Regarding The Flap Over Confederate Statues

[Mister Agenda]

Put simply: the point of a physical representation of a person is to remember that person.  When did it come to pass that only people we are fond of should be remembered?

Let a statue of Lee have this effect: those who despise him can ponder why they despise him.  Those who love him can ponder why they love him.  The rest of us can simply look and say, "Oh I know that name.  So that's what he looked like. . . "

There's something very insidious about the millennial generation who are so sure that they are right about everything that they are willing to squash free speech or expression in their effort to commit genocide on memes with which they do not agree.  There is NO idea so abhorrent to me that I would give up my own right to hold unpopular ideas in order to make sure someone else can no longer express theirs.

Ah, the good ole 'Damn kids these days' canard.  And you do realize that it isn't only young people that want to move the statues...right?

And removing a statue is hardly 'genocide on a meme' or 'squashing free speech.'  Open a book, go to a museum, watching a documentary, and stop being so sloppily hyperbolic.

I'm 55. The damn things should have been taken down many decades ago.

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I suppose removing them from public property will make us feel better about ourselves, but I can't be sure if it will do much else.

I live in Columbia, SC. If you don't think removing an in-your-face symbol of oppression from the public square has enough impact on the people it's intended to intimidate to justify removing it, all I have to say is that my impression from close up is very, very different. No victim of horrendous oppression should have to waste the mental bandwidth it takes to deal with that kind of shit.