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The President of the University of Texas at Austin released a letter regarding the removal of statues on the campus.
[...] The University of Texas at Austin is a public educational and research institution, first and foremost. The historical and cultural significance of the Confederate statues on our campus — and the connections that individuals have with them — are severely compromised by what they symbolize. Erected during the period of Jim Crow laws and segregation, the statues represent the subjugation of African Americans. That remains true today for white supremacists who use them to symbolize hatred and bigotry.
The University of Texas at Austin has a duty to preserve and study history. But our duty also compels us to acknowledge that those parts of our history that run counter to the university's core values, the values of our state and the enduring values of our nation do not belong on pedestals in the heart of the Forty Acres.
The issue isn't a new one, they first looked into the issue in 2015, and had a wide range of options including effectively turning the mall into an open air museum, which they eventually decided against. Should the statues be relocated from their historical context just because of the attitudes and behaviour of noisy minorities? (Your humble editor cannot forget the local riots when a historical but hostile-themed statue was relocated.)
(Score: 2, Funny) by aclarke on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:58PM (6 children)
I'd like to see the statues stay where they are, but then have another statue put up beside them to provide an alternate viewpoint. Have a statue of Robert Lee? Great, put a statue of some black enslaved person peeing on his head.
I don't know my American history so maybe there's a better option than that, but I think erecting another statue of something else beside the current one says more than hauling it away and pretending it wasn't there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:30PM
I get your goal, but that is like "teach the controversy" and putting a spin on it with the peeing would only cause greater divisions.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:37PM
Make them stand on top of slaves instead of horses?
That would have educational value, but it would encourage those who see it as the natural order.
(Score: 1, Troll) by pgc on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:58PM
Indeed, it is clear that you don't know your American history.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:36PM
Maybe we could have them both peeing on each other's heads, in an M.C. Escher-esque way. Future generations will then look at the statues and say, "Wow, the first documented public tribute to watersports."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:25PM
These are monuments celebrating Jim Crow.
Putting up statues to losers is not normal.
Doing that many decades after the war is over is particularly ridiculous.
If they are to exist, they belong in cemeteries of war dead.
Alternately, in museums with plaques that note that those people were traitors and were defending an obsolete inhumane system.
(Britain had abolished slavery in its empire in 1833.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @11:20PM
> I don't know my American history so maybe there's a better option than that
Calvin peeing would be more historically accurate.