I'm not sure what happened to the Petition to Remove Tribe --> Tribe, Tensions & Tacos thread, but I think we did an excellent job staying close to home, respectful and engaging. I had considered moving it to OT at one point, but decided against it because A) no one complained and B) the topics relating to the thread, whether we like it or not, definitely spill over to W&M.

So, let's talk.

A new petition circulating now. Hollis Mathis wants Names Changed & Take Down the Statues.

William and Mary: W&M: Change the Names, Take Down the Statues - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/x2PDIGP4qY via @Change

Two days after he released that tweet and it has 3 likes - London Jr, mom, and a self-proclaimed black activist; however, over a 1,000 people signed the petition.

As I stated in the other thread, this is where Carl & Michael should've remained focused.

My thoughts are, a committee made up of students, faculty and other stakeholders should reconsider the names on EVERY building and develop a comprehensive list of individuals who positively impacted W&M.

4 US Presidents, notable chemist, philanthropist, scholars, doctors, lawyers, political figures, inventors, military, historical figures, etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...ary_alumni

Give building names a deep cleaning and start over. We don't owe Millington, Blair, Jones, or Ewell a thing (just putting names out there, not suggesting they're on my hit list).

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I would tend to agree with that, Tribal.

The legacy of someone like Jefferson is complicated, he was a slave owner, but he also helped to end the slave trade and served as President. None of the 45 Presidents of the US have been perfect, to claim so would be folly. To claim they were all horrible monsters also feels like folly to me.

I think it makes sense for the school to have statues of its presidential alums, it makes the school look impressive to boast that several Presidents have went here, but it sorta seems like my opinion is in the minority there. The school shouldn't disown a former President of the United States as an alum.

As you said, a lot of the other names I have less of an opinion on, and most people, myself included, know little about their legacies. If you were to tell my Jones has done XYZ terrible things, I would have no qualms to changing the name of that building (No offense intended to the legacy of Jones, I just picked a name that I know little about).

I have an idea for a new movement. HISTORY MATTERS!!

Maybe I'm just misreading but I'm having trouble understanding the petition. It wants to rename all buildings and remove all statues of anyone who owned slaves?

It appears that way..

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(06-24-2020 09:46 AM)WMTRIBE75 Wrote:  I have an idea for a new movement. HISTORY MATTERS!!

Best of luck with your movement. Keep us all posted on what happens!

(06-24-2020 09:59 AM)zablenoise Wrote:  Maybe I'm just misreading but I'm having trouble understanding the petition. It wants to rename all buildings and remove all statues of anyone who owned slaves?

Quoting Zable even though some of what I'm saying isn't directly related to his statement.

Hollis is targeting an area that to me is the biggest grey area in all of this for my mind. I read the petition and it makes some very compelling points to me. It's easy to write it off as "anyone who owned slaves", but even the petition is a bit more nuanced than that IMO. My read is it's more about "anyone that played a part in prolonging slavery". I think.

And that's where things get fuzzy for me. When does the line get drawn for "product of their time" vs. "should have known better"? I'm not great with history (Sociology major and IT Professional here), but there were strong movements in the late 1700s for abolishing slavery with the first law (based on some googling) abolishing the Slave Trade passed in 1792 by Denmark. So it's not like the idea that slavery was bad was completely foreign in their day and age.

At the same time, it's what they knew. It seems very obvious to us in our modern sensibilities that it was wrong, but when that's the world you know it's hard to shift out of it. When should we have reasonably expected that?

For me things like Confederate leaders, anti-civil rights leaders of the mid 20th century, etc are more cut and dry. Society was clearly recognizing wrongs and they fought against those things. Many of the leaders that Hollis is referencing here sit more in that "grey" area. An area that I can't say "yes, obviously they should go away". An area that I also can't say, "this is a ridiculous assertion, there is no merit".

It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out not just at the College, but around the US.

Precision is key. They need to lay out one statue and one building. Get the ball rolling.

In my view, any activity prior to 1865 gets a pass. Many, like some of my Irish ancestors, were literally forced to war off the boat. Learn about the Draft Act of 1863, how the rich could buy their way out of it for $200, and how immigrants were handed a gun off the boat to make the numbers. Or the teenage boys who were forced to fight for the Confederacy. Think they had much choice? Should we condemn them 157 years and 6 generations later?

Sen Byrd was grand puba of the KKK and he was given a hero's burial by the same people banging the drum to have 200 yo statues torn down.

Or calling to fire Ralph Northam bc he dressed in blackface for a party 30 years ago.

Folks, we can't CANCEL everyone. Is it at all possible to consider mitigating evil with time? At what point do we moveon.org?

I think it is a wonderful opportunity for the W&M community to determine a path going forward. Rather than a blanket take them all down countered by protect all the monuments/building names at all costs, I'd hope the very intelligent current students could lay out their grievances to intelligent alumni and administrators. I'd hope that reasonable common ground could be hammered out. Will it make everyone happy? Absolutely not. Could it be a bridge to making W&M the more inclusive place we should all want it to be? Quite possibly.

I view it this way. Look at every building and every statue and ask if we are proud of the person/name given where we are today. As someone who went to the college and has kept in touch, I can honestly say that I have no idea who Jones, Millington, Small, Morton, Swem, Ludwell, Brian, Yates, Barrett, or almost any of the other people were and why we named buildings after them. They mean absolutely nothing to me other than I know I had classes in some of them (I rarely went to the library). That said, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Tyler are probably keepers in my mind (and align with Tribal's pre Civil War reference).

Should we be embarrassed to have buildings named after horrible people? Absolutely. Maybe Hollis can start to educate us on how folks on the petition feel about it.

We were very quick to act when Darren Sharper (a horrible person) was found guilty. We should probably do the same right now for the buildings and statues. If the Redskins can get rid of George Preston Marshall from their stadium, offices, and web site, we should be able to do something similar.

We are never, and I mean never going backwards on this stuff. George Floyd is going to be a martyr who will remain historically significant for a real long time. We need to understand it and move forward.

"Glasgow’s William of Orange statue under threat over slave links as campaigners vandalise monument"

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/56...am-orange/

This topic has me thinking. Laycock is deemed ineligible for the College Football HOF because he's 4% shy of the 60% winning % threshold. Different topic but has me thinking of the vile humans who received and continue to receive that high honor.

Take a look at some of names of various HOF inductees. MLB has some real POS sitting in Canton...Cap Anson, Orlando Cepeda, and Ty Cobb.

If the move is to exclude segregationist, [criminals] and bigots, it's only a matter of time before these honors are removed. [Brackets] because we will never hold felonious activity over someone's head the way we do bigotry or racism.

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(06-24-2020 09:46 AM)WMTRIBE75 Wrote:  I have an idea for a new movement. HISTORY MATTERS!!

History does matter, but it is wrong to conflate statues and monuments with historical preservation. In Germany, it is mandatory for every student to study World War II, including the Holocaust. In addition to the classroom curriculum, almost all students have either visited a concentration camp or a Holocaust memorial or museum. What you won’t find in Germany is a single statue or monument of Hitler or other high-ranking Nazis. They understand the difference between studying history and celebrating it.

So why is that we have statues and monuments in prominent public spaces commemorating traitors that took up arms against this country to “preserve their way of life”, which is only a euphemistic way of saying to keep a race of people in bondage and treat them as property.

Let’s be honest, these confederate statues and monuments, primarily erected in the former confederate states during the segregation era, weren’t erected as some sort of exercise in historical preservation. We have text books, battlefields preserved as national parks, museums, and Ken Burns for that purpose. No, these statues were erected as symbolic gestures and to celebrate these figures. The message, we may have lost the war, but white culture and supremacy remain and here’s a not so subtle reminder. From 1984 -2000 Virginia celebrated Generals Lee and Jackson on the same day as MLK (calling it Lee-Jackson-King Day). This was no accident and it had nothing to do with preserving history. Like the statues it was another strong message that nothing is ever really going to change.

We aren’t "losing our history" when statues of Lee, Jackson, Davis and other confederates come down. What we are doing is removing a painful reminder to African Americans that you may be technically free, but you’ll never be welcomed fully as equals here. Let me state here that I’m not for these decisions being made by mobs of rioters yanking them down, but I also understand the frustration because they should have been removed from public view long ago by a society that claims to value equality and justice for all. A society that should no longer be celebrating men that fought to preserve an immoral and inhuman practice long after much of the world had already moved on and recognized the wrong.

How about this - carefully remove Confederate statues and sell them. Donate proceeds to various Black charities.

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(06-24-2020 01:26 PM)Tribal Wrote:  Precision is key. They need to lay out one statue and one building. Get the ball rolling.

In my view, any activity prior to 1865 gets a pass. Many, like some of my Irish ancestors, were literally forced to war off the boat. Learn about the Draft Act of 1863, how the rich could buy their way out of it for $200, and how immigrants were handed a gun off the boat to make the numbers. Or the teenage boys who were forced to fight for the Confederacy. Think they had much choice? Should we condemn them 157 years and 6 generations later?

Sen Byrd was grand puba of the KKK and he was given a hero's burial by the same people banging the drum to have 200 yo statues torn down.

Or calling to fire Ralph Northam bc he dressed in blackface for a party 30 years ago.

Folks, we can't CANCEL everyone. Is it at all possible to consider mitigating evil with time? At what point do we moveon.org?

I agree that each figure should be viewed independently and in the context of their time. I therefore think Thomas Jefferson gets a pass, along with others from that era. I strongly disagree with your assertion that Civil War figures get a pass. Sure, like in any war, you feel sorry for the foot soldiers that don’t get to question the cause and go and do what they’re told. But, these are not the folks for which monuments are erected either. Nope, the folks who have monuments erected were the true believers, the leaders of their movements, the ones who could have walked away or been on the right side of history. Lee chose to fight with the Confederacy. He attended West Point, he could have joined the Union army or sat the war out. He and the other wealthy, landed Confederate Generals chose to fight to preserve slavery in the US of A long after much of the world and half of this country recognized it for the evil it was. They don’t get a pass and they don’t deserve statues and monuments in public spaces of honor.

(06-24-2020 03:36 PM)Tribal Wrote:  How about this - carefully remove Confederate statues and sell them. Donate proceeds to various Black charities.

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I can see it now. Some rich guy in Mississippi will have a giant Robert E Lee statue in his front yard.

(06-24-2020 03:36 PM)WMTribe90 Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 01:26 PM)Tribal Wrote:  Precision is key. They need to lay out one statue and one building. Get the ball rolling.

In my view, any activity prior to 1865 gets a pass. Many, like some of my Irish ancestors, were literally forced to war off the boat. Learn about the Draft Act of 1863, how the rich could buy their way out of it for $200, and how immigrants were handed a gun off the boat to make the numbers. Or the teenage boys who were forced to fight for the Confederacy. Think they had much choice? Should we condemn them 157 years and 6 generations later?

Sen Byrd was grand puba of the KKK and he was given a hero's burial by the same people banging the drum to have 200 yo statues torn down.

Or calling to fire Ralph Northam bc he dressed in blackface for a party 30 years ago.

Folks, we can't CANCEL everyone. Is it at all possible to consider mitigating evil with time? At what point do we moveon.org?

I agree that each figure should be viewed independently and in the context of their time. I therefore think Thomas Jefferson gets a pass, along with others from that era. I strongly disagree with your assertion that Civil War figures get a pass. Sure, like in any war, you feel sorry for the foot soldiers that don’t get to question the cause and go and do what they’re told. But, these are not the folks for which monuments are erected either. Nope, the folks who have monuments erected were the true believers, the leaders of their movements, the ones who could have walked away or been on the right side of history. Lee chose to fight with the Confederacy. He attended West Point, he could have joined the Union army or sat the war out. He and the other wealthy, landed Confederate Generals chose to fight to preserve slavery in the US of A long after much of the world and half of this country recognized it for the evil it was. They don’t get a pass and they don’t deserve statues and monuments in public spaces of honor.

I said any activity, not any person. Like Senator Byrd, it's possible to recognize our evil deeds and have the courage and capacity to repent and rectify. Should his statue be removed from Capitol Square?

Had Robert E. Lee spent the remainder of his post-war life fighting for civil rights, I'd give him a pass. C.P. Ellis did more to advance civil rights than Al Sharpton.

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(06-24-2020 03:45 PM)mrjoolius Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 03:36 PM)Tribal Wrote:  How about this - carefully remove Confederate statues and sell them. Donate proceeds to various Black charities.

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I can see it now. Some rich guy in Mississippi will have a giant Robert E Lee statue in his front yard.

I considered that, but BLM can use the $10k and old Mr. Robert Whiteman would have to stare at that statue every day realizing his money is in Black hands. You don't see the irony in that?

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(06-24-2020 03:53 PM)Tribal Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 03:45 PM)mrjoolius Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 03:36 PM)Tribal Wrote:  How about this - carefully remove Confederate statues and sell them. Donate proceeds to various Black charities.

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I can see it now. Some rich guy in Mississippi will have a giant Robert E Lee statue in his front yard.

I considered that, but BLM can use the $10k and old Mr. Robert Whiteman would have to stare at that statue every day realizing his money is in Black hands. You don't see the irony in that?

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I think that's a reasonable plan. The optics of it seem weird, but if a private citizen wants to display Robert E Lee on their property, it's their right to do so.

(06-24-2020 03:53 PM)Tribal Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 03:45 PM)mrjoolius Wrote:  

(06-24-2020 03:36 PM)Tribal Wrote:  How about this - carefully remove Confederate statues and sell them. Donate proceeds to various Black charities.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

I can see it now. Some rich guy in Mississippi will have a giant Robert E Lee statue in his front yard.

I considered that, but BLM can use the $10k and old Mr. Robert Whiteman would have to stare at that statue every day realizing his money is in Black hands. You don't see the irony in that?

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

I think that's a reasonable plan. The optics of it seem weird, but if a private citizen wants to display Robert E Lee on their property, it's their right to do so.