StuBear65

I've been involved in a few protests in my time that unfortunately led to rioting (on the right side of the law), but this looks worrying.

I've never seen so many protesters with automatic rifles before!!

BBC News

Britexmom

That is absolutely horrific, I am so tired of all this hatred.
We are an interracial family, and it scares me to know that so many people will hate my children not even knowing who they are just because of how they look.

BEVS

So sad. So dreadful.

anotherlimey

You and me both

Lion in Winter

The perfect trifecta of ignorance, violence and bigotry.

This country can be deeply primitive.

dc koop

At least Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe got it straight. Trump's comments left me wondering

mikelincs

There were many comments before Trump got elected that, if he did get into power the US should expect to see a rise in white supremacy groups and that they would become more active. They saw that in Trump's words they were being told to take back the streets for white Americans.

Rete

I found their comments parroted each other almost to the letter.

anotherlimey

Sounds like Hitler. ... Godwin's law be damned.

dc koop

And appointing Steve Bannon a member of the Alt Right as a top advisor. Definitely sends a message.

Steerpike

The whole thing is depressing and disgusting, and the president's response has been typically inappropriate.

But what interests me about this is what inspired this protest. I'm not sure that removing a statue of a local historic figure is necessarily appropriate, even though he was the top general of the slavery supporting 'South'. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/u...st-statue.html
I personally like the idea of keeping the statue but providing more accurate 'historical context'.

Leslie

I think that we should understand the historical context of the statue itself.

This isn't some old nice historical statue that's just been there forever. This was a statue that was commissioned almost 60 years after the South lost the Civil War. Commissioned by powerful people who were still very pissed off about the end of slavery and in denial about the fact that (1) they lost the Civil War and (2) black people were on the trajectory to gaining an equal place in society. I would liken this to Germans erecting statues of Hitler and Himmler, in places of prominence and importance, in the year 2005. Or Americans erecting statues of King George III in the 1830s. Robert E. Lee was a man who led a treasonous insurrection against the government of the United States. If the outcome of the war had been different then many other things would have went differently ... but that's not the way it worked out.

The time that this statue was installed was during the rise of the KKK (Second Klan) and statues like this were installed intentionally to intimidate black people, as well as whites, who were attempting to push forward the notion of equality, and basic decent treatment, of all citizens. Also, during this phase, the movie The Birth of a Nation was mainstream and was enjoyed by, then president, Woodrow Wilson in the White House.

That old culture in Virginia was what allowed for the statue to be erected in the first place. This was a culture of lynchings, voter intimidation, church burnings and general hatred towards blacks by many people in positions of power. That culture has now changed and the statue no longer represents the culture of the Charlottesville. The city itself is behind the decision to move the statue. The city itself has decided the statue no longer represents the culture of Charlottesville. The people who were protesting the removal were not from Charlottesville. They are hate groups who, in all frankness, have no city of their own. They have no home, they are welcome nowhere. Their city is the internet. That's where they live and breath and breed. They should have no say whatsoever in what goes on in the city of Charlottesville. There may be some people, who actually live in Charlottesville, who disagree with the moving of the statue --- they can protest legally or petition their local government. If the local people against the moving of the statue were in the majority, they could stop it legally. However, the majority of those protesters were the thugs, drug dealers, felons and pimps that comprise the alt-right.

Steerpike

Thanks for the historical context; I did not know that at all and I'm glad you provided it. Based on this context, it makes a whole lot of sense to remove the statue. I had, naively, assumed the statue was erected right after the war to commemorate a 'local hero'.

This goes to my bigger point on all this - there is a general lack of understanding in the population as a whole regarding the civil rights movement, and these events NEED to get national attention to act as an educational tool. That's why I think it's good that the media has focused on these unfortunate events.

Leslie

I think that a lot of people believe that. The statues of confederate heroes that litter the South were not erected during or immediately after the war. They were mostly commissioned in the 20th century and during the Civil Rights movement. The Civil Rights movement coincided with, and was probably the cause of, the entire period of the second Klan and the ascendance of the third Klan. This type of racist propaganda was made even more popular during the 50s and 60s as evinced by the resurgence of popularity of the Confederate flag almost 100 years after the end of the Civil War. There were actually very few Confederate flags produced during the war. Very few soldiers ever even saw this flag. It was mass produced almost 100 years later by white supremacists who were rallying against Civil Rights.

yellowroom

Thanks very much for the history lesson, I did not realise the full context of the statues. Much appreciated.