remains rather divided on the subject but it sounds like these city officials are trying to say that black lives do, in fact, matter.

chrisco255 7y ago
The country fought a bloody war 160 years ago to settle that dispute and it was pretty resoundly settled. Not only that but there isn't a country on the planet that doesn't have equally horrific past. But that's horrific to us only because Jefferson and the colonists won. And their philosophy won. There's nothing inevitable about the destruction of monarchy. We might have been ruled by Kings and lords for another 2000 years. Who the hell knows? The people aggravating other people for celebrating American heritage have sick aims. No amount of time or human sacrifice will be enough until all pride in U.S. is snuffed out. And then, what are we left with?
- pulisse 7y ago
  > The country fought a bloody war 160 years ago to settle that dispute and it was pretty resoundly settled. And yet laws that explicitly treated African-Americans differently were in force 100 years after that.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Yes and yet Americans helped save the Jews from extinction and yet they defeated Nazism and imperialism and held off communism and prevented South Korea from being dominated and won two world wars that could have ended in all of the Western hemisphere being conquered. Of course, there's nothing black and white about history, it's all shades of grey. That goes without saying.
    - danbolt 7y ago
      If it's "all shades of grey", I feel like that leaves a lot of room for the feelings and discussion for how and what light they want to view their historical figures. I think "Never meet your heroes" is a popular saying for reasons like that. I'm not American, albeit, so I might be missing something on a deeper level though. My opinion here probably deserves some grain of salt.
    - rfrey 7y ago
      There is only one nation in the world where a large number of people believe America defeated the nazis.
wahern 7y ago
Nothing says thoughtful engagement like burying controversial subject matter. It won't be long before right-wingers succeed in building a sustained narrative around MLK's infidelity and communist flirtations that permits them to taint public sentiment. That's par for the course for the vast majority of American Black activists. All the accusations of wrongful equivocation, etc, won't matter, because it's always more convenient to vilify and bury. I guess it's technically some kind of social progress that traditional American icons are now being vilified and buried. There's the argument that white guilt is black empowerment. But it seems more like a lateral move and definitely not substantive empowerment of the disenfranchised. What the evolution of victim mentality over the past 20+ years has shown us is that whites and even the rich are able to play the role of victim at least as well as minorities. I suspect there were many more Americans reciting "blue lives matter or "all lives matter" than "black lives matter".
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Infidelity and maybe being a communist is a lot better than literally owning other people as property.

lkrubner 7y ago

Jefferson raped a 15 year old girl till she got pregnant. I hope he's burning in the hottest rings of hell, where he belongs.

dang 7y ago
Please keep fiery denunciation off HN, regardless of how good you are or how bad someone else was. It helps nothing, and adds to the toxic fumes already poisoning this place. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lkrubner 7y ago
  That he raped Sally Hemmings has been verified by DNA testing. Are you saying that we should not say anything negative about rapists?
  - dang 7y ago
    I'm saying that a comment like the one you posted doesn't help anything, and harms this site.
    - lkrubner 7y ago
      I was responding to someone who wrote "It seems to me that our society is too focused on condemning historical persons for their flaws than celebrating them for their noteworthy deeds." That comment seems to imply that we should forgive (or forget) the sexual assault of a slave because she was assaulted by someone who deserves to be celebrated "for their noteworthy deeds". Since you flagged my comment, will you also flag that other comment? Surely that other comment is more offensive than anything that I wrote?
      - 0815test 7y ago
        > That comment seems to imply that we should forgive (or forget) the sexual assault of a slave because she was assaulted by someone who deserves to be celebrated ... I don't think it implies any such thing. It's a reminder that our standards of morality can change a lot over time, so we shouldn't be surprised when some historical figure who is usually praised for their positive accomplishments turns out to have very severe moral flaws from our own POV. It's not exceptional, it's what we would expect to see in the first place.