(04-16-2014 08:02 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 07:44 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 01:18 AM)75src Wrote:  spineless parasites like the so called liberals or progressives.

Wow, and we wonder why our politics have become so divisive. Maybe if we could debate issues without going to hate-filled, venomous, ad hominem attacks as a first resort. Nobody else had even made this partisan until your comment.

Sorry, but schools named after confederate generals, mascots alluding to the confederacy, etc. are simply inappropriate IMHO.

Maybe mascots are an issue. Blacklisting Confederate generals, most of whom were West Point graduates and fought in other campaigns with the U.S. Army, seems like painting with a very, very broad brush.

Yes. And we all know that the school was named for them because they went to West Point and took part in the Mexican American War. Because that's what school boards were thinking in the '50s when schools named for Confederate generals exploded across the south.

I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

(04-17-2014 09:17 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 11:58 PM)Caelligh Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 12:36 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...And nobody selects a name/mascot to denigrate their team. There are no teams called the Yellowbellied Cowards or the Backstabbing Slimeballs...

You have hit upon the answer! Select a mascot with which nobody will ever admit they identify and you can keep that mascot forever. Backstabbers it is!

I can hear the cheerleaders now...


"Stop being selfish! let the other team have the ball for a while!"

Who's going to score? NOT us, NOT us!

Sorry about that!




But it will help usher in the modern era of noncompetition.

One of the characters on Modern Family is a high school football coach. On last night's episode, they play a team whose coach has died the night before. His kicker (his partner's stepbrother) feels guilty about kicking the winning extra point.

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Yea, the Democrats were good at that in the 50's.

One stupid partisan statement deserves another.

(04-17-2014 09:50 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Yea, the Democrats were good at that in the 50's.

One stupid partisan statement deserves another.

Not sure if that original statement was politically partisan since there wasn't a single mention of Republican/Democrat or conservative/liberal.

Well, "one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose" was partisan.

(04-17-2014 09:55 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Well, "one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose" was partisan.

Or offer an interpretation of historical actions while including the context that was used in making those interpretations. It couldn't have been that I guess.

(04-17-2014 10:00 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:55 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Well, "one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose" was partisan.

Or offer an interpretation of historical actions while including the context that was used in making those interpretations. It couldn't have been that I guess.

Which I can claim is exactly what I did in my first statement.

I think both are partisan and have no place on the sports part of the Parliament. That was my point.

(04-17-2014 10:23 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 10:00 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:55 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  Well, "one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose" was partisan.

Or offer an interpretation of historical actions while including the context that was used in making those interpretations. It couldn't have been that I guess.

Which I can claim is exactly what I did in my first statement.

I think both are partisan and have no place on the sports part of the Parliament. That was my point.

Remember, two wrongs don't make a right.

I understand your sentiment about this OT conversation moving more and more off topic, but your original response pushed something that was potentially partisan, but in reality, a historical analysis, into the realm of politics.

(04-17-2014 10:23 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  I think both are partisan and have no place on the sports part of the Parliament. That was my point.

Tex's statement was no more partisan than post #2 by yourself.

Tex's statement was not partisan. I'm surprised that it was interpreted as such.

As I said before, I was not born in the South and am nowhere near an apologist for the Confederacy.

My only point is that Robert E. Lee's name graces a university in this country, and was generally a highly regarded general before and after the Civil War. I don't see the point in painting him (and some other generals of that period) with the same broad brush that would apply to Nathan Bedford Forrest and others.

In general, I see little difference between naming a school after him than in naming one after Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and also Generals Pershing, or Eisenhower.

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  Yes. And we all know that the school was named for them because they went to West Point and took part in the Mexican American War. Because that's what school boards were thinking in the '50s when schools named for Confederate generals exploded across the south.

I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Thank you, this was the point I was trying to make. I'm sure there are exceptions but the history behind the naming of most of these schools is very ugly, with fairly explicitly racist motivations.

Mods - Thanks for putting this where it belongs.

I grew up in a Deep Southern city in the 60s and 70s.
There was a Confederate Memorial on the Courthouse grounds. But, I don't remember any public schools named after a Civil War figure.

They would have been built in the time of "separate but equal," but there were schools named after George Washington Carver and Mary McCleod Bethune.

(04-17-2014 09:50 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Yea, the Democrats were good at that in the 50's.

One stupid partisan statement deserves another.

I think we can all agree that the racism of the Democratic party in the 50's is a blight on its history.

If TexD's assertion is true, and I have no reason to believe it's not, naming schools that way was ugly, indeed.

(04-17-2014 09:47 AM)JSA Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:17 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 11:58 PM)Caelligh Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 12:36 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...And nobody selects a name/mascot to denigrate their team. There are no teams called the Yellowbellied Cowards or the Backstabbing Slimeballs...

You have hit upon the answer! Select a mascot with which nobody will ever admit they identify and you can keep that mascot forever. Backstabbers it is!

I can hear the cheerleaders now...


"Stop being selfish! let the other team have the ball for a while!"

Who's going to score? NOT us, NOT us!

Sorry about that!




But it will help usher in the modern era of noncompetition.

One of the characters on Modern Family is a high school football coach. On last night's episode, they play a team whose coach has died the night before. His kicker (his partner's stepbrother) feels guilty about kicking the winning extra point.

yeah, I saw that. good episode. I don't care what the others are arguing about, I am going to continue having fun with this.

Both the 1850s and 1950s.

(04-17-2014 02:23 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:50 AM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(04-17-2014 09:42 AM)texd Wrote:  I'm sorry for the sarcasm, but one simply cannot choose to ignore that the entire purpose in so naming schools was to intimidate the black population and poke a finger in the eye of the Supreme Court's rulings on segregation.

Yea, the Democrats were good at that in the 50's.

One stupid partisan statement deserves another.

I think we can all agree that the racism of the Democratic party in the 50's is a blight on its history.

If TexD's assertion is true, and I have no reason to believe it's not, naming schools that way was ugly, indeed.

(04-16-2014 10:04 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 09:12 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 08:39 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  There is the Dick Dowling statute in Hermann Park which I do not think offends anyone. Dowling did not own slaves. His Davis Guards were outnumbered about 20-1 but their artillery held off a Unionist invasion at Sabine Pass.

And I'll admit as a non-southerner I simply don't understand the South's inability to move on. When I first moved to the South in the early 80's I was completely blown away by the fact that people talked about the Civil War as if it was a recent occurrence and not something that happened over a 100 (now nearly 150) years ago...

Amen. They're almost as bad as the Irish!

And to clarify, I would not qualify as a Southerner (born in Oklahoma to a family that emigrated to the Midwest in the late 19th century. I've also talked to people who get downright angry if the Civil War is couched in terms of anything other than 'States Rights' (as if the war would've occurred over anything other than slavery - although it was clearly a 'states rights' issue at the time, it's the only one of that magnitude), and in fact still see the Federal government as being 'in the wrong' over that. Don't understand it much either.

My point was merely that I don't necessarily feel that honoring certain CSA officers, whether by way of a statue or as a given name to a school, building or other feature is wrong in and of itself.

There are monuments to CSA's soldiers all over the South (including one in downtown Houston). I don't see the issue there either. It is history. It's not quite the same thing as the Taliban destroying Buddhist statues that were thousands of years old. But destroying the pyramids because some of them were built using forced labor would be at least similar in nature, albeit with a lot more time having passed.

(04-17-2014 12:26 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  As I said before, I was not born in the South and am nowhere near an apologist for the Confederacy.

My only point is that Robert E. Lee's name graces a university in this country, and was generally a highly regarded general before and after the Civil War. I don't see the point in painting him (and some other generals of that period) with the same broad brush that would apply to Nathan Bedford Forrest and others.

In general, I see little difference between naming a school after him than in naming one after Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and also Generals Pershing, or Eisenhower.

Well, one difference is that neither Jefferson, Washington, Pershing nor Eisenhower ever waged war against the United States. But I suppose that's a minor point.

(04-17-2014 02:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  ...I don't care what the others are arguing about, I am going to continue having fun with this.

Me, too!

Who would ever object to the Fighting Milquetoasts?