At first I was thinking it was an abuse of the law, but upon further reflection I found it hard to come up with a rational arguments about why a bunch of rednecks in a mob WEREN’T a gang. What exactly is the difference?
Well, y’see, gangs are a, uhm, urban problem. These was just some good ol’ boys who got a little too much liquor in ‘em and went out fer some fun; hardly nothin’ t’worry about.
Translation: They’re white.
Everyone knows that white people don’t form gangs. They form organizations, parties, groups or fraternities.
Pissed off that your State is considering removing the Confederate Battle Flag from the corner of your State flag? Well, you’re not alone. And if you’re angry, you might as well go ahead and take the battle to those who are ultimately responsible: Wal-Mart.
A man who has been called a longtime supporter of the Mississippi state flag — and the “Stars and Bars” within it — is accused of bombing a Wal-Mart in that state because the retail giant stopped selling the Confederate battle flag, police said.
Marshall E. Leonard, 61, from Tupelo, Miss., was arrested and is set to be charged on Tuesday with detonating an explosive after he threw an explosive device into a Wal-Mart on Sunday morning, Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre told The Washington Post. The device made a loud noise but did no real damage to the store.
…
A user matching Leonard’s name and likeness posted several times on the Daily Journal’s Facebook page days before the explosion.
“Journal corporate, you are on final warning,” he wrote Oct. 28. “You are part of the problem. As a result of this, y’all are going down, along with Walmart, WTVA, Reeds department store, and all the rest of the anti-American crooks. I’m not kidding. No messing around anymore!”
Apparently Wal-Mart is a common target of Confederate Battle Flag supporters. Here’s another story wherein a CBF supporter tries to get the flag as a custom cake graphic from the Wal-Mart bakery (you know the deal - you provide an image and the bakery prints it onto that awful-tasting rubbery crap that they then cover your cake with). The cook refuses, citing the chain’s decision not to sell the flag on any merchandise. The customer shows up later on and (presumably talking to another cake-maker) asks to get the ISIS battle flag as a cake-graphic. This bakery worker agrees and they make the cake to spec.
Wal-Mart apologizes for providing the cake with the ISIS flag, but specifies in the apology that it was ignorance, not a double-standard, that was at the root of the issue.
Men should be measured by the standards of their day. This… this smacks of a certain moral self satisfaction, and a desire to declare our superiority over the dead.
I find that strange.
I suppose these may seem like a tacit endorsement for the lost cause. And the current residents of NOLA certainly have the right to register their views on that. Still, I think we ere when we destroy monuments - and especially monuments we find distasteful.
To destroy them is to forget something about ourselves.
When was the monument put up. A lot where put up in 1950s for the express purpose of being icons of the era. IE being super duper racists. The
At the intersection of Saint Charles Avenue and Howard Avenue stands a 12 foot tall statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee standing atop a column. The statue was the product of the Robert E. Lee Monumental Association, which formed in 1870 just after the general’s death. The $36,400 needed and permission from the city was not made to construct the monument until 1876.
Erected on the site of the former Tivoli Circle, the statue was sculpted by Alexander Doyle of New York and took several years to construct. John Roy created the 60-foot marble column that the statue sits atop. A 250 foot diameter plot of grass circles around the statue filled with flowers and shrubs. Commemoration of the site was on George Washington’s birthday in 1884 and was witnessed by former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, two daughters of General Lee, and Confederate General Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Additionally, thousands of local militia, state officials, and citizens came to see the unveiling of the statue. Unfortunately for the gathered crowds, the dedication ceremony had to be delayed after a sudden rainstorm drenched the participants.
http://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/850
Most monuments date from this period.
The UDC started a second burst in 1900, with their anonymous confederate statues.
To quote the punchline of an old joke: “Who’s this ‘we,’ white man?”
So you think they should keep momuments? Including one that specifically commemorates a failed white supremacist insurrection?
I’m down with their removal. It’s not forgetting a damn thing, it’s avoiding celebrating the horrible bits of the past.
Yeah, there does seem to be quite a bit of (intentional) conflating remembrance with celebration. Absolutely remember history, even (perhaps especially) the bad parts. And quite honestly, there is a bit too much celebrating the confederate generals in many parts of the country.
There are places where having a statue of Robert E Lee might be appropriate; I’m not going to theorize where. There are no places anywhere where Jefferson f’ing Davis should be displayed. He was by no means a great anything, and frankly even from the racist perspective of Redeemers his incompetence alone should make them not want anything to do with him. The only reason to celebrate that asshat is to thumb the nose at the North and proclaim the values he espoused.
Agree on all counts.
Take down those Confederate monuments.
Then take down all the rest.
The Liberty Place memorial appears to be a continuing (and genuine) sore point for the community. Putting it in a museum would be a good solution.
That is a decision for southerners to make.
Most communities will disagree with you though - removing monuments would violate their sense of filial piety. To remove a monument would be like desecrating a grave.
I’m okay with them taking it down just like I am okay with removing any tributes to Nazis Germany in Germany and here. They too were an abhorrent part of history we don’t need to glorify. I don’t think we need to hold historical figures to current standards, but there are times and places for these things, like museums.
I used to live a few blocks from Jefferson Davis highway. When I first moved to VA from California, I couldn’t believe that we had so many roads named for Confederates. Now it doesn’t even phase me.
Is it right? No. Is it part of the culture? Yes, absolutely.
Does that depend on which Southerners you mean? New Orleans is 60% black. How much filial piety do you suppose that 60% has for the leaders of the Confederacy?
I’m not trying to be snarky. But the above-posted, “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man” comment is pretty freaking spot-on in this situation.
Louisiana’s black voters split on Confederate monument removal, poll shows.
Fewer than half of African-American voters in Louisiana favor removing or renaming monuments and places that honor Confederate leaders, according to a recent statewide poll.
46% favor 31% oppose.
Overall, LA residents oppose the removal 68% to 18%.
“When you have 68 to 18 lopsided percentages, that’s an indication that there’s serious saliency to an issue,” Faucheux said. “I would point out that twice as many were undecided (about whom to vote for) in the governor’s race than were undecided about this issue.”