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Does anyone think this coming down is a bad thing? The statue wasn’t erected til 1896, which was 46 years after he died. Thus guy was extremely pro slavery: “In the 1830s, Calhoun had reportedly called slavery a ‘positive good’ and argued that slaves in the South were better than free Blacks in the North.”
 
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GaWx said:

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Does anyone think this coming down is a bad thing? The statue wasn’t erected til 1896. Thus guy was extremely pro slavery.
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History belongs in museums. I couldnt care less if they took down every statue celebrating men who actively sought to destroy the nation over slavery. Put them all in museums then if people want to go see them they can.
 
GaWx said:

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Does anyone think this coming down is a bad thing? The statue wasn’t erected til 1896, which was 46 years after he died. Thus guy was extremely pro slavery: “In the 1830s, Calhoun had reportedly called slavery a ‘positive good’ and argued that slaves in the South were better than free Blacks in the North.”
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Maybe there's more to the story here, but on the surface, it seems stupid. This obsession with statues is really silly. Unless you have something that is a shrine to slavery and oppression, pulling down all these things is kind of absurd. But it does fit well with our culture.
 
Rain Cold said:
Maybe there's more to the story here, but on the surface, it seems stupid. This obsession with statues is really silly. Unless you have something that is a shrine to slavery and oppression, pulling down all these things is kind of absurd. But it does fit well with our culture.
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But was this an indirect shrine to slavery? Was this statue painful for many black persons to see? With you not being black, are you able to empathize with a black person who sees a statue of someone who was a big defender of slavery as painful?

Regardless of how you feel about this, I do respect your opinions in general.
 
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GaWx said:
But was this an indirect shrine to slavery? Was this statue painful for many black persons to see? With you not being black, are you able to empathize with a black person who sees a statue of someone who was a big defender of slavery as painful?
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It’s a statue, if you don’t like don’t look at it, you can’t erase history. This whole statue removing is dumb. Removing statue don’t remove slavery from the history books. So I guess we should stop teaching slavery in schools?
 
NoSnowATL said:
It’s a statue, if you don’t like don’t look at it, you can’t erase history. This whole statue removing is dumb. Removing statue don’t remove slavery from the history books. So I guess we should stop teaching slavery in schools?
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I’m very familiar with downtown CHS. The problem is that this was a big statue on Calhoun Street, a very busy street. It is hard to avoid seeing this.
 
GaWx said:

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Does anyone think this coming down is a bad thing? The statue wasn’t erected til 1896, which was 46 years after he died. Thus guy was extremely pro slavery: “In the 1830s, Calhoun had reportedly called slavery a ‘positive good’ and argued that slaves in the South were better than free Blacks in the North.”
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I think it’s stupid because it’s pandering. I don’t have a care at all about statues coming down or people banning the confederate flag. However if it were a real issue, they would have done it in good times when everyone was happy, not in a rush to butt kiss. To me, it’s annoying as when I remember all the politicians at church, crying and praying God for the short time after 9/11.
 
GaWx said:
But was this an indirect shrine to slavery? Was this statue painful for many black persons to see?
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Many people from that era, particularly in the south, were pro-slavery. We're judging all of that through the lens of history, where we all now have a much different (and IMO, a much better) perspective. But that doesn't mean everything any of these people did was bad. They lived in a different time where good or bad, right or wrong, slavery was an accepted practice. We judge it to be wrong, and I believe that point of view is right. But be that as it may, if you're going to go around removing and erasing every object, name, brand, statue, item, etc. that has an association with something that we view globally as wrong today, then you better strap in, because you are going to have a lot more work to do than pulling down a few statues.

Like I said the other day, people ought to focus on real problems that produce real impacts on their lives today. A statue of John Calhoun impacts nobody. People need to quit listening to how others say they should feel about something. There are a lot of things you encounter in life that you may not like or agree with in totality, but they don't really impact you one way or the other. We need to learn to accept things like history and allow monuments like this serve as an open and ongoing reminder of where we have come from. We need to do that instead of undertaking the hollow and meaningless crusade of erasing them all. We'd be much better served dealing with the real issues at hand than saying, "John Calhoun may have done a lot of good things, but he supported slavery, so he's gotta go." Because you know what? SLAVERY IS DONE. It's gone. We don't do that here anymore. We won that fight. It's over. Time to move on to other, real issues.
 
Arcc said:
I think it’s stupid because it’s pandering. I don’t have a care at all about statues coming down or people banning the confederate flag. However if it were a real issue, they would have done it in good times when everyone was happy, not in a rush to butt kiss. To me, it’s annoying as when I remember all the politicians at church, crying and praying God for the short time after 9/11.
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You have some good points here. It is the “in” thing to do now. I hate it when people do things only because it is “in” to do so. It probably should have been taken down long ago.
 
Rain Cold said:
Maybe there's more to the story here, but on the surface, it seems stupid. This obsession with statues is really silly. Unless you have something that is a shrine to slavery and oppression, pulling down all these things is kind of absurd. But it does fit well with our culture.
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Those men literally tried to destroy this nation to keep their slaves. Who are we to tell the decendents of those slaves how they should feel about those monuments?
 
Are we only taking down statues associated with slavery or is anything that offends the masses up for grabs? Asking for a friend
 
Shaggy said:
Those men literally tried to destroy this nation to keep their slaves. Who are we to tell the decendents of those slaves how they should feel about those monuments?
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For one thing, that isn't the only legacy of these people. For another, people should feel free to feel however they want. And the same applies to the other side where they're getting told they should be enraged at statues and monuments and icons and branding. People can feel how they want to feel. But at the same time, they ought to realize that that era is gone. It's over. And we as a culture need to learn how to react to things better and deal with things that are not real in a healthier way.
 
Shaggy said:
Those men literally tried to destroy this nation to keep their slaves. Who are we to tell the decendents of those slaves how they should feel about those monuments?
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What people don’t want to talk about is that slavery was the south’s livelihood. The north wanted to take that away and they did. It wasn’t a war of morality. The north didn’t want to free the slaves because it was the right thing to do. They wanted to assert their will and dominance over the south.
 
GaWx said:
You have some good points here. It is the “in” thing to do now. I hate it when people do things only because it is “in” to do so. It probably should have been taken down long ago.
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That is where I sit. I have no issues at all with people wanting these things dealt with or why they may find the offensive, but the current path is creating more division. For instance if NASCAR cared about the Rebel flag, they would have had a big discussion before the virus and before the protests, included all their fans and decided against it. Would some people get mad, absolutely but many more people would eventually understood because it was done in a controlled orderly manner. Instead they decided to pander and are taking it hard right now.

Same is true about the noose stupidity. NASCAR and Bubba bungled a massive chance to show inclusiveness and bring everyone together, but their mouths destroyed that.
 
Rain Cold said:
For one thing, that isn't the only legacy of these people. For another, people should feel free to feel however they want. And the same applies to the other side where they're getting told they should be enraged at statues and monuments and icons and branding. People can feel how they want to feel. But at the same time, they ought to realize that that era is gone. It's over. And we as a culture need to learn how to react to things better and deal with things that are not real in a healthier way.
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So all the statues of these men are erected because of what? What legacy are they suppose to be honoring by erecting statues of civil war "heroes"?
 
I think good points are being made on both sides. The biggest negative imo is that statues coming down now fits the category of pandering pretty well. There’s a lot of copycatting going on now/it is the “in” thing to do now/why wasn’t it taken down before, etc. But with the CHS city council unanimously voting for it to come down (unity), I don’t think it is a bad thing. And some folks, especially certain black folks, likely do have emotional pain when seeing this hard to ignore large statue on a busy street in downtown CHS.

No simple answer and can see both sides, but I’m glad it is coming down, especially for those who are pained by it.
 
GaWx said:
I think good points are being made on both sides. The biggest negative imo is that statues coming down now fits the category of pandering pretty well. There’s a lot of copycatting going on now/it is the “in” thing to do now/why wasn’t it taken down before, etc. But with the CHS city council unanimously voting for it to come down (unity), I don’t think it is a bad thing. And some folks, especially certain black folks, likely do have emotional pain when seeing this hard to ignore statue on a busy street in downtown CHS.

No simple answer and can see both sides, but I’m glad it is coming down, especially for those who are pained by it.
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They removed the one at the courthouse in Greenville last week to. Done legally and through the city council.
 
Jimmy Hypocracy said:
What people don’t want to talk about is that slavery was the south’s livelihood. The north wanted to take that away and they did. It wasn’t a war of morality. The north didn’t want to free the slaves because it was the right thing to do. They wanted to assert their will and dominance over the south.
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In other words, I think you’re saying there was an ulterior motive. Interesting and makes sense. I’ve learned over the years that often the actual truth differs from what appears on the surface and that at the very least things are not nearly as black and white as they may seem. They’re usually more complicated. That’s what often gets to me about politics. So many tend to treat many of the issues as too black and white/too simple. Many of these people love to take a side and stick with it.
 
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It's long but read it and there was nothing in SCs secession but to hold on to slavery. That's all it was about.

Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

avalon.law.yale.edu


We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
 
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