It is easy to be blind to problems. The news is full of them, but somethings can’t be ignored if we want world peace. You need to work for it. That means righting the wrongs of the past. To make a better future.

Amid protest and high security, crews in New Orleans take down the statue of Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis. nbcnews.to/2qvioqr

New Orleans takes down statue of Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard; marks 3rd Confederate memorial removed. http://bit.ly/2pIHUIJ

“Today we take another step in defining our City not by our past but by our bright future,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. “While we must honor our history, we will not allow the Confederacy to be put on a pedestal in the heart of New Orleans.”

North Carolina Central University student Takiyah Thompson topples confederate statue in Durham, NC

Just take down all Confederate statues and put them in a museum. That way nobody can argue about erasing history, but they’re not out in public like America is proud of those ideals.

ICYMI: Trump Is Worried About Parks Once “Beautiful” Confederate Statues Are Removed

Latest developments in the Trump’s open contempt for black people and using his platform AS PRESIDENT to blatantly espouse white supremacist ideology.

Let’s be clear. Catherine Pugh, the mayor of Baltimore recently removed 4 confederate status overnight in response to recent events. She is also a black woman. Trumps comments are absolutely targeted towards her and will definitely put her in danger of racist, sexist bigoted hate. Racists are going to start being pre-emotively aggressive towards black leaders in efforts to “keep them in their place”.

We toppled a confederate statue! Fuck the klan, confederacy, and the cops!

video source: https://twitter.com/DerrickQLewis

ALL confederate statues and flags deserve to be torn down. if people wanna learn about its backstories then that’s what museums are for but they do not deserve to be put on some pedestal. slavery and racism does not deserve to be put on a pedestal, elements of jim crow does not deserve to be put on a pedestal….so i applaud all the brave black youth who tear down those bullshit monuments, they’re the real heroes of this country 

Oh the irony

A few hundred white supremacist descended on Charlottesville to defend one confederate statue from removal.

The result: several confederate monuments are removed nationwide in response to their protest.

Heritage of Today

Mary Kirby

The world has always had controversy and always will. Right now the spotlight is on the removal of the Confederate statues. Civil rights have always been an issue for America, the Civil War did not just overnight fix all the wrongs white people forced onto African Americans. Even 156 years later we still struggle to make amends, people still stay closed minded. Since this has been a current issue there are many articles arguing the right and wrongs. Is the removal necessary? What will it help? Two Articles one by Roger Cohen, the other by Clay Risen, both contain similar arguments. They don’t believe the statues should remain standing, but still have differing ways to get to their opinions. Clay’s takes a more personal approach as he talks about his life, and growing up in the South around all the statues. Cohen is opinion based on the accumulation of knowledge and different news stories and information from the past and the present. He talks about the civil war, and the issues of modern times and the opinions of our President.

Clay Risen takes a personal side to this conflict. He discusses growing up in the South. He would ride his bike past the Confederate statues and think nothing of their looming presences, because for him they were just there. (Risen) This is natural though, because once a person exposes themselves to something enough it’s simple to forget how horrid the situation may be. This is important information to add to set up the theme of his article. It is all about just going past the statues and not thinking about what they stand for.Risen says in the article, “removing the legacy of the Confederacy is harder than toppling a few statues” (Risen). Right there in that single line speaks volumes. The strong rooted Heritage of the Confederacy still stand out in the South today. He talks about the different colleges named for Confederate soldiers Washington and Lee Specifically. Removing the statues yes, they will help get rid of the everyday reminder of the black’s oppression, but it will noget rid of it with the snap of a finger. It is here, and it takes more than just removing states to help the racism, as it is deeply rooted in Southern Heritage. He realizes that people are proud of their history, but sometimes history is nasty business. Adding this also expresses his thoughts knowing that even though the statues can be removed the ideals which are rooted in the minds of people are difficult to remove. That's why the removal of the statues are the easy part.

That isn’t the only reason it is difficult, it is not easy changing the thought process of people's narrow-minded ways of thinking due to the removal of some concrete and other materials, in the shape of Confederate leaders? He speaks as if they are just there, some people are proud, some just like the thought of them being their heritage others just think nothing of them (Risen). While he talks about this he talks about himself doing the same thing. They were just there when he was a child. This is difficult for him to cope with realizing how he didn’t think about what those statues actually represents. Adding this is helpful for him to create a voice and personality. He is not the immune author he has made mistakes which he isn’t proud of. It also shows us our immunity to the past, the saying the past of the past truly lets people live in blissful ignorance, it’s as if we say hey they’re not slaves anymore they have their equal rights so, all is well. But it isn’t. African Americans still fight for their rights every day.

When Clay Risen was growing up like everyone he knew people who were racists, and let’s be honest don’t we all? His grandmother was, along with his golfing partner as a child and he just went with it. He regrets this, but that is what people do (Risen). When he writes about his regrets he does it to prove he isn't writing this to be hypocritical. He has also made the mistake of just letting things go on that shouldn’t. He is writing the piece to right some wrongs and bring into the light his experiences and his regrets. They just live with things and sometimes do not confront issues so they wont create problems. It’s difficult to speak up against wrongs (Risen). Especially when wrongs are everywhere around you, it’s difficult to be a single person with one idea and speak out it's why people have followers, and movements maybe led by one person, but they are thousands maybe millions strong.

In the second article Roger Cohen writes about the war, and recent events that have struck home causing this new uprising. He talks about the Civil War quoting the vice president of the confederacy, Alexander Stephens. “That the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition” (Cohen). Adding this sets up a scene of the past. He is saying the Civil war was pro slavery, so the Statutes must be too. Bringing the past into this shows us background on the statues and that specific quote is perfect to use because one it is from the Confederacy’s Vice President, but it is a prime example of their thoughts on African Americans. This was the overall feeling towards African Americans during that time, and it was one of the very main reasons of the Civil War, so yes, the monuments do stand for the oppression of African Americans. The argument that it was not, just slaves when comes to the Civil War may be true but it still is a main cause and on which is still felt today. It’s a ridiculous argument, to even try to say, oh the Civil War was to totally about slavery of course not war is caused by many reason but is not like the war wasn’t fought over slavery it was there it was a reason.

Then Roger Cohen begins to speak of recent events including the death of a 32-year-old woman during the Charlottesville protests. But he speaks of the reaction more so than the protest particularly of our President Donald Trump. Who tweeted that “Both sides are to blame” He put this after he mentioned to death of a 32--year-old woman (Cohen). He did this to show his dislike for Donald Trump. At first you don’t know where he is going but when he says again about Donald Trump saying the white supremacists had “very fine people” in it (Cohen). It is a blow to the president as it shows whose side he is on. This part also comes right after the historical reference, so it brings right back to the now. To where we can relate and on topics we have more knowledge on from the many media outlets talking about it.

Right after he also writes about a novel by Ta- Nehisi Coates who wrote about enslavement. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Roger used a quote from Coates novel Between the World and Me. “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body — it is heritage.”Roger Cohen's opinion on that is simple, the statutes should be removed so not to honor the men who fought to continue using human beings as animals for their greater good (Cohen). No one should be used in such a way ever. It is simple as that. Bringing an outside source form an empowering writer like Ta- Nehisi Coates brings another opinion to the table, but it also adds a source for which people to go to understand his opinion on the treatment of African Americans.

Cohen also has one line which speaks volumes. “Memory is emotion” (Cohen). It is. When a person remembers the past weather is be good or bad there are always feelings associated with it. So, if every day you are walking past a statue which is of a person who fought to keep African Americans enslaved and as goods, and you remember it. The whips, the stories, the vulgar language and the horror. It may not bring specific memories of that time, maybe something that has happened to them. Because the world knows racism is not dead. The Klu Klux Klan still meets, white supremacists exist. So, it can bring up your own unpleasant memories and when you remember that deep pitiful sorrow in your gut, it ruins your day, maybe a week or a month. But if you saw these every day, every day could be ruined just by some concrete. Roger Cohen wants us to reach into our memories. This in here makes us think of our past and the past in general for us to create a connection. Without an emotional connection there would be no reason for us to concern ourselves with his piece.

Roger Cohen also sought for a solution for the Confederate Statues. He thought it would be a good idea to put them in a museum, so they would still exist, because destroying history is never something people want, but they shouldn’t be there any longer. He quoted the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History Lonnie Bunch III who said, “I loathe to erase history” (Cohen). If history isn’t remembered then it will be repeated it's simple, we have to remember all the wrongs that were once done.Putting this in his article proves he doesn't approve of eradicating the statues. He thinks they should be looked on in a museum and not as outside public display. It is not wrong to keep them to remember the horrors of history, but people shouldn't have to be reminded everyday of them.

Both articles argued their opinions well with evidence. Risen’s article though was based more on personal experience, this is helpful to create a sense of bond with readers who may have gone through the same things. Maybe they themselves ride their bikes past the statues during their childhood and thought nothing of it and now are seeing the wrong. It’s not an easy thing to do to admit living life in the dark, but people do, when issues especially controversial racial issues come up it is nice to see someone with their own experiences, may they be similar to yours or not. Because no matter what people say opinions do matter. Cohen used more factual information and news events to back up his opinion. But both agreed the Confederate statues need to come down. It is the best way to help bring us closer to the solution, though it may seem very far away. One step at a time progress will occur.

Work Cited

Cohen, Roger. “Confederate Statues and American Memory.” The New York Times. 6 Sept.

2017.Web.18 Oct.2017

Risen, Clay. “Confederate Statues are the Easy Part.” The New York Times. 18 Aug.

2017. Web. 18 Oct. 2017.

History or Simple Racism?

Mary Kirby

Recently the news has been filled to the brim with stories of riots about Confederate statues. I️ remember watching a news story in which Neo-Nazis had run over Charlottesville protestors, killing them. It was shocking to see how something that should have been a peaceful gathering of like-minded individuals wishing to exercise their right to assemble and speak freely, turned into something deadly. Though, things always seem to get out of hand during protests as mob mentality takes over.But it isn’t right. People should not have to worry about dying while asking for something that represents the oppression of African Americans in society to be removed. These Confederate statues are a prime example of racism in our culture today. They stand as a symbol of the Confederate South, and everything that it entails; they are figures of the men and women who fought to keep slavery. The protests of today bring to light the true meanings the statues represent. In order to stop this issue from claiming more lives than it already has, we must find a peaceful solution. Some states have started taking the statues down, but it is still a slow process. Racism still lingers - has been lingering since the statues were erected, and remains to this day. The easy solution is to tear them down. But that’s an issue because they represent a period of history. To erase history is to erase memories, and the way African Americans were treated in the past is something we should never forget. History needs to be protected. We should take the statues down carefully and preserve them in museums with other historical artifacts so that we can learn from them, not forget them.

The thing is I don’t think people really ponder what the civil war was about. There have been lingering issues from the civil war. One example would be the Confederate flag debacle, and now the big thing is the Confederate monuments and what they symbolize. The South always tried to defend the Confederate soldiers saying they were fighting for their land. The real question is, was anyone taking their land from them? No, the South was attempting to secede from the union. It was their choice. The Southerners felt threatened by the recent Presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in fear that he would take away slavery which was their means of life and labor (History.com Staff). Without slaves they would not have had cheap labor and their farming production would go down, because they would have had to pay people to work the fields, or work them themselves. Thus, they wouldn't be able to pocket the same amount of money they acquired from free labor.

To this day, the South’s pride in its heritage remains intact. In his essay “A Tale of Two Civil War Statues,” Jonathan l. Leib states that in 1890 when the statue of Robert E. Lee was unveiled in Richmond around 100,000 former Confederates showed up. It was entitled the ’Lost Cause’ (Leib). A ‘lost cause’ is defined as a person or thing that can no longer hope to succeed or be changed for the better (Freedictionary.com). Twenty-five years ago, the South still clung to the ideals they retained from the Civil War, and still today they continue to cling onto them. But what is it that they’re fighting for? They claim it is their heritage, they say it was a fight for their land, but we all know that is was about the enslavement of an entire race. 12.5 million people were brought over from Africa, with only 10.7 million surviving the trip (Gates). That is the population of Los Angeles as of 2007 (Rosenberg). With a slavery market of that sheer size, how can the war be justified in any other way?

One example of how these statues display white hegemony is shown in another essay of Jonathan l. Leib titled “Separate Times and Shared Spaces.” He explains that Civil war statues started popping up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to commemorate the white Confederate soldiers (Leib). This, of course, was a phenomenon that seemed to be happening everywhere. In Richmond, Virginia specifically, there was a big debate in 1995 on adding a statue of Arthur Ashe, an African American tennis star and civil rights activist to Monument Avenue, a national park which contains many famous civil war statues of influential people. In Lieb’s article “Separate Times and Shared Spaces” people against erecting the statue try to pretend that the delay in putting it up deals with where to place the statue, but truthfully the real issue was placing a statue of a black man alongside those of white men. As Lieb states, the issue was “not primarily about whether to honour a great tennis player and humanitarian, but was instead about where to honour a great African American tennis player and humanitarian. Issues of race dominated the discourse over the monument’s location” (Lieb). In the end this specific issue was ridiculous seeing as Arthur Ashe was still placed in Monument Avenue because his accomplishments were not any lesser than a white man’s, even though a large portion of white people thought African American’s were worth less than they were, and so the statue didn’t ‘belong.’ But as it should, this placement of Ashe within Monument Avenue visually showcases that white and black people are equal in history, and in standing.

The monuments were erected for the whites to control African Americans. White males have always held power in America. “Whiteness is an invisible norm” (Lieb). A star like Ashe in a predominantly white street is a powerful and prevalent statement. Jonathan Lieb talks about how there are only three monuments commemorating African American soldiers in the civil war, but there are hundreds for white soldiers including those in the Confederacy. It seems as if people forget that 180,000 African-Americans fought, which was a good ten precent of the union army (History.com Staff). Not having representation is part of the problem but we must focus on the central ideal. The monuments are a symbol of white power (Lieb). “Only 6 percent of all US National Historic Landmarks designated between 1960 and 1985 commemorated African American history” (Lieb). Knowing all this it makes us wonder. Can the statues truly remain standing despite all they represent? But that is just one example of how much pride people take in the Confederate statues. A separate article written by John J. Winberry, states, “The South has a symbol, it is the statue of a Confederate soldier.” But the ideals of a Confederate soldier from the past no longer align with the ideals of the majority today. Furthermore, these statues are designed by the wealthy, who at the time were white men whose main source of income was slavery. Monument Avenue as a whole is the pride and joy of these elites who paid for the statues to be constructed as they ordered. Lieb discusses this in “Separate Times, Shared Spaces,” where he writes, “Savage suggests, these ‘monuments do not arise as if by natural law to celebrate the deserving; they are built by people with sufficient power to marshal (or impose) public consent for their erection.” Thus, these statues built during the times prior to civil rights movements when African Americans were portrayed as subhuman so that the masses of white people felt that there was nothing wrong with how they treated black slaves. Even in ads of the time period they are shown as Neanderthal-esque, with features like big mouths and heads and tiny bodies(Smith, Fig.1). Putting the statues up was a similar reminder to show how they were slaves before people in the eyes of the South. These statues are outdated and potentially damaging, drawing back to our shameful history of exploiting human life for profit. The Confederate soldier shouldn’t be celebrated. The symbol was created to place the enslavement of fellow humans on a pedestal, as if it is something natural to do. Erected before the Civil Rights Movement, these statues still stand, showing that we place the same, if not more, importance in them than statues commemorating everything African-Americans achieved after the war. Value should not be placed on destruction, but rather progress. These were influential people for the people of the South. But this is the future and we need to look into the betterment of society and how we should recognize every human as equal.

Recently, there has been uproar and influx of protests over the statues which has led to multiple deaths, and so unsurprisingly many historians reacted. On CNN, various historians got together and talked about their opinions on the issue. One Historian, Amy Greenberg, wrote “Robert E. Lee was not "exactly the same" as George Washington,” seeing as he does not hold the same amount of historical importance as Washington did. It is not as if Robert E. Lee was a president, he was just a Confederate General (even as renowned as he is) He did not build our country, he did nothing life changing, he just fought on the losing side of a war to continue slavery -- something which should have never existed in the first place. George Washington isn’t blameless either, but the extent of the conflict hadn’t expanded as much as it had by the time of the Civil War. However, Racism is not a phenomenon found solely in the South. It is a problem stemming from ignorance, that can appear anywhere in the world. Even opinions on the Confederate statues vary within the South as Karen Cox writes, “Finally, as events in Charlottesville demonstrated, Southerners have a wide range of opinions when it comes to Confederate monuments” Cox). Just as there were Southerners in the protests for equal rights, there were northerners in the white supremacist protests. With that being said, racism is still a big problem in our society. I went to a showing of a movie which was about a book written by James Baldwin titled I’m not your Negro. After this there as a panel of professors who were there to answer questions we had. Someone asked about milestones made in Civil Rights today, but Dr. Richard Newton disagreed with the point overall. He believed milestones have not and will not be reached. It is not an issue for African-American to change the racial ideals of society, but rather the white majority that holds power. (Newton)

The easy solution is to remove the statues, but truthfully, it’s not as simple as that. Removing history like that could be detrimental, as history is a tool to prevent the same mistakes in the future. Out of sight out of mind is a saying that could go hand in hand with what we learn from our history. Therefore, to completely eradicate the statues would be harmful to society. We would slowly forget the mistakes of the past and be at risk of falling into the same trap instead of learning from our mistakes. So, the best solution to our problems would be to put them in a museum. As many do with other historical artifacts to always remember, but we can understand that it was wrong. Enslavement, exploitation, dehumanization. These are what the statues represent. The world around us may have changed, but we can’t allow these ideals to stand uncorrected. Slavery may have been abolished at the end of the war but as far as racism goes, there are still leaps and bounds to go.

Works Cited

Cox, Karen. ”Generalizations cannot define the American South.” CNN,19

Aug. 2017.30 October 2017

Gates Henry Louis. The African Americans. 2013. Web.

Greenburg, Amy. “Is History what happened or a foil for vile acts and

History.com. American Civil War History. History.com. 2009.Web.

J. Hungerford Smith Co. Advertisement. Pinterest.

LEIB, JONATHAN I. "A Tale of Two Civil War Statues Teaching the Geographies Heritage in Norfolk, Virginia." Southeastern Geographer, vol. 52, no. 4, EBSCOhostsearch.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=85388775&site=ehost-live.

Leib, Jonathan I. "Separate Times, Shared Spaces: Arthur Ashe, Monument Avenue and the Politics of Richmond, Virginia's Symbolic Landscape." Cultural Geographies, vol. 9, no. 3, July 2002, pp. 286-312. EBSCOhost,

WINBERRY, JOHN J. "Lest We Forget." Southeastern Geographer, vol. 55, no. 1, Spring2015, pp. 19-31. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10335345 8&site=ehost-live

“lost cause.” FreeDictionary.com.,n.d Website. 11/21/2017

Newton, Richard. “Panel”

Rosenberg Mark. Largest Cities in the World. 2017.Web

Great real life example!

Monuments of Hate

Pretend you’re Jewish and living in Germany. Now imagine attending schools, playing in parks, and passing by monuments that honor the namesakes of Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, and Heinrich Himmler. These are men who murdered, enslaved, and tried to eradicate people because of race—specifically, your race. They considered people like you as, well, actually not being people at all. Instead, because of your race, you were categorized as sub-human, a type of animal, or property that could be used, abused, traded, sold, and eventually discarded. Now imagine your President celebrating these namesakes and refusing to directly condemn the ideals they represent.