(12-23-2017 07:51 AM)Latilleon Wrote:  

(12-22-2017 05:25 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(12-22-2017 04:16 PM)umbluegray Wrote:  

(12-22-2017 02:23 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  What I wrote today to brother in Blue & Gray:

If you think Nathan Bedford Forrest is a redemption story, that’s your business. Cheer it and spread your feeling about that. But the man did not deserve to be memorialized and he was memorialized by a city at a time where black people were second class “citizens” for his actions fighting for a traitorous group who rebelled against the country in order to keep slavery going; slavery which was the source of his wealth.

The history books... funny you say that. Don’t see you raising cane when states like Texas humanize the system of slavery which don’t describe the process with the true picture of how bad things were in their history books. There is a difference between history and monuments. Those statues of Forrest and Davis were hero worship of a symbolic nature. They were messages praising a period when Memphis had slavery and fought to keep it. No one is going to the National Civil Rights Museum and changing any information about the CSA and how it fought to keep slavery going. There just won’t be praise in a very public venue honoring these men for defending slavery.

You talk about underhanded. You know what is underhanded? When East and Middle Tennessee officials who cannot be elected by Memphians decide what is appropriate for the Citizens of Memphis to do with property owned by the Citizens of Memphis. Men who cannot suffer consequences at the ballot box who make a decision on something which will not affect any other areas of the state of Tennessee. All because of what is ultimately an undercurrent of racism. You know the reason they changed the law? Because the City of Memphis elected officials had the audacity to have a panel to publicly discuss whether the Confederate honoring city owned parks should be renamed because there had been a very vocal movement for years to change the names. They didn’t allow the COM to make its own determination to have people like you come in an explain why you disagreed. So when the city had to find an alternative way, that got UNANIMOUS support from the City Council (which has some white Repubs on it BTW) it was actually a legal move that works around the Tennessee Historical Commission which was empowered just to stop the COM from making any changes.

Keep a couple things in mind... the actions of the State and THC are no different than a southern history of blocking efforts of progress. It’s no different than how when black people tried to vote, Southern officials put so many obstacles in the way to prevent things from happening. You basically don’t want Memphians to have its own say on Memphis property; you basically think Memphis needs overseers. The real question is why do you think such an unjust system is what is needed for Memphis to lead itself?

The other thing? Though it all; have you ever had the thought that it could have been you under Nathan Bedford Forrest’s whip? That it could have been your great-great-great-great-granddaddy Forrest had on the auction block? That it could have been your great-great-great-grandmama that Forrest sold to some cruel master to be his cook and concubine? Have you ever really thought that you could have been a slave in Memphis, TN but by act of God you were born a century later? But you had to drive by this statue of a man who made his fortune selling people who looked like you and made his name fighting to keep people like you in chains and in a cotton field? And this man is treated like a hero on land meant to be for all Memphians? And that is alright for you because you don’t believe mistakes need to be corrected because you think people won’t know the history because a symbol has been removed in the name of progress!?!

Yeah bruh, I’m never going to forget the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest like I’ll never forget the names Adolf Hitler or Osama Bin Ladin. And I never had statues of them to snicker at.

How does all of that square with the fact that it was the U.S. flag flying on slave ships rather than the confederate flag?

How many slave traders existed that were never residents of southern states? How many slave owners never lived ins southern states?

Do all symbols need to be eradicated or only certain symbols?

Yeah, its a only a short step to saying the same things about Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington.

Now I don't think Forrest should be honored because of Ft. Pillow. But eliminating Confederates basically is whitewashing out of history everyone born between 1800 and 1850 in the South.

There is a difference between history and monuments. Those statues of Forrest and Davis were hero worship of a symbolic nature. They were messages praising a period when Memphis had slavery and fought to keep it. No one is going to the National Civil Rights Museum and changing any information about the CSA and how it fought to keep slavery going. There just won’t be praise in a very public venue honoring these men for defending slavery.

I’m never going to forget the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest like I’ll never forget the names Adolf Hitler or Osama Bin Ladin. And I never had statues of them to snicker at.

You did the “Whataboutism” too.

Let’s review why Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Forrest, and Davis are remembered for....

Hmmm... Washington, Jefferson, and Madison; slave owners? Yes. Are they famous because of owning slaves? Nope. They are famous for being founders of the USA.

Forrest and Davis... what are they famous for? General of the Confederacy (who worked his way up from being a lowly solder and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, one of the first (if not the first) terrorist organizations in the US; and for being the one president of he CSA.

So why the hell do you try to balance the accomplishments for Confederate legends with the founding fathers?

Forrest is famous for being perhaps the greatest cavalry officer of all time. Davis had a distinguished life before and after the CSA. That's why he was elected president (probably not why Memphis built a statue to him-and that should be considered).

Virtually every prominent southerner sided with the CSA. You lump them all together.