{"id":9802,"date":"2017-08-19T23:21:07","date_gmt":"2017-08-19T23:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9802"},"modified":"2017-08-20T23:23:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T23:23:48","slug":"the-confederate-statue-debate-3-essential-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-confederate-statue-debate-3-essential-reads\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confederate statue debate: 3 essential reads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us\/team#nick-lehr\">Nick Lehr<\/a>, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theconversation.com\/\">The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Editor\u2019s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories related to the debate over what to do with Confederate statues.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The impetus for the \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12 was a proposal to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, protesters toppled a Confederate statue in <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/news\/346557-protesters-topple-confederate-statue-in-north-carolina\">Durham, North Carolina<\/a> on Monday, while the city of Baltimore swiftly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2017\/08\/16\/us\/confederate-monuments-removed.html\">removed four statues before dawn on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, President Trump made his views clear in a series of Thursday morning tweets:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/898169407213645824\"><\/a>\n           <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>          <script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/898171544236687361\"><\/a>\n           <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>          <script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>\n            <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/898172999945392131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fhomenews%2Fadministration%2F346929-trump-revives-defense-of-confederate-monuments\"><\/a>\n           <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>          <script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Our scholars explore all sides of the debate, with a case for removal, a case for preservation and a look to post-Soviet Russia for possible alternatives.<\/p>\n<h2>A tool of oppression<\/h2>\n<p>Penn State\u2019s Joshua F.J. Inwood and Derek H. Alderman study the way memory and places interact with trauma. They think the original intention of most Confederate statues \u2013 and the context in which they were built in the years after the Civil War \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-taking-down-confederate-memorials-is-only-a-first-step-78020\">make it tough to defend keeping them in place:<\/a>  <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cwhite elites employed these statues to take advantage of the racial anxieties of poor whites and to remind civil rights-seeking black communities of who really mattered and belonged\u2026in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While it certainly doesn\u2019t solve problems of inequality that exist today, removing memorials that continue to \u201cexact a painful toll on the sense of belonging and place of African-Americans\u201d is, at very least, a step in the right direction. <\/p>\n<h2>A symbol of past crimes<\/h2>\n<p>University of North Carolina law professor Al Brophy notes that the debate isn\u2019t new. For decades, cities and towns around the country have been grappling with what to do with Confederate memorials. Many have simply moved the statues from visible public squares to less prominent places, like cemetaries.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, however, some states have passed \u201cHeritage Protection Acts\u201d that prohibit the removal of Confederate monuments from public property \u2013 and even the renaming of public buildings.<\/p>\n<p>While he\u2019s no fan of the Confederacy, Brophy <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-the-case-for-the-removal-of-confederate-memorials-isnt-so-clear-cut-44218\">makes a case for preservation<\/a>, arguing that <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cwe risk forgetting the connections of past racial crimes to current racial inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>What did the Russians do?<\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile Tufts University political scientist James Glaser looks to Russia for answers. After the fall of the Soviet Union, many Russians wondered what to do with all the symbols associated with the old order. It wouldn\u2019t make sense to knock down buildings \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/politics\/1997\/07\/29\/stalins-seven-sisters\/383950fd-fd19-4458-968c-638d13dcfbcc\/?utm_term=.53c5bd0ee989\">like the seven skyscrapers Stalin constructed in Moscow<\/a> \u2013 that were still in use. <\/p>\n<p>Statues, however, served no practical purpose. Moving them from public spaces, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-to-do-with-confederate-statues-81736\">Glaser writes<\/a>, \u201cwas one of the first impulses the Russian people had after the fall of the Soviet Union.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to note that the statues weren\u2019t all destroyed. Instead, many were relocated to a sculpture garden. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.edu.au\/content\/82729\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>\u201cIt\u2019s our past and we embrace it,\u201d one Moscow resident told Glaser, \u201cWe lived it. We can\u2019t just wish it away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/us\/team#nick-lehr\">Nick Lehr<\/a>, Editor, Arts and Culture, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theconversation.com\/\">The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-confederate-statue-debate-3-essential-reads-82729\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Lehr, The Conversation Editor\u2019s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories related to the debate over what to do with Confederate statues. The impetus for the \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12 was a proposal to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[2935,2955,191,840,2969,1161,234],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9804,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802\/revisions\/9804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}