Like I said as long as it’s done legally, I don’t care. Nobody but the people in my community should get a say on what we choose to display on public property.
A friend of mine is writing an immense book on the convict labor of newly freed blacks and poor whites who were forced by southern states to rebuild cities destroyed by the war, railroads, mines and work on plantations.
The abuse and deliberate torture inflicted on them that’s detailed in the archives we read would make your skin crawl.
You know, nothing is stopping you guys that don’t even live there, but want they block to stay put, from starting a petition for those tens of thousands of black families to sign in favor of keeping where it is.
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I’m quite frankly, shocked that those tens of thousands of black families weren’t there to form a human shield protecting that monument to their ancestors.
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It’s not zero.
Fragility has nothing to do with it. That fails to deal with the much more sinister heart of racism. Namely, viewing others as subhuman and, therefore, unworthy of occupying the same space.
I started in this thread stating that I felt it was a NATIONAL CULTURAL HERITAGE issue, not local.
I believe it is a National spot.
Maybe if that store owner from across the street moved on the position of getting it National recognized, imagine his foot traffic then.
I believe National recognition would do more to honor those who stood there on that stone, than anything else could; certainly better than removing it from sight, and then ultimately memory.
Do you think black Americans will ever forget?
It’s not tens of thousands of black families.
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This is excellent.
It’s not zero.
Zero is closer.
How many black families do you believe make that pilgrimage to a street corner slave auction stone to honor their ancestors?
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It’s not zero.
Is it tens of thousands of black families?
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I didn’t say it is. I said it’s not zero.
Based on the fact that there were zero black people fighting to keep the slave auction stone on the street corner, and hundreds if not thousands chanting to have it moved and spitting on it, I feel good saying it’s zero black families that go to that corner to honor their ancestors.
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I feel good… and that’s what it’s really all about.
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It probably feels good to opine that tens of thousands of black families go to that street corner slave auction stone to honor their ancestors.
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Did you really just try and suggest not removing a slave auction block because you felt descendants of the slaves sold there would be the ones who would be upset about it being removed?
Did you really just suggest that?
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The comparison to Auschwitz is also ridiculous.
Auschwitz is preserved as a museum to events that took place that we should never do again…not made openly visible in the public square so descendants of survivors can “honor them” there.
This slave auction block is going to have a similar fate…it’s going to a museum to be preserved as a relic of events that should never take place again.
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That’s an interesting comparison.
How was the Jewish community looked upon, both in Europe and internationally, after the atrocities committed against them during WII?
Now contrast that with the way that black folks were treated, with the force of law to back it up (or the law letting it happen) in many places, for generations following the Civil War.
Not only that, but i think after WWII, the world stood in agreement that the people who did that to the Jewish people were evil, hateful, wicked, treacherous villains, and many of those responsible were executed. And the nation from which those villains originated does not kindly remember the heroism or bravery of those villains with memorials staining their public squares. That wasn’t the case in the US after the Civil War, because the people “we” were fighting against were our family, and neighbors, and friends, etc. And instead of a unified, national rebuff and push back against the very evil over which the war was fought, we shook hands and honorably agreed to stop fighting…but then the losers of the war went on to memorialize their bitterness and ingrained it into law and “civilized culture” in many of their towns and states.
I don’t think it should take a deep examination to understand why Auschwitz or Anne Frank’s house would be seen differently by the Jewish community than a slave auction block might be seen by black folks today.
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