Do you value historic preservation?

And this is the old slave market turned modern day flea market. You cant really see them in the picture but Gullah women sit by the entrance all day and weave baskets to sell to tourists

 

I want to visit Charleston. Looks like an absolutely breathtaking city.

Also, that little pink house is just too cute for words.

 

Mhmm yes, I'm all about preservation of history, and my country is ripe with it thankfully.

I don't like these US people that tear down statues and things.

 

You really should if you ever get a chance. Just in terms of beauty, both architectural and natural, it really cant be beat.

 

I just wish there were more preservation. Every inch of every town should be photographed for posterity. You should be able to take virtual tours of towns... Too bad they didn't record everything in the 1700s...I would spend all of my time in rinkadink towns wandering around.

 

You do understand it is the American equivalent to Germany keeping up monuments to the Third Reich, yes?

History in books and museums is one thing; memorials in public squares is another. How these monuments were ever erected in the first place is beyond me.

 

I've secretly always wanted a job as a blacksmith in one of the 'living history' places.

 

The first statue in the United States to honor a woman was of Margaret Haughery and is located in New Orleans, Louisiana at the intersection of Prytania and Camp streets.

As an Irish immigrant, orphaned at the age of 9, Margaret Gaffney lost her husband, Charles Haughery and newborn baby to the cholera epidemic of 1835. Margaret ran a bakery and dairy in the area and was known for delivering bread and milk to street children.

When she died in 1882 thousands of city residents marched in her funeral procession.....

Sophie B. Wright (1886-1919) is one of many outstanding educators that greatly influenced the New Orleans area. Beginning at age 14, when she founded the Home Institute, a well regarded private school, Sophie Wright also started the first free night school for working boys who otherwise would have gone without any formal education.

This statue of Sophie B. Wright, designed by artist Enrique Alferez, was installed in 1988 and is located in Sophie Wright Park on Magazine Street at the corner of Sophie B. Wright Place.

There is also a junior high school named for Sophie Wright and, although now coed, it was the first public girls school in the city, as well as the first public building in New Orleans named for a woman. Absolutely nothing wrong with honoring people of note. Though as time goes on those people are often re-evaluated in modern terms and don't seem so shiny anymore.

 

Were these statues taken down?

Also, I apologize for making assumptions, but I did assume that Irm was referring o the statues of Confederate war heroes.

 

Yes, and I've my gripes with our history too don't you worry. The only monuments we are allowed to keep are those that serve the purpose to only demoralise the German public. A swastika is banned, but a concentration camp is allowed to force us to remember what we as a population didn't do and what never happened to the population of people that force it.

If you ever visit a German museum you will never see an authentic painted piece of history whether tank, uniform or plane. They are illegal, the paint skins I mean, because a swastika and or Iron Cross is related to a hate symbol, yet we keep concentration camps open to the public, as a reminder.

So by all that logic, the confederate statues should remain in America, as a reminder of what not to do.

My favorite German Monument has to be the Jewish memorial in Berlin, not for what it represents, but for how it came about. You see, nobody really wants the monument in Berlin, it is a couple hundred different t sized concrete blocks. Like a maze, but not really. Just hundreds of different shaped and sized blocks. It means nothing to the eye, it's an eyesore really that is heavily graffiti and becomes a public spot for damage.

So the High Jews thought well we can't have this happen to our monument, we must make it preserved so they remember. So they come up with the solution, a chemical that is sprayed onto the rocks that allows the graffiti at least to be wiped off with ease. So they go to a company in Switzerland. The same company in Switzerland that designed the Zyklon B gas that killed millions of Jews. So the same company that profited from their death was now profiting big time again for preservation of what they helped accomplish in the first place.

When the high Jews found out they were given an option to change companies, but the product was so good they dismissed the options and said well we don't care..

A very high percentage of German population laugh at this. The justification was that the owners of the company weren't the ones who designed the chemical for the gas that killed the Jews. So you can see why Germans snort at it.with that justification, the purpose of that monument is designed to let us never forget what we did and no wonder it is treated with disrespect

 

We have plantations and slave quarters here in the South we can visit, like your country has concentration camps

The confederate statues are not historical, most of them were erected less than 100 years ago by white supremacists as a direct response to the civil rights movement. They were never intended to be historical monuments, they were intended as symbols of white supremacy

The south doesnt need these statues to remind us of our history. We are surrounded by history.

 

No, the cemetery at Gettysburg should, and it does.

This isn't about removing or destroying history; it's about not memorializing or eulogizing those who epitomized the total opposite of our national ideals. These were people who rose up in rebellion, or, as some see them, legitimate representitives of another country. Either failed rebels or enemies depending on how you see it. And as Mel pointed out, a lot of these "historical" monuments were erected years after the Civil War as a backlash against attempts at racial equality.

 

I can't really go into that until I learn the civil war stuff properly, but from my perspective with what I do know, I wouldn't be offended if a Karl Marx statue was next to a Hitler statue on display or anything. Two important historical figures, both have a statue.. You see I think there should be like a big museum in our country that just specialises in historical statues of people of our country.

I just don't like the idea of erasing history period. Good or bad. A statue doesn't hurt anyone. What the world be like today if the pyramids and all the Egyptian statues weren't present, after being built by slaves? They're now wonders of the world, but should they be considered that after all we know about the politics of the time?

I'm a statue sympathiser.

 

Exactly what I said !

 

So let's say hypothetically because I'm unsure, there's an old hotel back from civil war days that was built by a confederate soldier, probably slaves helped build it. So you can agree that it's architecture is worth the preservation, but, to stand a statue of the owner out the front so everyone knows what he looks like and who he was would be a bad thing? He has to be surrendering for it to be okay?

That's weak as piss justification when the statues of Pharoes erected beside the monuments built by slaves, murdered by Pharoes stand strong. They aren't surrendering, they're standing or sitting, depicted as gods.

Y'all are weird about this subject hey? #onlyAmericanSlavesMatter

 

Not really. Speaking for myself here, what gets me isn't the racist overtones--because I don't believe that every person who supports having these statues say is some kind racist white nationalist or whatever--but, rather, the fact that were memorializing and honoring men who killed American soldiers.

But I seem to be one of the few who thinks it's odd to be all, "'Murica!" in one breath, and then defend keeping up statues of guys whose actions resulted in the most casualties of any war, ever, in American history, in the other. In fact, I think more people died in the American Civil War than in all of our other wars combined. You want statues? Win the war. To the victor goes the spoils.

What's next? Statues of the Japanese pilots who bombed Pear Harbor all over Ohau?

I don't get it.

 

I believe the sunken ruins are trophy's enough for the Japanese. You got yours back too though, it'll be there for 10,000 years.

We keep ruins here too. Berlin, Munich still intact buildings with WW2 damage, Dresdens towers still black from the fire bombs. I like it, it's a piece of history.

The Irish were good at this too when the Vikings came through. The UK would be magnificent to go through for a person like me with forts and castle ruins. I'll do it one day.

We keep preservation of our castles and cathedrals really well, you go through towns and cities and often scaffold is up to preserve them etc.

 

Many of the statues being taken down are not historical they are 60-70 years old. The American love for the south has it's roots in modern racism. They were put there during a time when certain white people wanted to send a message and that was "things will not change" in reference to civil rights.

The south post Civil War was not interested in all this "southern pride". The goal was to move on and be American. In Germany and other European nations the Confederate flag is chosen because a Nazi flag is illegal. But there is something about that other flag that looks good to a racist. It is undeniable the the flag has a racist past.

It's one of those things you have to live here to understand. It's also something outsiders will attach themselves too when their local news shows a few clips. America really does make the world go round sometimes as arrogant as that sounds. But people from other countries on here often have stronger opinions on us than Americans. It seems so simple because some people are so stupid and so striven they don't accept history. It is not that I assure you.

You don't have to be a raicst to like the south but every racist likes the south. Southern pride can be many things. I have been to the south people are very polite it's a nice place. But the pride is a code word for some people.

 

They don't use confederate flags to substitute a swastika in Germany, they use the Kaiser WW1 flag. Which is what my signature is about. Black white and red, with a Iron Cross in the centre.

Edit: that doesn't mean my signature is about a swastika or bringing back a swastika or anything NS. It's just that, I don't believe the colors of democracy flying today should ever stand for our country.

Now a confederate flag right now in America makes the most sense to fly at the moment, it's a rebel flag, and there's a lot of people right now that are rebelling against the government. So to me it makes sense to fly lol. People have always been drawn to "rebel" insignias. The market for authentic German WW2 and confederate militaria far outweighs the Union or Allied artifacts.