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Counterpoint: I graduated from a university still named after the confederacy that held "slave auction" fundraisers all the way into the 80s. I think it's easy
by tired-dev 6y ago
Counterpoint: I graduated from a university still named after the confederacy that held "slave auction" fundraisers all the way into the 80s. I think it's easy to downplay how pervasive racism still is in America, and to imagine that hypersensitivity is the result of "fragility" instead of "constant exposure".
- neartheplain 6y agoThere’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. The fact that this bears mentioning points to the general historical ignorance affecting many of these misguided activists, such as those who tore down the statue of Hans Christian Heg in Madison, WI. Heg was a Union soldier and abolitionist who led an anti-slavecatcher militia. He was also a white man, which is presumably why his statue got dragged through the street and beheaded during the height of last summer’s protest violence: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/24/madison-protesters-pull-down-forward-hans-christian-heg-statues-attack-senator-sculptures-in-lake/3247948001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/24/madison-prote...
- cable2600 6y agoEven the Lincoln statues got pulled down. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tear-down-statues-abraham-lincoln-theodore-roosevelt-n1242913 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/portland-protesters-tea...
- tired-dev 6y agoHistorical ignorance has been the goal of America's right wing for some time; America has such a glut of mass-produced statues of confederate soldiers that I'm actually a bit surprised that more innocent civil war statues haven't been caught in the crossfire. But more to my original point: when people have been subjected to incessant whitewashing of deeply flawed historical figures (Christopher Columbus, for example), I find it unsurprising when they consider things like "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it" in any context to be less-than-venerable.
- UncleMeat 6y ago> There’s a difference between schools named after the Confederacy and schools named after Abraham Lincoln. Given the number of people who make precisely the same complaints that appear in this thread when high schools change their name from "Lee", that difference seems to be lost to many "free speech absolutists".
- tjs8rj 6y agoThis is a great argument for why we shouldn’t work in generalities. “Systematic racism” isn’t practically actionable, so it results in Lincoln High getting the same treatment as yours, which apparently held “slave auction” fundraisers relatively recently, and another school which may teach the “Happy Slave” narrative. 1 of those is a high school named after a president that freed slaves, 1 is a high school with a seriously questionable recent past, and 1 is a high school actively perpetuating racist dogma. We shouldn’t be treating them all like what their doing is equally bad
- nitrogen 6y agoWas your university doing something kind of like Halloween, where people dress as demons to show the demons have no power over them, or was it more enamored with the past?
- tired-dev 6y agoNo, the college was enamored. The confederacy theme was omnipresent; this was just an exceptional case of the mask of respectability slipping off.