Posted November 3, 2017 09:41 am - Updated November 4, 2017 09:21 am
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: What the memorial might say in terms of context
Editor: In his column Sunday, “Memorials Aren’t the Problem: We Are,” Opinion Editor Jim Sutton thoughtfully addresses our troublesome local Confederate memorials in a larger context than the simplified keep-or-discard choices.
He turns our attention to continuing injustice in which our city remains complicit. But what might fulfill the “contextual signage” recommended by both Jim Sutton and City Manager John Regan for the obelisk on the plaza?
I offer the following language to clarify the historical conditions:
“This monument was erected by the Ladies Memorial Association in 1879 to honor the Confederate dead. Yet these dead had, knowingly or not, fought to perpetuate the horrors of slavery, and so their cause was irrevocably stained.
Therefore this monument has historical significance in its ignoring and thus postponing racial justice, and it stands in dramatic contrast to the foot soldier monument to civil rights workers, just to the east of this location.”
Keith W. Schlegel
St. Augustine
Photo by Holly Goldstein, Southern Spaces
The monument is not the original one, nor does it stand on private property as it did when it was first erected and paid for by the efforts of the Ladies Association.
ReplyDeleteThe need to include all St. Augustine soldiers that died for the Union need to be included as well.
Not a brilliant "contextualizing" at all — this is a simplistic one cause whitewash of the Civil War, a war that was fought for a myriad of rationales as different as those held by all of the participants at the time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boxthefox.com/articles/Abe%20Lincoln.html
Demeaning confronts nostalgia.
And says we'll have this no more,
One person's icon of good times,
Is another's of slavery to deplore,
But both are slaves in the present,
To an oppression they will never see,
Xtrevilism keeps them mired in the past,
As the rich man chuckles with glee,
The icons now that enslave them both,
Are accepted as normal and routine,
Corporate logos of the now slave masters,
Are everywhere to be seen,
Full Spectrum Dominance,
Is the name of their game,
Conflict In The Masses,
Is the policy's name,
You must rise above the ruse,
If you ever hope to be free,
Direct your anger to the rich,
Who incite you to disagree...
Love one another,
Deprogram from the hate,
Study and learn,
It is never too late!
http://saintaugdog.com/sadarticles/immoralsnobsignoretheir%20corruption.html