(06-09-2020, 07:57 PM)rollerjag Wrote:

(06-09-2020, 06:58 PM)jagibelieve Wrote: It's not my heritage.  I wasn't born around here and my home state (New Mexico) had very little impact during The Civil War.

I do have many friends that are multi-generation Floridians that are very proud of their heritage.  Their ancestors fought for what they (back then) believed in and fought honorably.  The Civil War was a very dark time in our nation's history, but it is what it is.  Many fought because their idea and belief is that it was "right".  Many died and shed blood during that conflict.  Whether or not if they were right or wrong, they deserve some dignity and respect.  That's what the statue that was (cowardly) taken down in the middle of the night was commemorating.  It had nothing to do with "oppression" or slavery.

Put yourself in the shoes of a white man living in Florida in 1850 or so and imagine what you think is "right or wrong".  Society's way of thinking back then is nowhere near what it is today.  Fast forward to the 1890's (when the statue was built and erected) and think about what people were remembering.  It was NOT about slavery.  It was about loved ones that fell during that horrific time in our nation's history.

That statue stood there over a hundred years before some "woke" people decided that it was "offensive".  There is a reason why so many landmarks, roads and schools around this city are named what they are named.  It's all about the history.

In my opinion people that find monuments, landmarks, names of schools, etc. "offensive" or "repressive" today are living in the past.  The whole "white privilege" thing is a big myth.

When we start tearing down monuments and treasures from the past, where will it end?  In my opinion doing so is really no different than what the Taliban did.  I think we as a country are better than that.

The problem here is a lack of understanding of how the statues came into existence, and the schools came to be named after Confederate "heroes".

The statues and monuments weren't erected or named to honor anyone, they were a cynical push back against progress made by African-Americans. The statues erected in the 1890s were part of an attempt to re-frame the reasons for the war as a noble effort to protect states rights instead of what it really was about, the preservation of a "way of life,  i.e. slavery. The Daughters of the Confederacy didn't like the notion that poor white Southerners died in a vain effort to preserve the wealth and power of the land owners, who couldn't prosper without slaves, nor the shame and indignity of Reconstruction, so they tried to change the story. It was called The Lost Cause. Jim Crow was soon to follow. Blacks make progress, Whites push back.

As I noted earlier, Robert E. Lee either scourged, or ordered the scourging, of two slaves captured after fleeing their captivity. After deciding their punishment wasn't lesson enough, he ordered brine to be poured on their wounded, bleeding backs. Do you think a person who would do that to another human being deserves a statue in his honor?

[BLEEP] Robert E. Lee. Even as a military tactician, he was overrated.

The schools in Duval County were renamed for Confederate heroes in the 1950s in defiance of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, which ended school desegregation. Blacks make progress, Whites push back.

If it makes anyone happy, it appears that the statues won't be destroyed, but instead displayed in a manner elsewhere that puts their existence in the correct perspective.