dagblog - Comments for "People are calling for museums to be abolished."

Ban Picasso! A 17 year old?

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 08:06:32 +0000

In reply to People are calling for museums to be abolished.

Ban Picasso! A 17 year old? How could he. Worse than Roy Moore.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/02/unseen-picasso-port...

...At a cabinet meeting in

NCD — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:54:00 +0000

In reply to Here is a link to the damage

...At a cabinet meeting in April 1913, Matthews writes, Postmaster General Albert Burleson made the case for resegregating the Railway Mail Service. Hearing no objection from Wilson, Burleson went ahead. Soon, the discriminatory policy expanded, according to a history of African Americans’ experience at the Postal Service published by the National Postal Museum:

Segregation was quickly implemented at the Post Office Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many African American employees were downgraded and even fired. Employees who were downgraded were transferred to the dead letter office, where they did not interact with the public. The few African Americans who remained at the main post offices were put to work behind screens, out of customers’ sight.

Both the Post Office and the Treasury Department also created separate bathrooms and lunchrooms for African American and white employees.

Wilson’s predecessors in the post-Civil War era had appointed several African Americans to high-ranking government posts. He not only put a stop to that practice, but in 1914 instituted a policy requiring federal job seekers to attach photographs to their applications.

Despite protests from civil rights leaders during his administration, Wilson refused to budge on such measures. “I would say that I do approve of the segregation that is being attempted in several of the departments…,” he wrote at one point, declaring that it was in African Americans’ interest to be separate from their white coworkers....

link

Fun story, William Monroe

rmrd0000 — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:39:58 +0000

In reply to Here is a link to the damage

Fun story, William Monroe Trotter got into a shouting match with Woodrow Wilson. W.E.B. DuBois sided with Trotter

When Wilson allowed his cabinet members to segregate government offices, Trotter led the delegation from the National Independent Political League to meet with the president and protest this discriminatory policy. Wilson's explanation, that "segregation was caused by friction between the colored and white clerks, and not done to injure or humiliate the colored clerks, but to avoid friction," infuriated Trotter. After the shouting match that followed, Trotter was ordered out of the White House. Trotter then did what Wilson considered unforgivable. Standing on the White House grounds, he held a press conference and detailed what had just happened. A Wilson supporter in 1912, Du Bois now sided with Trotter. In Du Bois' view, Wilson "was by birth . . . unfitted for largesse of view or depth of feeling about racial injustice."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/wilson-and-race-relations/

Here is a link to the damage

rmrd0000 — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:30:42 +0000

In reply to What debate? Princeton chose

Here is a link to the damage Wilson did to the black middle class

Historians do not dispute that Wilson was a racist whose administration segregated the federal government, but many biographers treat Wilson’s racial views as an unfortunate aberration from the otherwise noble aims of this progressive leader.

It is possible to reckon with the meaning of Wilson’s racism without simply attacking Wilson or his progressive policies.

As I have argued before Wilson’s personal racism tends to distract us from a bigger story about the changing place of race in American life and politics.

Wilson’s administration saw not just the end of a few careers of black Republicans and its impact was not merely the result of one man’s prejudice.

Instead, in its attack on a nationally known and symbolic black middle class, “federal segregation” signaled the U.S. government’s support for a national racial regime in which African Americans were not only politically disfranchised but also professionally and economically hobbled

https://theconversation.com/how-the-black-middle-class-was-attacked-by-woodrow-wilsons-administration-52200

Detailed in
"Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson’s America"

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/554295

The facts were laid out.

What debate? Princeton chose

EmmaZahn — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:17:21 +0000

In reply to Regarding Douthat's comments

What debate? Princeton chose to appease the mobs, both those online and those roaming the streets. Unfortunately, they are not the only organizations attempting to appease the un-appease-able. The question is why? I wish the answer was as simple as because McKinsey told them it was the thing to do. That still leaves open the question of why would McKinsey do that?

Regarding Douthat's comments

rmrd0000 — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 13:24:47 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the above.

Regarding Douthat's comments on Woodrow Wilson, no one is going to forget Wilson's foreign policy actions.

The current debate is about Wilson's segregationist activity and the direct impact on African American government employees at the time. When Wilson segregated the government, much was lost. The link is to the story about a black government employee demoted by the direct action of Woodrow Wilson. The discussion is about much more than support for "Birth of A Nation".

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/opinion/what-woodrow-wilson-cost-my-grandfather.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Thanks for the above.

EmmaZahn — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 13:08:17 +0000

In reply to More context came to mind for

Thanks for the above.

If you haven't already, you should read Ross Douthat's latest op-ed. He expresses how I feel about the purpose of monuments and why they should be preserved much better than I can, e.g.

Our civil religion, back when it had more true believers, sometimes treated departed presidents like saints. But our monuments and honorifics exist primarily to honor deeds, not to issue canonizations — to express gratitude for some specific act, to acknowledge some specific debt, to trace a line back to some worthwhile inheritance.

Douthat's concluding paragraphs ~~are~~ seem a bit muddled but that is perhaps because I am still sorting through how to incorporate new thoughts and feelings resulting from the ongoing chaos into something coherent, some clarifying moment of my own.

Hunter Thompson described

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 12:54:40 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the above.

Hunter Thompson described being in a farmhouse, maybe in Iowa, and he commented, "oh, I see you have a picture of Nixon on your mantel". "No sir", came the reply, "I have a picture of the President of the United States". Tough love.

More context came to mind for

artappraiser — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 06:55:21 +0000

In reply to Robert E. Lee is on Stone

More context came to mind for Andrew Jackson, Emma. President 1829-1837 of a continuing experiment in self rule as a republic that continued under him.

The U.S. Revolution which brought about that republic had inspired the French to try the same thing.

That didn't work out very well for quite some time, it failed actually, in 1804 they relapsed to rule by an emperor, than a mixture of various forms of monarchy basically lasting until 1848 with a tiny period of self-rule inbetween.

They finally got their act together as a full republic much later in the century and have managed to keep it.

The current president of France nonetheless, has told the nation that not a single statue will be removed. They will be keeping them all, the good and the bad, the crazed and the good and evil kings and queens, the despots and democratic dreamers, the radicals and conservatives, slavers and not. They want to be reminded of all the mistakes as well as the successes and everything inbetween. They see progress looking at the procession.

We should be proud of being a continuous republic and of all our presidents who managed to keep it that way as many sins as each of them participated. It is a very special accomplishment not like anything else at the time. Yes, we didn't rid ourselves of slavery as soon as others did, and we did terrible things to Native Americans who did not want to do things our way, but we managed to keep working at a republic, not giving up. When others did give up. And we later fought a war of horrific costs to both keep that republic continuous and rid it of slavery.

I dont want them grabbing

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 20:40:47 +0000

In reply to I started using it on my

I dont want them grabbing phone # and location info, not that they dont probably have it anyway