the left destroying statues

@Erimitus Said

if asked what they were fighting for the typical Southern soldier would answer their rights.

@Eaglebauer Said

Slaves were called "workers" in one history book that I know of. The publishers of that book were rightly called out for it and have since publicly apologized.

I'm not saying it's non-existent and I'm not condoning it, and I'm well aware of the way history books are written to favorably color the nation in which they are published, but it's also a little inaccurate to infer that widespread use of terms like "employee" and "worker" are the norm because...well...they simply aren't. I don't think any reasonable person in this country denies that slavery was a very real, huge, black mark on our history, and the vast majority of history books refer to slaves as slaves.

I'd also argue that it's not a phenomenon particular to the U.S. either. I'd wager a lot of nations color the history they teach their children, right or wrong.

I remember doing a report on China in the fourth grade and looking it up in the World Book encyclopedia we had at home (this was many years before the internet was a thing). The entire section on China was done in a different font and had extremely favorable things to say about the glorious and vibrant culture of the benevolent regime. No small surprise the encyclopedia was printed in China in 1976.

I'm not really disagreeing with you. I'm not saying it's right. I do think people think it's a much bigger thing than it really is in general and lose sight of the fact that since history started being recorded, it was recorded with the bias of the documentarian.

@Erimitus Said

I learned (or was taught) differently. I believe that if asked what they were fighting for the typical Southern soldier would answer their rights.

@chaski Said

Sort of true: They we’re fighting for their right to own slaves.

@Erimitus Said

The war must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks …unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that, or extermination, we will have. >Jefferson Davis<


Only a small percentage of the population were slave owners. In some of the northern most states of the Confederacy only 3% of the population owned slaves.

Further south the percentage increases but the majority of slaves were owned by a small number of people.

As I understand it the majority of southerners were against Secession or did not care one way or the other. The average southern grunt believed he was fighting for is rights.

@Erimitus Said

The average southern grunt believed he was fighting for is rights.

@DiscordTiger Said

Locally they finally decided to relocate some racist artwork that is currently prominently displayed in a building. People have been asking for something to be done for about 50 years so it’s not a new request. (Probably, longer but the groups being targeted were still being physically harmed for speaking out, before the activism of the seventies.) Also, sadly most people know it (and refer to it) as the “racist murals” rather than by their name or the artist.
Murals probably isn’t even the right word as they are art on canvas mounted on the wall, they just take up the whole wall and don’t have a frame. They will be moved to a museum in the area, certainly not destroyed.

They just don’t need to be where they are. Which makes it seem like the where they are condones racism, when in reality they argue they trying to send the opposite message.

It’s been an interesting conversation.

@offbeat Said

i'm slowly beginning to get a grip on the art/statue situation in the usa.are you able to mention the subject matter of the racist murals. If you'd rather not dirty your keypad with it then I get it.

@DiscordTiger Said

The subject matter? Like what they are?

The supposed three peoples of the area. Only there are more than three - so it leaves out many, and it paints the Anglo white man as being smarter and better than the Hispanic and Native Americans. Like they didn’t even bother to paint faces on anyone other than the white men. They are just brown blobs bowing or looking up to them.

Is not graphically offensive, just the continued valuation of white supremacy over all others. And that was the point when the artist made it, it’s not even some bizarre interpretation. Like Hispanic people and Native Americans were live in mud homes with barely sustainable crops before that Anglos came.

I’ll totaly acknowledge the Spanish came through and the conquistadors did s***ty horrible things to the Native Americans. There were several “wars”, lots of murders, and land stealing. The Spanish empire really wasn’t much better than the English one when it came to settling the “new world”. It’s just that by the time the Anglos did venture out “west” it wasn’t the way things were depicted. Hispanic cities were thriving a hundred years before the pilgrims came over, Native American ones 600 years before that.