Norwegians a little bit irritated about the statue of Hans Christian Heg getting torn down:
Anyone know if there was any ulterior motive there? It seems a bit unmotivated as the Norwegian historian comments. He was apparently a prominent anti-slavery activitist, a leader of Wisconsin’s anti-slave catcher militia, served as a regimental commander in the Civil War on the Union side and literally gave his life to free the slaves when he got killed at Chickamauga. Seems like the kind of person from the period that we’d want to celebrate - rather than tear down.
Net judging, because I don’t know all the details of why their anger got directed his way + I don’t expect angry people to necessarily read up on history, but it seems a bit counter-productive to tear down all civil war statues indiscriminately, if that is indeed what happened here.
He’s just another dead white guy. We can sacrifice dead white guys to the greater good. It’s just white fragility grasping at any reason to oppose the movement.
Alstein
5609
That’s the impression I got as well. Even going after Grant is ridiculous- he owned 1 slave, who he tried to free as soon as he could.
Sure - he’s just another dead white guy. But - assuming there’s no deeper reason to this than rage over the recent arrest - he’s also the kind of collateral damage that undermines some of the rational arguments for tearing down these statues in the first place (which does sway reasonable people who might be undecided) and gives actual ammo to the opposition that these riots and statue attacks are not about white supremacy, they’re just riots and defacement.
If one indiscriminately attacks the people on the same side of the issue as yourself, then you will lose some of your allies. And that makes actual change harder.
White culture isn’t a sacred cow. If the Norwegians believe that honouring a near forgotten pile of bones and dust is more important than countering a racist culture and ideology who use these statues as a shield and a wall then fuck em.
White people threatening to walk away from minorities and let the supremacists win if they don’t get their way is just the white hegemony in action and all they are doing is maintaining their dominance and control.
KevinC
5612
After reading the article, that study/experiment sounds completely useless.
KevinC
5613
It does no such thing. I’m sure a group of people saw a statue of a white guy from the era and tore it down out of ignorance. The average American’s grasp of history extends only as far as who won the Superbowl a few years ago. You’re talking about a people so ignorant of the past they can’t tell you if we fought with or against Japan in WW2. They’re certainly not going to know the details of a Norwegian guy from almost a couple hundred years ago.
It is unbelievable that a black woman said this: “Black Lives Matter protest only happened because it’s an election year. How convenient.”
The explanation is: the people who did this in my old hometown are dolts who weren’t paying attention.
At the same tine they also tore down a statue of Forward, who represents the Wisconsin state motto. Obviously, tearing down a statue that symbolizes progress is not a good look for people who say they want, y’know, progress. And it feeds into the Fox News narrative that protesters want nothing but violence and chaos.
Folks out on the street need to be smarter than that to keep people on their side. As my pal Handy would say: Read a book! Or at least read the plaque on the damn statue before you tear it down.
KevinC
5617
That’s pretty… gross. I feel sad for her, honestly.
Literally no one is saying that. And I’m pretty sure white supremacists weren’t using the statue of an abolitionist as a shield and wall before. But as @HumanTon point out, they for sure are going to do so now.
I’m not sure where you’re seeing threats to walk away from minorities.
What I’m seeing is BLM activists just gave a FU to an entire small Norwegian community (and presumably his home town/district in the US as well), for no apparent reason. And to be clear - I don’t think that particular FU matters in the big picture. Maybe a few people might stop going to BLM support protests, but I doubt even that. And I doubt the % of people who’d answer that they’d support BLM in Lier is going to affect the outcome of the current struggle.
But as a general strategy: if you tell people who support you to go screw themselves because you don’t think you need them, then you can’t exactly complain if those people aren’t there when you do.
KevinC
5619
I’m not sure if it’s just Discourse being weird but your reply is directed at me but the quotes are from PWK?
Without looking at the videos, I couldn’t say whether these were “BLM activists,” rando sympathizers, or just hellraisers. I do know that when looting happened in Madison last month, it only happened after the protests proper were over for the night and involved a mostly different group of people than the protesters.
(Madison is a university town with a whole bunch of 18-21 year-olds; public rowdiness is hardly unknown even when there aren’t politics involved. There used to be vandalism/looting semi-regularly during Halloween celebrations until they cracked down on it during the early 00s.)
Of course, even if it is a different group of people, the BLM protesters will end up owning the issue whether they want to/deserve to or not. Because Fox News certainly isn’t going to explain these fine distinctions.
Is it though? I think the BLM events and the powerful Montgomery Lynching display have opened many people’s eyes as to what a noose means to African Americans, but I don’t think that most white Americans thought of it that way before about a year back.
The pic here is from Twitter and shows the pull-loop in 2019 and then the same rope now – presumably the noose-part was cut and removed for investigation.
From the articles, the rope was a pull-rope that a person would yank on to open a door. Someone tied a loop into it to make it easier to pull, and that person (or a later wag) decided to make it look like a noose, though it looks too small to fit over a head, and it’s probably not an actual noose slip-knot since that would defeat the purpose of the pull-loop.
Certainly a noose has powerful racist connotations, and displaying a noose in any context involving an African-American person is pretty terrible, full-stop. And in today’s environment, I can certainly see where a reasonable person would see a noose and assume racism.
But that said, for most (especially white) American a few years ago… a noose is just a silly Halloween decoration symbolizing death, capital punishment, or Western movies. It doesn’t surprise me much that a random white guy in 2019 would see that pull-rope (sized for a man’s hand, not a head) and see it as a cute joke with no racist overtones.
It’s possible he began the post as a reply to you, then changed it midstream and decided to quote someone/something else instead. Discourse apparently doesn’t change the post’s reply-to icon in that situation. Happened to me the other day when I did that.
Shit. I’m even dumber than the average 'murican then T_T
Although, I do at least know that 'murica didn’t give up after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!
KevinC
5625
No, Calelari, you’re just an exceptional American, not average. :)
ShivaX
5626
There is very good money in telling racist white people that they aren’t racist.
