Quote:
Originally Posted by VincentVega
Pretty reasonable. I'd like to hear others opinions on how we also celebrate and educate about those who did awful things but also are deserving of keeping a statue. Lines get blurred real quick when you go back a couple hundred years, just as they might for us a couple hundred years in the future.
I think that is an important and not easy question.
I tried to address it in the OP by identifying extremists on the left and right will never approach this with nuance but i think most others can.
I think you need to look at the person from the 1000 foot view. View the ENTIRETY of their lives, what they contributed to society, and what that meant to many people.
If someone is trying to focus a micro focus on one element to the exclusion of all others they are probably on the extremes and need to be ignored.
When it comes to many or most of the statues of Confederate soldiers it is clear that many/most of them were commissioned out of sour grapes and a middle finger to Northerners and minorities. A guy like Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen because of his service in the war and because even after the War ended and the South lost, he continued the battle and to terrorize blacks as a KKK leader who helped spread the organization all through the Jim Crow era and lynch those defiant Negro's who dared to think things would change with the end of the war.
There really is nothing redeeming about him and that is WHY he was chosen and why they want his statue in the most public frequented places.
But you have people see that. Know why EXACTLY it was commissioned and put where it was and say 'ya, but it has been there since the 70 and 80's so it needs to stay forever. Leave it alone.'