Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
While the US argues about whether to tear down monuments to the supporters of slavery, Britain still celebrates the shameful era
Op-Ed By Afua Hirsch @ TheGuardian.com, Aug. 22
[....] The reaction in Britain has been, as in the rest of the world, almost entirely condemnatory of neo-Nazis in the US and of its president for failing to denounce them. But when it comes to our own statues, things get a little awkward. The colonial and pro-slavery titans of British history are still memorialised: despite student protests, Oxford University’s statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes has not been taken down; and Bristol still celebrates its notorious slaver Edward Colston. When I tweeted this weekend that it’s time we in Britain look again at our own landscape, the reaction was hostile.
“I don’t want that nonsense spreading here from America. Past is past, we have moved on,” one person said. Another accused me of being a “#ClosetRacist” for even raising the question. But the most common sentiment was summed up in this tweet: “Its History – we cant & shouldn’t re-write it – we learn from it. Removing statues would make us no different to terrorists at Palmyra.” Therein lies the point. Britain has committed unquantifiable acts of cultural terrorism – tearing down statues and palaces, and erasing the historical memory of other great civilisations during an imperial era whose supposed greatness we are now, so ironically, very precious about preserving intact [....]
Comments
When it comes to public monuments (and publicly funded art, for that matter), wherever and whatever it is, everybody's always got an opinion, it's easy to use it as a distraction:
Norfolk defends Nelson in 'white supremacist' row
Nelson's Column: Wanting to topple his statue is LAUGHABLE, says CHRIS MCGOVERN
VOX POP: Should Nelson's Column be torn down?
Outrage at calls to tear down Nelson's Column because Britain's great naval hero 'was white supremacist'
Demolition Goes Global: Gandhi, Lord Nelson and Lenin Statues Face the Chop
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:30am
BTW, for those who don't know, Nelson was also quite a "player." But as the link says Only Wellington and Churchill rival Nelson’s stature in British history.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:44am
Rally to keep Christopher Columbus statue at Columbus Circle
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:09pm
Britney fans want to replace Confederate monuments with statutes of her
By Fox News via Page Six, August 24, 2017 | 12:27pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:12pm
Which reminds me, I was a little afraid to post this Aug. 17 piece earlier,as the topic was too raw. But I'll do it now:
Nation Rallies Around Ronald McDonald Statue That Embodies Country’s True Heritage,
Many of us in the art world wouldn't find this Onion piece funny at all, it's just true! Rather, it's an indicator that writers for The Onion are rather clueless about what's been going on in the art world for a couple decades. Like that a giant balloon of Disney's Little Ballerina by artist Jeff Koons was installed at Rockefeller Plaza, right over the iconic skating rink for a couple months this summer
Beyond true, as Ronald McDonald is the type of symbol that represents what many European and Asian cognoscenti have admired as different and special about American culture since the late 20th century.
Koons art sells for multi millions for over a decade internationally, he holds the record price at auction for a living sculptor. His 'installations" of art after low pop culture have been placed at major public spaces around the world, such as his "Puppy" at the Louvre.
Koons' art is so accepted that a lot of millenials in the art world despise his work as old tired bullshit. And then there's that he does not execute the work himself, does not share his wealth with those that do, and does a lot of licensing of his work to make more money.
So there is a disconnect with flyover culture and the elite culture world. When they see people all het up about very old traditional monuments that no one pays attention to anymore except with irony and historic distance, it's like "huh? I thought we were done with that". That people still get all riled up about very old symbols, seems like those people must be from another planet. I.E., most people do not even notice those old statues are there anymore, thought that was all over, or they are preservationists about boring and ugly historical monuments that no longer speak to the culture.
By the way, Koons work is not intended to be ironic, and he doesn't consider his subjects to be about "kitsch".
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:39pm
The Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia was accused of rejecting his family's heritage for supporting removal of Confederate statues. The accusation came from the Virginia GOP. The GOP later apologized
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ralph-northam-monuments-gop_us_599dc...
The initial response of the GOP was to support white supremacy. The Confederate statues stand for intimidation, not heritage.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 1:39pm
They are statues of losers of the Civil War. Put up mostly in the Jim Crow era, and when the tradition was for communities to put up public monuments to signify winning a war. Anyone with any education knows that now.
We no longer even do it the latter way. We don't memorialize victors of wars so much.
We have a national memorial to the Vietnam War that was extremely controversial because it didn't do that. The nation argued about it for a long time and It finally got put up. It broke that rule about victors. Now it is one of our most beloved monuments.
The argument you are fanning is really not about what kind of symbols we as a nation use now.
It makes it further embarassing for Southern towns who have the old Jim Crow type monuments of Civil War losers in the center of town, especially if they want to see international tourist trade and not be looked at as quaint examples of racist idiots.
But most people in any city or town in the U.S. do not even look at many of the old statues in their locale and do not know who they represent. Only tourists look at them. Until trolls decide to make an issue of them. It is one thing when a Confederate flag is flown over a state capitol, it is another thing with an old statute in some park or plaza that nobody paid any attention to until it was trolled.
Removing is a matter of priorities if you don't let the trolls rattling old symbols get to you, I think Andrew Young is right about this.
You could spend a lot of money removing and replacing all the historic monuments that are offensive to someone and could be trolled. I.E., where do you draw the line? We could indeed remove the Jefferson and Washington Memorials from the national mall because they were slave owners and replace them with multi-culti rainbow buildings that reflect the millenials's future. But the hate of the trolls will still be there and they will rile further. As Andrew Young points out: wouldn't you rather try to fix the flooding of the Mississippi and win over a few more haters?
Have a little sympathy for those small Southern town councils who are just trying to do the right thing while prioritizing expenses. Don't fan it and make it worse for them if it is not something right in the middle of the town square or the state capitol plaza. And just end up feeding trolls.
This round of calling attention to the hate and hurt involved in some public monuments is done, any good it could do is done, it has become international parody. By continuing to feed the trolls now, is a waste of time and money.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 2:28pm
Andrew Young is wrong when he says that the attack on Obamacare is a direct result of the Confederate flag coming down in South Carolina. There is no support for that thesis. The deplorables will be upset no matter what you do. If Black Lives Matter protests police abuse, the deplorables are upset. If the NAACP Legal Defense Fund enters a case against police brutality, the deplorables are upset. If the DOJ reviews the actions of a police department, the deplorables are upset. There is no action that you can take that will appease the deplorables.
If levees have not been repaired for eons, it is hard to blame that on addressing the issue of Confederate statues. The deplorables want to build a wall to keep Mexicans out before they want to attack levees. Obama made an attempt to help after Katrina.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/aug/20/10-years-aft...
Obama faced obstruction from the GOP.
http://thelensnola.org/2016/11/28/trump-and-the-gop-hate-new-orleans-let...
The idea that Liberals are distracted and not obstructed is false.
The obstruction is not because of removing Confederate statues, it is the long-standing project of the GOP to screw the average citizen.
If the statues remain, the deplorables will still obstruct. We are not dealing with the GOP of Andrew Young's day.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 2:38pm
Do you thnk Lord Nelson's column should be taken down from Trafalgar Square? And the statue of Columbus from Columbus Circle in NYC?
If not, your beef is not about public statues, and you are buying into your opponent's framing by being dragged into making it a debate about old statues.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 3:00pm
not only that, it's highly likely most of those protesting violently in the streets to keep the statues, are not exactly as they'd like to present, if fighting them, you are fighting a phantom
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 3:06pm
I don't give a crap about Lord Nelson. The British can decide what happens.
The surge in Confederate monuments was during the periods of lynching, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights. The message was intimidation. The statues were never about heritage. The statues are symbols used to suppress people's rights.
Liberals are always told they focus on the wrong things. Don't focus on Trump ties to Russia, you miss the real harm he is doing. That is a crap argument. Liberals are in court fighting voter suppression. Liberals took to the streets to oppose deporting Muslims. Liberals took to tow halls and Congress to preserve healthcare. Women march to send a message that they weren't giving up their rights. People are focused, not distracted.
Republicans have the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. They have most state legislatures. Liberals are still fighting. They fight symbolic battles and they fight battles over more substantive issues. No one believed the removing the Confederate flag from the state grounds in South Carolina cured racial problems. No one believes that removing Confederate statues solves racism. What both actions state is that we know why these symbols were put in place. They attempted to keep blacks in their place. It had nothing to do with heritage. Blacks read scholars who pointed out when and why certain symbols were created. We know the truth.
When I think of a Confederate statue, I think of the torch carrying white guys who surrounded a church. When I think of the Confederate flag, I think of the racist murderer Dylan Roof. I don't see parodies.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 3:19pm
The surge in Confederate monuments was during the periods of lynching, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights. The message was intimidation.
I said that. It's clear you're not reading what I said nor thinking about what this thread is about. I'm done with your comments, but am open to others. Preach all you want on topic, just don't expect interaction from me if you can't do nuance. Just realize that some Native Americans in the U.S. feel the same about statues of Columbus as you do about the Confederate statues.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 3:28pm
I read what you said. You want me to have sympathy for your theoretical small Southern community that wants to cling to the Civil War. I have sympathy for the black people who grew up in those small Southern towns, that is why I focus on intimidation. Black people died when they defied the status quo. That is the end point of intimidation. We have markedly different world views. You see the city councils. I see the pain of black people. It is not trolling to say that in this current era, those city councils will have to explain why the statues exist.
Edit to add:
Native Americans are free to suggest removing statues of Columbus, Custer, or Buffalo Soldiers.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 4:16pm
Sigh there are plenty enough black people in on those city council meetings. Jim Crow is not in charge anymore, let them decide what is best for them. Most black and white agree they don't want to draw violent white supremacists to their town, now they are arguing how to accomplish not feeding that troll.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 4:16pm
Your theoretical community is not my theoretical community. Trump and the Nazis put Confederate statues front and.center. The Nazis are evil and Trump is mentally unstable. Libraries, museums, etc.will provide people with the truth. The statues are remnants of the Lost Cause. Germany doesn't put up statues to honor Nazis. We have no need to honor Confederates.
in fact, the racist Confederate heritage people actively hid one Confederate General because he was the Robert Byrd or his day. Byrd went from Klan recruiter to being considered an icon by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Confederate General William Mahone was a staunch secessionist and brilliant tactician. After the war however, Mahone formed the Readjuster Party, an interracial political party that saw blacks rise to political power. He was considered a traitor by his former Confederates in arms. He was essentially erased from history by the Confederate because he was not the racist that the Confederates needed to send a message to blacks about who was in charge.
http://thelensnola.org/2016/11/28/trump-and-the-gop-hate-new-orleans-let...
I do nuance. We just happen to disagree on many issues. I think you go out of your way to diminish the impact of race.
Edit to add:
Robert E. Lee felt that establishing monuments only keep open the wounds of war.
“I think it wiser . . . not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered,”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-no-surprise-were-refighting-...
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 7:33pm
I think you're losing nuance by lumping all these statues together. Statues are always propaganda. What is the message they're meant to convey? What is the culture of the time they were installed? How has that culture changed over the years? How has the changing culture effected the meaning of the statue and how people feel about it?
I'm not British so I can't answer many of those questions about British statues without much study. Let's leave it to discussions of American statues. People aren't saying the confederate statues should come down simply because the figure depicted owned slaves. What people are saying is that the message sent by the white supremacists who installed them to both whites and blacks was that, The nigger is back under our control. Enough people are pushing back against that message and want the statues down.
Jefferson was a slave child rapist. But the statues of him weren't put up as a message to black people that whites can fuck your children when ever we want. They were put up to honor the author of the Declaration of Independence who wrote, " WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." However incomplete that self evident truth existed in reality that is the message meant to be sent with Jefferson statues.
American culture has changed enough that blacks finally have the power to make a meaningful objection to the message of the confederate statues. They can say it in mass and protest at the statues without being lynched. American culture has changed enough that enough whites will stand with them and and agree that the statues need to come down to repudiate that message of black oppression.
Perhaps a time will come when we reject the good a person has done for America if that person was a slave owner. Perhaps some decades from now American culture will have changed enough that statues of Jefferson and others are deemed inappropriate. But for now it seems to me that the evolving consensus is that confederate statues need to come down.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 7:39pm
I agree with your construction of the situation. I differ with were you end up going but I don't have a solution of my own to offer but maybe a better way to hope people would someday look back at our history, both early and the one we are forging now, more accurately and as a lesson that will always need relearning.
Some monuments being built in our time that I would like to be seen now for the reality of what they really represent are partially listed below.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 8:53pm
Some more trivia:
USS Robert E. Lee, USS Stonewall Jackson, USS Dixon, and USS Hunley—In the 1960s, the U.S. Navy seemed to have forgiven their Civil War adversaries and named several ships after Confederates (including George Dixon who sank a U.S. Navy ship while commanding the submarine H.L. Hunley). With the issue of honoring Confederates having grown more contentious in recent years, the Navy has avoided controversy by not reusing the names of such ships after they were decommissioned.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 9:23pm
I understand why you're trying to make a point by calling battle ships monuments but they aren't. They are tools of war. Do you think anyone doesn't understand that? What reality beyond that do they represent that you think we need to redefine? When the tool is no longer useful they're decommissioned with at most a short ceremony and scrapped. They're not preserved to honor the person they're named for. No matter the name on them no one cares when they're melted down and recycled.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 10:28pm
Yes, they are tools of war [ what the hell do you think Lee was?] as significant as a death star but they are also symbols. They are given their name as an honor to the namesake to align their purpose with something noble.. I would have expected everyone to understands that. The reality I refer to is that they are part of an unsustainable effort to maintain hegemony over vast populations by whatever means are necessary. They represent what has become "The American Way'. They are instruments used ruthlessly, mostly on dark skinned peoples who have been dehumanized, and so it is done comfortably with all kinds of currently respected people justifying whatever is done to those people. There are ideologies in play but what keeps the game going is the profit motive. We have to, or rather we should, redefine the motive of warfare so it aligns with reality and might possibly be avoided with some common sense applied. Or else not. Why break the historical cycle?
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 11:08pm
Trivial point: Navy enlisted almost always put the f*** expletive before a given USN ship name, especially if they are crew. As in "The f***ing ( ship name) deploys next week". It's a tradition.
If you want your name cursed for years by thousands, get an aircraft carrier named after yourself.
by NCD on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 11:13pm
To ocean-kat and Lulu: ah but you are both taking thoughts where I hoped they would go.
Lulu, your "trivia" examples: such an interesting point!
But then the armed services were often a little ahead of the game over conservative society on this with certain things, were they not? Because they wanted that cannon fodder?! Excuse me for my cynicism, I think it has always been: try not to offend, until you get them to sign on the dotted line. I
Comes to mind this is going to be in the news shortly, the military (especially the Navy & Coast Guard, no?) they want those transgenders that want to serve! I never followed that closely who in the brass wanted "don't ask don't tell" and who didn't. In any case, we are way beyond that now.
by artappraiser on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 9:54pm
It's just history.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 08/24/2017 - 10:56pm