As a person who reads and studies history, and as a person who enjoys art and statuary, I am disturbed by the thought of destroying and/or removing statues due to history. I tried to get started on this point last night, when writing about the protest and counter-protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. But I decided I needed to write about the confrontation, and not what was, supposedly, the cause. The purported reason for the Ku Klux Klan, and the "Unite the Right" groups congregation was to protest the removal of a statue of General Robert E Lee. The Lee statue had been erected in 1923 in what was then named the Robert E Lee Park. In the early 1970s, the name of the park was changed to Emancipation Park.
The City of Charlottesville set up a committee several years ago to discuss the fate of what could be considered "divisional art," which included statues in the city. The majority of members on this committee were African-American, and the committee had planned for them to be the majority, as it was decided those members could best decide what would be offensive to people who were black. Two propositions were put forward for statues, plaques, and markers that might be deemed offensive to the black community: (1) to just remove the items that were deemed offensive and/or demeaning; or (2) to leave them in place with the viewpoints of several historians, both African-American and white, as to what the items represented, and explaining their parts in the history of this nation, and, particularly, in Virginia. The committee voted to keep the statue of Robert E Lee; the elected City Council voted for it to be removed. After the furor caused by the removal announcement, and the planned protest of yesterday; a judge granted an injunction that nothing should be done to, or with, the Lee statue until January 2018, when the City Council must, again, make a decision.
Now, I am very definitely a white, or Caucasian, person. I have very pale skin which freckles and burns. I have light colored eyes. I was born with red hair, which turned brown in my teens, and turned grey in my 20s. My DNA results state that I am north European through and through. I love history - but I was raised in the South and grounded in my Virginia roots.
My friend for ten years, and room-mate for two years, is a woman of African-American descent. He grandmother was a Louisiana Creole, and I have been able to trace parts of her family into the early 1800s, as slaves. She has one DNA proven forebear, however, who was of French descent - and I have been able to trace that part of her family tree back to the late 1500s, to an area that is northwest France and southwest Switzerland. I frequently ask her viewpoint on things - and especially regarding the removal of statues, in particular, this one of Robert E Lee in Charlottesville.
This is one of the very few areas where Beatrice and I do not see eye to eye. Of course, as far as I can trace back, my family has been free white people. Beatrice's great-great-grandparents were all born into slavery in the southern United States. Her father and Uncle served in the US military - her Uncle in the Army, and her father with the Tuskeegee Airmen. My Aunt and Uncles served in the Army and the Navy. She was born and raised in Denver, Colorado - me: Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, and Virginia again.
Beatrice believes that any statues of anyone who served in the Army or Navy of the Confederate States of America; or those who served in it's Congress or Administration in any way, should be removed and destroyed. She believes that any person who owned slaves should not be depicted as statuary, or in art. I do not believe that these statues or the people they represent should be revered, but I think that their statutes should be left in place. To document the past. To show what can happen when a country believes that slavery should be allowed. There should be interpretive areas with information and short films that tell who the people were, why they made the decisions that they made, and what happened because of those decisions.
...... If we destroyed all statues and paintings of people who owned slaves throughout history, millions of pieces of great works of art would be destroyed. Slavery has existed in one form or another since the beginning of humanity's history. Pharaohs had slaves. Romans had slaves. Vikings had slaves. Any people who were strong enough, or clever enough, to conquer another people had slaves. ....
History happened. History is history. Bad decisions have been made throughout the world in every era and in every country. (Heck, the current Administration in the USA is a fantastic example of bad decisions!) I think we need to learn from the mistakes made in the past. I think people should be taught about choices and what happens when decisions, especially bad ones, are made and acted upon. I don't think we should tear down statues that people believe might be hurtful. The statue might represent everything that a single person completely and totally hates and vilifies - but it should remain standing to remind others what awful things can proceed when a man makes an incorrect decision....
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Charlottesville, Virginia Protests
Charlottesville is an independent city in the county of Albemarle in the state of Virginia in the United States of America. It is the commercial center of Albemarle County, and is home to the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. The city is rather small, and sits at the "gateway" to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River Valley. It is 71 miles from the capital of Virginia, Richmond, and when Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe were the Governors of Virginia, they each commuted from their homes near Charlottesville. Charlottesville was formed in the year 1762, and the city was named after Charlotte, the Queen Consort of King George III.
I was born in Virginia, and even though my family moved around quite a bit, since my father was in the US Navy for 22 years, I always considered myself a Virginian. My mother was born in Virginia, and I can trace her family ancestors in Virginia back to the late 1500s. Dad's family, on the other hand, were farmers; first they stayed near the northeast coast, and then they spread inland until they reached the Indian Territories, the Cimarron Strip, of Oklahoma. I am very proud to be from the Eastern Shore of Virginia - from the tidal islands in the Atlantic Ocean on the DelMarVa peninsula. (DelMarVa? It's a combination of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia - and we say that we are "Delmarvelous!" The land is east of the great Chesapeake Bay, and one of my favorite recent bumper-stickers read, "There is no intelligent life west of the Chesapeake" - and that was specifically aimed at Washington, D. C.)
Today, I am shaken in my belief that being a Virginian is good. I was raised to expect, accept, and love diversity in all things - people, beliefs, habits, and ways of life. The one thing I was brought up to dislike, and disrespect, was prejudice against any one thing or person. I was taught to learn as much as I could about my own differences from others, and to always respect their beliefs - unless their beliefs were damaging to other people. Accept, learn, and grow, I was told.
I also grew up in the Southern states of the US - Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. I grew up with segregated schools, which my parents deplored - until 1970, when Florida schools were forced to integrate. I had no problem with that - I had gone to mixed-race churches most of my life, and half of my friends, away from school, were African-American. We lived on the poor white side of town... Big deal. My high school class graduated 398 students - 150 were white, 5 were South American, and the rest were African-American. I was, and am, proud to have been in the second graduating class from Eastside High School. We had great teachers and a great curriculum.
Back to Charlottesville, Virginia.... The latest Census results are 7 years old: the city itself had 43,475 residents living in 17,778 house holds, and with 7,518 designated families. Of these residents, 69.1 % are white; 19.4 % are African-American; 6.4 % are Asian; 5.1 % are Hispanic; 3 % are of 2 or more mixed races; 0.3 % are Native American; and 1.8 % are "other" races. This does not count students at the University of Virginia. There are currently 16,736 undergraduate students enrolled at UVa, and 7,147 graduate students.
Today there was death and destruction in Charlottesville. Early this year, the City Council voted 3 to 2 to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee, a Virginian who commanded the Confederate States Army and who then retired to run the Virginia Military Institute, after the resounding loss of the Civil War in these United States. The Lee statue has stood for many years in what was originally named Lee Park. The name was changed, some years ago, to Emancipation Park. The removal is scheduled for this autumn.
A couple of months back, a permit for a rally for today's date was approved. The rally was for white nationalists to protest the removal of the Robert E Lee statue, and was called "Unite the Right." They were joined by openly armed nationalist militias and the Ku Klux Klan today. Last night, hundreds of nationalists marched through the University of Virginia campus, stopping at the foot of the Thomas Jefferson statue, chanting, "You will not replace us!" More than 20 people were injured in scuffles during the night. Last night and today, there were also a lot of anti-Jewish chants and baiting of people who looked Semitic.
Today, while the Unite the Right groups were gathering at Emancipation Park, hundreds of counter protesters were peacefully marching less than 700 feet away. A 20-year-old man named Alex Fields, from Ohio, drove his 2010 gray Dodge Challenger into the peacefully marching crowd at a high rate of speed. He then put the car into reverse and proceeded to strike more people. A 32-year-old woman was killed, 5 people are in critical condition, and another 15 are being treated for injuries caused by the motorist. (Who was captured and arrested.) Another 20 people have been injured in clashes between the two groups.
The rally at Emancipation Park was scheduled to start at 12 noon. At 11:40, the Mayor of Charlottesville and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia declared a State of Emergency, and told everyone to go home. An injunction against the rally had been signed by a judge at 10 a.m., following the night before's damages and fighting.
Two hours later, a Bell helicopter crashed with two Virginia State Troopers aboard. Both were killed. So a peaceful rally for "Unite the Right" ended with 3 deaths, 5 people in critical condition, and more than 60 other injuries.
And what did that pompous orange-faced bleach-blond Pricktator say? That he condemns "the hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides" in Charlottesville. The man is a moron who delights in stirring up trouble - and his pals Steve Bannon, David Duke, and Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader, help him do it. - Where was darling Jared Kushner during all of this? This administration is totally rotten throughout.
I was born in Virginia, and even though my family moved around quite a bit, since my father was in the US Navy for 22 years, I always considered myself a Virginian. My mother was born in Virginia, and I can trace her family ancestors in Virginia back to the late 1500s. Dad's family, on the other hand, were farmers; first they stayed near the northeast coast, and then they spread inland until they reached the Indian Territories, the Cimarron Strip, of Oklahoma. I am very proud to be from the Eastern Shore of Virginia - from the tidal islands in the Atlantic Ocean on the DelMarVa peninsula. (DelMarVa? It's a combination of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia - and we say that we are "Delmarvelous!" The land is east of the great Chesapeake Bay, and one of my favorite recent bumper-stickers read, "There is no intelligent life west of the Chesapeake" - and that was specifically aimed at Washington, D. C.)
Today, I am shaken in my belief that being a Virginian is good. I was raised to expect, accept, and love diversity in all things - people, beliefs, habits, and ways of life. The one thing I was brought up to dislike, and disrespect, was prejudice against any one thing or person. I was taught to learn as much as I could about my own differences from others, and to always respect their beliefs - unless their beliefs were damaging to other people. Accept, learn, and grow, I was told.
I also grew up in the Southern states of the US - Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. I grew up with segregated schools, which my parents deplored - until 1970, when Florida schools were forced to integrate. I had no problem with that - I had gone to mixed-race churches most of my life, and half of my friends, away from school, were African-American. We lived on the poor white side of town... Big deal. My high school class graduated 398 students - 150 were white, 5 were South American, and the rest were African-American. I was, and am, proud to have been in the second graduating class from Eastside High School. We had great teachers and a great curriculum.
Back to Charlottesville, Virginia.... The latest Census results are 7 years old: the city itself had 43,475 residents living in 17,778 house holds, and with 7,518 designated families. Of these residents, 69.1 % are white; 19.4 % are African-American; 6.4 % are Asian; 5.1 % are Hispanic; 3 % are of 2 or more mixed races; 0.3 % are Native American; and 1.8 % are "other" races. This does not count students at the University of Virginia. There are currently 16,736 undergraduate students enrolled at UVa, and 7,147 graduate students.
Today there was death and destruction in Charlottesville. Early this year, the City Council voted 3 to 2 to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee, a Virginian who commanded the Confederate States Army and who then retired to run the Virginia Military Institute, after the resounding loss of the Civil War in these United States. The Lee statue has stood for many years in what was originally named Lee Park. The name was changed, some years ago, to Emancipation Park. The removal is scheduled for this autumn.
A couple of months back, a permit for a rally for today's date was approved. The rally was for white nationalists to protest the removal of the Robert E Lee statue, and was called "Unite the Right." They were joined by openly armed nationalist militias and the Ku Klux Klan today. Last night, hundreds of nationalists marched through the University of Virginia campus, stopping at the foot of the Thomas Jefferson statue, chanting, "You will not replace us!" More than 20 people were injured in scuffles during the night. Last night and today, there were also a lot of anti-Jewish chants and baiting of people who looked Semitic.
Today, while the Unite the Right groups were gathering at Emancipation Park, hundreds of counter protesters were peacefully marching less than 700 feet away. A 20-year-old man named Alex Fields, from Ohio, drove his 2010 gray Dodge Challenger into the peacefully marching crowd at a high rate of speed. He then put the car into reverse and proceeded to strike more people. A 32-year-old woman was killed, 5 people are in critical condition, and another 15 are being treated for injuries caused by the motorist. (Who was captured and arrested.) Another 20 people have been injured in clashes between the two groups.
The rally at Emancipation Park was scheduled to start at 12 noon. At 11:40, the Mayor of Charlottesville and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia declared a State of Emergency, and told everyone to go home. An injunction against the rally had been signed by a judge at 10 a.m., following the night before's damages and fighting.
Two hours later, a Bell helicopter crashed with two Virginia State Troopers aboard. Both were killed. So a peaceful rally for "Unite the Right" ended with 3 deaths, 5 people in critical condition, and more than 60 other injuries.
And what did that pompous orange-faced bleach-blond Pricktator say? That he condemns "the hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides" in Charlottesville. The man is a moron who delights in stirring up trouble - and his pals Steve Bannon, David Duke, and Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader, help him do it. - Where was darling Jared Kushner during all of this? This administration is totally rotten throughout.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Baltimore
Gee, I feel like I'm a kid again - and not in a good way. Besides idyllic times on Chincoteague and Assateague Islands during the summers, I can easily recall the Cuban Missile Crisis and being taught to crawl under desks or tables and cover our heads if we heard the missile warning; I remember seeing my Father cry watching the news of President Kennedy's assassination; I can remember my parents taking mys sister and me to Civil Rights marches and activities; I remember the march in Selma and how profoundly upset my parents were, and them explaining why they were upset to me; I remember all the protests that followed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and I remember hearing news of his assassination; I remember the rioting across the nation following Dr. King's death - and the violence in Baltimore at that time; and I remember the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and how deeply shaken my entire family was by what seemed to be a one-two punch: first Martin, then Bobby. The world seemed about to break apart, and I was frightened.
Flash forward about fifty years. Today I am looking at rioting, again, in Baltimore, Maryland. I always try to think of Baltimore as a happy place - the place where my parents spent their honeymoon back in 1948. For me, Baltimore has always meant the Chesapeake Bay, boats, seafood, sailing, and shipping; now it's yet another city disrupted by racism. Things have been rocky for some time, and I know it started long before the media was shining a spotlight on it - but it seems the list of men killed (African-American, Hispanic, white and other races) continues to grow without ceasing. My mind immediately pulls up the names of Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Timothy Thomas, Michael Brown, Joel Acevedo, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and, now, Freddie Gray. Unarmed men, beaten and/or killed by law enforcement officers. What is happening in our country?
Less than two hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, the latest victim of law enforcement officials, people were rioting in the streets of Baltimore. Even though this young man's family was aasking for peaceful protests, if any, a few people got that adrenaline rush and decided to "push back" against authority. I can easily understand marching and protesting with chanting and signs, I can easily understand a silent sit-in to commemorate the loss of life, I can easily understand getting upset over a huge and long-standing failure of care for those in custody. But I cannot understand a mob mentality; I cannot understand attacking a CVS Pharmacy, breaking all the glass out of the building, stealing all the merchandise, and setting the business on fire. The owners and employees there were not responsible for the death of Freddie Gray. The Community Center next to a church that went up in a three-alarm blaze had nothing to do with the death of Freddie Gray. Folks who's cars were torched on the street had nothing to do with the death of Freddie Gray. - Then, again, perhaps all of us, who sit back and watch these things happen, are, in part, responsible. We haven't made our voices heard regarding the inequity between the races.
I live in Boulder, Colorado. My best friend here is African-American. She is a part of the 1% of African-Americans who actually live in Boulder. I don't have children of my own, but I have my husband's children from his previous marriages, and I'm happy and proud to say that two of those three kids fell in love with, and married, an African-American. Skin color, eye color, hair color - any type of color of anything - should never make a difference in how a person regards another. That is just plain stupid.
I feel for the victims and the families of the victims of these crazy shootings, beatings, and deaths. They each need to be thoroughly investigated, and punishments for those who did wrong - including any law enforcement officials - need to be meted out. Unfortunately, none of these men can be restored to their lives. No one knows how each of these persons might have changed the world - for the better, or for the worse. I only know that there is no price tag attached to a human life. Each and every life is priceless. None of the above named men needed to die. I can understand the anger - but anger must be controlled and used to make specific decisions; hopefully, those decisions will help change laws and procedures for the good.
Flash forward about fifty years. Today I am looking at rioting, again, in Baltimore, Maryland. I always try to think of Baltimore as a happy place - the place where my parents spent their honeymoon back in 1948. For me, Baltimore has always meant the Chesapeake Bay, boats, seafood, sailing, and shipping; now it's yet another city disrupted by racism. Things have been rocky for some time, and I know it started long before the media was shining a spotlight on it - but it seems the list of men killed (African-American, Hispanic, white and other races) continues to grow without ceasing. My mind immediately pulls up the names of Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Timothy Thomas, Michael Brown, Joel Acevedo, Sean Bell, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and, now, Freddie Gray. Unarmed men, beaten and/or killed by law enforcement officers. What is happening in our country?
Less than two hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, the latest victim of law enforcement officials, people were rioting in the streets of Baltimore. Even though this young man's family was aasking for peaceful protests, if any, a few people got that adrenaline rush and decided to "push back" against authority. I can easily understand marching and protesting with chanting and signs, I can easily understand a silent sit-in to commemorate the loss of life, I can easily understand getting upset over a huge and long-standing failure of care for those in custody. But I cannot understand a mob mentality; I cannot understand attacking a CVS Pharmacy, breaking all the glass out of the building, stealing all the merchandise, and setting the business on fire. The owners and employees there were not responsible for the death of Freddie Gray. The Community Center next to a church that went up in a three-alarm blaze had nothing to do with the death of Freddie Gray. Folks who's cars were torched on the street had nothing to do with the death of Freddie Gray. - Then, again, perhaps all of us, who sit back and watch these things happen, are, in part, responsible. We haven't made our voices heard regarding the inequity between the races.
I live in Boulder, Colorado. My best friend here is African-American. She is a part of the 1% of African-Americans who actually live in Boulder. I don't have children of my own, but I have my husband's children from his previous marriages, and I'm happy and proud to say that two of those three kids fell in love with, and married, an African-American. Skin color, eye color, hair color - any type of color of anything - should never make a difference in how a person regards another. That is just plain stupid.
I feel for the victims and the families of the victims of these crazy shootings, beatings, and deaths. They each need to be thoroughly investigated, and punishments for those who did wrong - including any law enforcement officials - need to be meted out. Unfortunately, none of these men can be restored to their lives. No one knows how each of these persons might have changed the world - for the better, or for the worse. I only know that there is no price tag attached to a human life. Each and every life is priceless. None of the above named men needed to die. I can understand the anger - but anger must be controlled and used to make specific decisions; hopefully, those decisions will help change laws and procedures for the good.
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