A Link to the Past
Banned
I thought you were talking about the vandal at first
And I was just like "um aren't you exaggerating" lol
Christopher Columbus monument vandalized in Baltimore
- Thread starter ponpo
- Start date
I thought you were talking about the vandal at first
And I was just like "um aren't you exaggerating" lol
These statues haven't been removed because the public desire to have them removed simply isn't strong enough.
If a majority of people in Baltimore don't want it removed (in the case of this statue, not the Confederate monuments) , you can't blame the politicians for not ignoring the will of the people and removing it.
RedSparrows
Member
Devil's advocate: that cuts every way.
"It is estimated that during the initial Spanish conquest of the Americas up to eight million indigenous people died, marking the first large-scale act of genocide of the modern era."
Yeah, totally. Genocide is not the right word. /s
Princess Carl
Member
That's a really weak argument.
Especially for fucking baltimore
A Link to the Past
Banned
A lot of people do want these things removed. I mean, we've had outrage over Confederate statues long before now that didn't result in anything. It's easy to just ignore such an outcry until it explodes. It's why a lot of Confederate statues go down following something like the NC attack.
gutter_trash
Banned
the best way to deal with this is to teach history correctly. Teach history factually.
Keep the statue but also have a plaque next to it which says "Genocider" so people know that Colonialism even if it created a new country also consquencily genocided a bunch of Natives in the process
Keep the statue but also have a plaque next to it which says "Genocider" so people know that Colonialism even if it created a new country also consquencily genocided a bunch of Natives in the process
Oh, I meant Columbus of course. Not the vandal lol.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Yeah I know lol. It's just funny to me that my mind went to that.
what does that even mean?
CampbellzSoup
Member
So you keep pushing the goal line again. Vandalism is wrong, and we should not even remotely be justifying it.
One of the few times I'd say "It belongs in a museum!" is a decent response if this was the oldest monument to him. It would actually serve a historical purpose, showing how primitive colonists approved of a man despised by the very country who gave him funds to set sail.
But no love lost. There are plenty of pictures and 3D models. Find the second oldest one?
Either way, a man responsible for the extermination of an entire peoples (as well as the rape and pillaging of the islands) will get no sympathy from me 500 odd years later.
Vandalism is wrong, as is graffiti and tar and feathering, but I'm not going to go on and on.
But no love lost. There are plenty of pictures and 3D models. Find the second oldest one?
Either way, a man responsible for the extermination of an entire peoples (as well as the rape and pillaging of the islands) will get no sympathy from me 500 odd years later.
Vandalism is wrong, as is graffiti and tar and feathering, but I'm not going to go on and on.
Spieler Eins
Member
"In many instances, however, application of the term genocide is controversial and hotly debated"
Mass murder "alone" is not the definition of genocide and there's very few instances for which a consensus on the right use of the term was found (it was originally created for the Armenian Genocide and Holocaust and iirc ever since only the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia have been widely accepted as such).
MagnaderAlpha
Member
They are championing the status quo. "This is how it's always been" and how "This is how it's always been" is "RIGHT". The concept of thinking everything one has known is a lie, and that they've been unaware of the truth for MUCH of their lives is a hard pill to swallow. There are a LOT of ignorant people out there that fear this change, as it's like pulling the rug from under them.
Regardless, if you are a level-headed adult, you can come to peace with the idea that you are wrong and people around you that taught you such misinformation were also wrong. I think one of the key parts of becoming an adult is coming to the realization that nobody is perfect, and people you held in high regards as a child (like parents, older family members, teachers) are not perfect human beings, are flawed and make mistakes. But to a lot of people, questioning that shit is like a sorta sacrilege. "But, my parents are never wrong. The Bible tells us to honor them. Elders are ALWAYS wise. No 'but's, this is the definite TRUTH!". Some people just gotta get over it.
I think they place a similar false idea on some of these statues, believing in them as being something MORE than they truly are. Confederate statues don't acknowledge "heroes of the United States", but worship "traitors of the United States". Columbus was important to history, but was also a rat bastard that didn't deserve a statue.The work of these men and the quality of their character should be a means to judge whether they deserve a statue or not. Place statues that inspire Americans, be it a figure that has fought for equality or compassion, or an abstract statue of what good Americans can accomplish if they work together.
RedSparrows
Member
What an awful term. At least write a sentence that doesn't butcher a noun into a verb!
A Link to the Past
Banned
Yeah, that's not in reply to anything I actually said. I responded to the notion that every instance of vandalism in the history of time is wrong, and if we assume that this very silly view of the crime is true, it doesn't change the fact that the vandalism is the product of inaction.
RedSparrows
Member
That you posit one idea of history in place of another, and then someone else can do the same, and on and on.
Seeing this "erasing muh history" argument on social media (not on these forums, although I haven't looked through this thread to see if there is a genius among us) gives me them conniptions.
Plenty of history on these individuals in books to learn from. None of it is being erased. You don't need a statue that idolizes them as something they're not (a good human being worthy of such a monument to commemorate them).
Keeping their statue continues to paint that false image they do not deserve, and thus they should be removed. I see very little reason to be against their removal besides being against change for the sake of not liking change or some people must support what these terrible people did in the past and thus feel they must be idolized.
Vandalism, of course, isn't the proper means to raise awareness in removing these statues. However, I won't shed a tear because of it.
Plenty of history on these individuals in books to learn from. None of it is being erased. You don't need a statue that idolizes them as something they're not (a good human being worthy of such a monument to commemorate them).
Keeping their statue continues to paint that false image they do not deserve, and thus they should be removed. I see very little reason to be against their removal besides being against change for the sake of not liking change or some people must support what these terrible people did in the past and thus feel they must be idolized.
Vandalism, of course, isn't the proper means to raise awareness in removing these statues. However, I won't shed a tear because of it.
QuantumZebra
Member
Nah history has documented facts and evidence
People stanning for Columbus are stuck on "1492 Colombus sailed the ocean blue and nothign beyond that"
A Link to the Past
Banned
Ultimately, that it was not put in a museum is a failing of the Baltimore government, not the populace. We should be actively calling on the government to preserve historically relevant monuments dedicated to awful people, rather than using that to criticize the vandal. Inevitably, a statue or monument like this is going to get vandalized, especially in our current political climate.
Elegant Weapon
Member
Just because we're socially programmed to revere some historical figure does not mean they deserve it. Everyone knows Columbus was a monster.
Don't tell me you're cool with celebrating a genocidal maniac because he accidentally arrived at a land mass but you can't excuse vandalism of his monument.
RedSparrows
Member
Not mutually exclusive to my point. But anyway,there isn't the time or space for this discussion really. Everything moves too fast!
Stop spreading this lie. It was erected so that people could remember Columbus for what he did, not purported to do. People knew what it was in 1792. The game was: Subjugate blacks, exploit everyone else who isn't "white", idolize and make statues of those who do it best. The history was changed going forward, this statue went up during a time when people were still continuing the carnage that Columbus began.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
Its the illiberal, Illegal and unrepresentative unilateral destruction that I particularly take umbrage with.
The thing itself is history, and the idea that anyone with umbrage can go and destroy it because imperialism is exactly what the red guards did and I should like to think were abov that kind of thing.
Stallion Dan
Member
Referendum:
A. Take down statues, but end the holiday
B. Keep statues and holiday.
gutter_trash
Banned
History should not be opinion based but fact based.
You can have an opinion of liking or not liking the facts but at the end of the day let the record of positives and negatives be disclosed factually for what they were.
History classes in many countries don't teach history factually but nationalistically
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Dudes you don't want one fewer holiday. Be smart about it like Latin American, don't freaking call it "Columbus Day", keep the day off.
The turd i dropped this morning is a literal piece of world history. No problem flushing that thing into the sewer. I would flush a Columbus statue if i could.
molnizzle
Member
I think the difference is in 1792 this monument almost certainly wasn't erected in response to any abolitionist movement. The confederate monuments from the 60's were erected as a middle finger to the civil rights movement.
Though I do think those should be in a museum as well, I don't particularly mind when they're destroyed because of what they represent. I'm also less upset because... well, they're not as old. Many people who were alive when the confederate statues went up are still around today. It's no real loss of "history" to me. I dunno.
andythinkpad
Member
Do Columbia celebrate Columbus Day?
That's negligible if not irrelevant, the pyramids were a physical manifestation of how great and important a pharaoh was (or thought he/she was) and in ancient Egypt slavery was present.
It's still a monument to celebrate a person that in some way or another supported slavery.
And regardless it's only a tiny speck of the examples it has been brought.
Snarky(HEART)
Banned
Man, I've been seeing people here get way more upset about vandalism than they ever have about racism against minorities, especially people from outside the US.
RedSparrows
Member
I don't want to go on about this for too long, because I was only playing devil's advocate, but facts and opinions are not mutually exclusive: the latter is built on a constellation of the former, and the latter in turn informs (mis)understanding of other facts. I quite agree that 'records of positives and negatives' should be discussed, but this should be done in a self-aware manner.
I am not suggesting that I think all ideas of history are equal, but nor do I think it safe to assume that appealing to an 'objective' history is problem-free.
---
A thought: if Columbus and other figures inherent in the European colonisation of the Americas are to be treated as this problematic, are there some here who consider the entire 'fact' of the USA, Canada, Mexico et al as inherently undesirable? I mean, if the whole project of colonialism was abhorrent, what are its children? I am curious as to whether there are people who would argue that.
Don't see a Nazi state in Germany, and they took down a good amount of those Nazi statues. Like almost all of them.
I swear, when did statue based education become so important? Last time I checked, I read about Columbus in World History and AP US history, and yet have never encountered a statue of him in my life.
Martinski43
Member
I also feel like many of the people in the thread that are fine with destroying statues are in line with what the Red Guard was doing. Funny since the Red Guard is communist and i suspect the people that are fine with destroying historical pieces identifies as left.
Same thing came up recently where some historical nazi artifacts were discovered in Argentina, bunch of people here came out saying they should be destroyed.
Man am i glad people like these aren't in charge (currently anyway, who knows about the future) of preserving history.
Fixed.
Elegant Weapon
Member
please, it's a monument to imperialism. Let's not pretend the people who erected it was interested in representing anything but themselves & their conquests, not the people who were here before, people brought here against their will or those who came after.
Anytime you can destroy monuments of oppression is a good thing.
It's laughable that you cry about this being illegal but since Columbus' victims were killed within the law of some government, it's whatever right? Fuck that
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
"Día de la Raza y la Hispanidad"
more or less "Day of Race and Hispanic heritage"
Elegant Weapon
Member
you must be joking. No one remembers Columbus as a warning of what could happen again. Honestly, is that how you were taught the legacy of Columbus in school?
Yeah, it's pretty disturbing to see how many outside our country seem so invested in us keeping monuments of white supremacy
seeing way too many fb posts from white dudes from some unrelated country crying about American history.