General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs a long-time resident of Durham NC, I want to remark on the mob action here today
See (for example)
Protesters pull down Confederate statue at old Durham County courthouse
http://wnct.com/2017/08/14/protesters-pull-down-confederate-statue-at-old-durham-county-courthouse/
Nelson Mandela, at some point during his long imprisonment, remarked that the sabotage campaign in South Africa had been a strategic blunder, because it took time and energy away from organizational work
A similar comment must apply here. I am not sorry to learn that the confederate monument has been removed. But I am filled with sorrowful regret and angst that it was removed by mob action. I cannot think of much in favor of mob action: lynchings were mob actions; so were the 1898 Wilmington NC insurrection, the 1917 East St. Louis massacres, and the 1923 Rosewood FL massacre; so was Kristallnacht
There is no politically credible way to argue in favor of mob actions that suit our views while arguing against those that do not suit our views: we either condemn every mob action or we condemn none, since anything else is transparent hypocrisy. We can discipline ourselves and organize for slow but lasting political change -- or we can yield to sudden passions and finally glare at each other across the ruins of our democracy
I've always been happy to advocate the removal of Confederate monuments. But events like this poison the discussion: for the next few years, in any disagreement about Confederate monuments, I'll be forced to discuss whether I approve of mobs damaging things on public property -- and since I don't, I'll have to waste my breath explaining that I don't. Under those conditions, the conversation is always likely to become a public relations disaster for my views, so perhaps I'd to better to avoid the topic completely
Yeah, thanks a lot, a-holz: with friends like you, I'll get nowhere at all, twice as fast as I did before
greeny2323
(590 posts)Although I understand the reaction, these monuments need to be removed through lawful action.
RandySF
(57,588 posts)As far as I'm concerned, they saved taxpayers some money tearing it down.
Bladewire
(381 posts)Racism has no place in 2017.
https://s.yimg.com/iu/api/res/1.2/u1nJqWodwdW9qzelGfIFag--~C/cm90YXRlPWF1dG87dz05NjA7YXBwaWQ9eXZpZGVv/
JanetLovesObama
(548 posts)Watching that statue come down MADE MY DAY !!!!!
AJT
(5,240 posts)BootinUp
(46,924 posts)These days.
haveahart
(905 posts)DURHAM D
(32,595 posts)I am actually surprised it survived this long in such a racially diverse city.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)from voting to remove the statues, as Ch'ville's city council did.
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)from the entrance. I walked past it quite a few times over the years before I finally looked at it and realized what it was. A number of politically active Durhamites regarded any proposal to remove it as something of a red herring and thought money spent carting it away could be spent better on more pressing problems. I expect many will now argue that money that might be spent repairing it could be spent better on more pressing problems --- and if they argue thus, I will support them
PCIntern
(25,341 posts)When they go low we go high
How's that been working out for us lately?
My motto: kick 'em in the nuts and make them apologize for being born.
(Metaphorically of course! I would never advocate the use of violence.)
yardwork
(61,408 posts)forgotmylogin
(7,496 posts)And the metaphorical butts of thousands of neo-supremacists.
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,161 posts)These monuments have been coming down for a couple of years now. It usually starts with a complaint to a city council followed by community debate and a vote. That's the orderly way to do it. I understand NC has some draconian state laws that take the power away from cities there which is why this group probably did it that way, but generally speaking an orderly approach should be the preferred approach. It also promotes a more lasting understanding in a community about why these monuments should be coming down.
All that being said, it's exciting to see the passion.
politicat
(9,808 posts)Ms. Toad
(33,915 posts)They did not form a mob to win by brute force. That is a disingenuous comparison.
politicat
(9,808 posts)Per American law at the time, those women were breaking the law -- per Wilson and the DC police, their very presence was unlawful. They were considered a mob to be imprisoned. When the citizens have no legal mechanism for action, all of their actions are illegal, which is also true in Durham regarding removal of statues. That is my specific comparison -- what they were doing, at the time, was illegal. If they were not willing to break laws to accomplish their goals, suffrage would not have happened. I also remind you that the statue is the property of the citizens, maintained at citizen expense, but the citizens have no legal recourse to remove or move that furniture they are forced to maintain.
The American suffrage movement had close ties to the British suffrage movement, and the Brits trained many of the early 19th century American leaders. The American leaders also had close ties with labor and immigrants' advocacy and the anarchism of the time. The British suffrage movement did engage in mob and sabotage action, regularly. The American movement did have its own form of self-protection -- working class women whose primary activism came from the labor movement. (These women are almost forgotten in the history, but start with Rebecca Edwards' Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era.) Including rock throwing, carrying rolling pins and fighting back when suffrage demonstrations were attacked.
The young men engaged in sit-ins were also breaking the law, and were treated as law-breakers. Their presence was the illegal act. And again, if the law does not allow action, those who take action are forced beyond the law to obtain justice. If they had not broken the law, the law would never have changed.
Most Americans get something much closer to hagiography than history about our previous civil rights movements. Neither the suffrage movement nor the civil rights movement were always legal, always absolutely peaceful, always passive. We've been told that by those in power because it's much easier to ignore activists who aren't inconvenient.
BannonsLiver
(16,161 posts)What you are saying, however, is that the communities that made a decision together for the greater good to remove these statues are doing it wrong. It's illogical, and a bit simplistic, but hey the mob approach is more feel good I suppose. We're all about the "feels" these days. To hell with the institutions like city councils and civic organizations that serve as the backbone of our country.
yardwork
(61,408 posts)The brave people you pictured withstood mob violence. They were nonviolent, and that's why they won. People all over America saw images of peaceful people being attacked by violent mobs, and that powerful dynamic changed minds and laws.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)There's a right way and a wrong way to do this.
A mob toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein did nothing to bring peace to Iraq.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)it didn't accomplish anything useful.
yardwork
(61,408 posts)demmiblue
(36,742 posts)struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)and destroy a painting they did not like? Or would allow such a mob to march into a local library to remove and burn books they considered unacceptable?
yardwork
(61,408 posts)pnwmom
(108,925 posts)the confederate statues.
Durham County, where this statue was located, voted for Hillary by 79% and most likely would approve the legal removal of the statue -- just as Charlottesville, VA's city council just voted to remove theirs. But the state, with a gerrymandered legislature dominated by Republicans, prevents them from doing so.
roamer65
(36,739 posts)There is a reason for it.
These statues can go the way of the Hitler ones.
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)Due to a North Carolina state law passed a few years ago, Durham County is prohibited from removing or making substantive alteration to historical monuments and memorials. I share this to say that there is a statute in place making the efforts you mention below difficult to move forward. I would assume that the only thing possible are steps to reverse the law.
And I don't see this as mob action. It was protestors. No different than the people who secured the Trump chicken next to the White House
LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)these statues. People sit in trees to block cities from cutting them down. That is civil disobedience too.
Besides these are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures.
LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)I've signed several petitions to have this statue removed and went to a Heather Heyer vigil. The Heather Heyer vigil was held next to a confederate monument that we have been trying to have removed. There there was also KKK rally at the same spot on Saturday.
There is a good chance that we will get this one removed. So please just stop it. What are you doing to get rid of statues??? Why are you picking a fight with me????
Here is a picture of me that was taken last night. I'm holding the "No KKK" sign. And that huge thing in the background is the confederate monument. Quit accusing me of protecting statues. I'm sick of it.
If you want to come to San Antonio and topple this huge thing over by yourself, go ahead.
&ts=20170814080529
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)unbalanced by partisan gerrymandering. Way too many Dems sat on their hands in 2010 so the GOP got to redistrict here after the census. So when pressure mounted against Confederate memorials after the 17 June 2015 Charleston shootings, the GOP rushed it through, and the GOP governor immediately signed it
The law should go: local memorials should be governed by local decisions. But the Durham pull-down will protect that law from repeal for years to come --- the yahoos will wave their hands and shrieks that they are protecting "history" from crazy mobs
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)and more acts like it might cause the local politicians to want to remove the law if nothing more than stopping all the "mobs"
LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)Someone is trying to get a law like that in Texas. Fortunately, the legislature won't meet until 2019. We might get a few monuments moved before then.
I can see why they are frustrated. Complaining to the city or county won't do them any good. Getting a law changed is their only hope.
Voltaire2
(12,610 posts)No I am not going to shit on this action.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)like run over and kill someone or beat the crap out of someone with poles.
Look, there are two ways to take this. Either you see it as mob violence in the same vein as the Nazis, or you see it as the majority standing up for themselves when their government refuses to. I'm sorry, but I have to view it as the latter.
shanny
(6,709 posts)If this is still where we all are, 160 years on, maybe it is time for the rage to boil over.
leftstreet
(36,076 posts)Confederate Monument, Durham
Type
Common Soldier Statue
Subjects
Civil War
Creator
McNeel Marble Company, Marietta, GA, Supplier
City
Durham
County
Durham
Description
An armed and uniformed soldier stands atop a granite tower adorned with the Confederate seal. On the base of the monument are four stone cannon balls and two lighted lamps. In total the monument stands approximately fifteen feet high.
Images: Front View | Top View
Inscription
Front: IN MEMORY OF / THE BOYS WHO / WORE THE GRAY
Image
Left: DEDICATED MAY 10TH, 1924
Right: THIS MEMORIAL / ERECTED BY / THE PEOPLE OF / DURHAM COUNTY.
Custodian
Durham County
Dedication Date
May 10, 1924
http://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/118/
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)but were an essential part of the culture of resurgent white supremacism. The monument was placed at the courthouse to send a public message about whose courthouse it was and who could expect justice there
But it is also important to understand that political views can lag decades behind the times. Eventrually there was a new courthouse --- and the monument was not moved. Then there was an even newer courthouse, and the monument still was not moved. It would have been a bold move for three hundred people to pull down that monument in 1954. Today it is an easy vandalism: Durham is a reliably liberal city, and had there been widespread demand to remove the monument, it would probably not have been difficult to haver it removed. The reality may simply be that hardly anybody cared
oswaldactedalone
(3,489 posts)Tear that damn thing down and do the same thing to the rest of them.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)When my daughter was in grade school we lied in a development that had Civil War themes for the streets and schools.
I believe that she went to Shilo Hills Grade Schools.
Her first grade teacher was, by strange coincidence the wife of one of my favorite and liberal professors at college.
I asked her if she wouldn't mind going to the cafeteria and we stood in the middle of the cafeteria and I asked her if she saw anything unusual about the cafeteria. She looked thoughtfully around and said no and I pointed to the beautiful mural at the top of the wall that had many symbols of both the union and confederate armies.
I said, what about the Confederate flag and she responded "Well yes I know but I see it part of a larger picture of inclusion".
I said to her "Sure but no pretend you are an African American 9 year old boy and you look up at a flag which was a symbol for the enslavement of your great great grand parents, how would you see that?"
She physically jerked back and looked at me. I returned in a couple of weeks and it was painted out.
While i sympathize with you about the additional burdens of having to, a couple of days a year, engaging in someone and having to explain about this terrible "mob action" I wonder how the AA workers who have to pass this permanent state of humiliation on a daily basis feel.
Maybe you can ask the next person who brings the issue up you can ask them to pretend that they are African American and walk past that on the way to work and realize that the state still supports institutionalizing continued humiliation. How would that person feel if they were African American and every day had to pass that statue on the way to work, honoring the person who fought and killed people to keep your great great grandparents in slavery?
yardwork
(61,408 posts)Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)civil disobedience needs to happen. That doesn't make it a damn mob
grantcart
(53,061 posts)It appears that the local authorities were against maintaining the statue but were constrained by the state legislature.
or were you making a comment on the story in the grade school?
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)... "Because this incident occurred on county property, where county law enforcement officials were staffed, no arrests were made by DPD officers," Durham Police spokesman Wil Glenn said in a statement. Durham County Sheriffs deputies videotaped the statue being brought down but didnt stop it from happening ... In an email to CBS North Carolina, Durham County spokeswoman Dawn Dudley says: "Due to a North Carolina state law passed a few years ago, Durham County is prohibited from removing or making substantive alteration to historical monuments and memorials. I share this to say that there is a statute in place making the efforts you mention below difficult to move forward. I would assume that the only thing possible are steps to reverse the law" ...
Protesters pull down Confederate statue at old Durham County courthouse
By Derrick Lewis and CBS North Carolina
Published: August 14, 2017, 6:38 pm Updated: August 14, 2017, 10:25 pm
Governor Roy Cooper?Verified account
@NC_Governor
The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments #durham - RC
Link to tweet
Snackshack
(2,540 posts)Last edited Tue Aug 15, 2017, 12:27 AM - Edit history (1)
Violence does not take place in a vacuum. Evolution takes time, its only been a few hundred years since we stopped burning people at the stake. We're just not there yet, may not ever get there, we have had plenty of time to learn. So until we are there differing points of view will be address by our species using the simplistic method of violence as has been for an embarrassingly long time.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Mob action is destructive, no matter who does it.
womanofthehills
(8,579 posts)I loved what they did.
liquid diamond
(1,917 posts)greatest traitors this country ever faced. There should be no statues paying homage to those assholes.
Expecting Rain
(811 posts)There is a right way and a wrong way to proceed.
Too many trolls on this forum for my taste.
DemocraticWing
(1,290 posts)Come on folks, we've got to wake up! Our institutions aren't there to serve us, they are there to oppress us. Tear down those statues by any means necessary.
BannonsLiver
(16,161 posts)That would be news to folks in New Orleans, Lexington, Austin and Baltimore that have removed these monuments through active civic engagement. No mobs needed. But hey what do they know.
David__77
(23,214 posts)I understand your position and also think it's fine to remove them.
LeftInTX
(24,541 posts)Since these statues belong to Confederate groups, they should be returned to their rightful owners. If the Confederate groups want their statues back intact, then they should change the law.
It is a long shot because normally vandalism accomplishes nothing...
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Sometimes things move quickly. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the way this is remembered. And Jesus himself occasionally took matters in hand when he saw injustice being done, or at least he did once, when he cast the money changers out of the temple. Here's what ML King Jr. says about time:
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)ExciteBike66
(2,280 posts)but I think your blanket condemnation of this "mob" action is not correct. If the "mob" had hurt people or broken into local businesses a la the WTO protests, I would agree with you. However, the "mob" here did nothing but harm the offending statue itself, which is the goal. This action draws attention to the problem without harming any innocent people or their property.
In fact, I would wish for all our protesters on the left to act in such a restrained manner.
bigtree
(85,915 posts)...I personally don't care how they come down.
I see the 'mob' differently. They're citizens engaging in an act of civil disobedience, for a very valid and worthy cause.
Worrying over 'public relations' seems a luxury, compared with living with the abominations erected as a resistance to civil rights for black Americans. They would have been TREASONOUS, if erected right after the war's end. They're no less treasonous now.
Worrying over the PR is a sad reflection of how ingrained the racism is, so much that we'd spend more than a moment's time considering how those who support such offensive displays will react.
Link to tweet
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)[link:|
kentuck
(110,947 posts)Irrational actions seldom lead to anything good. Although it may make us feel good in the moment.
Squinch
(50,773 posts)removal, a locality that finds them offensive should just get rid of it.
ColoradoBlue
(104 posts)There has been so much anger and sadness over the events in Charlottesville that I think it makes people feel helpless (I know I do). They need something - anything - that feels like they're making a difference, big or small. An outlet to channel their outrage and grief.
Luckily, these people didn't choose to beat up a Nazi in the street or show up with torches and pitchforks at the home of someone flying a Confederate flag. Instead, they took down an offensive statue.
I am by no means saying this should become the norm with how we handle things. When we can create meaningful change by working with the system, we absolutely should. But sometimes, we just need a "win" (a peaceful one, of course) to buoy us in this long, hard slog of resistance. I am very much a "by the book" gal but I admit watching that statue come down lifted my spirits and reminded me I'm not alone, and that there are many, many people who are fighting the good fight alongside me.