An argument might be made, (and I could make it) that we need to keep present among us the monuments celebrating the lives and actions of the secessionist and treasonous Confederacy as a reminder that it was the Southern good people, the leaders the community, the professionals, the higher social structure, the church goers, the well educated, like you and me; not nazis, not hate groups, not thugs, not the ignorant who espoused, endorsed, supported and practiced the principle that some persons are property to be bought and sold and to be kept in slavery for all their lives.
We wonder, perhaps for public consumption, how it was in the Germany of the 1930’s, the most advanced culture in Europe, that Hitler and the Nazi’s could rise and bring the Holocaust to our world. Those complicit in Germany were the well educated, the leaders in business and industry, the professionals, the church goers, the good people, like you and me, that looked away and allowed that cruel, unhappy history to unfold.
The Confederate Monuments are a sobering present reminder to us that as human creatures, we have it in us, you and me, not somebody else, if we allow it, to be swept into a shameful history again. What environment shall we elect to build?
That’s the argument.
The great American philosopher, Pogo had it right. We have met the enemy and he is us.
But for so long as such monuments are a bitter affront to any one of my African American neighbors, whose forbearers lived in condoned and legal slavery, those monuments that celebrate slavery of persons in one group by persons in another group, ought to be removed.
Original Message------
In my travels of the USA and in Italy, and other sorts, I find that "place" is important. It is not about acting like ISIS in re-configuring towns, history, or any monuments. It is, however, important for people to know that in our differences we have "history." This, in itself, asks us to search, seek and to understand the reasoning. Prejudice also comes in the form of destroying "history."
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Bryan Liebig AIA
ARCHITECT
BHL ARCHITECTURE
Sacramento CA
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