Monument/Memorial thread for thinking people.

Tearing down these things is dangerous.

It is just spreading division.

Mitch empowered the usual suspects in other cities. In Shreveport they are taking another run at the Confederate Monument outside the Caddo Courthouse even though old Shreveport money owns the dirt where it sits via Daughters of the Confederacy.

It can't be moved because it is a monument and not a memorial. It is placed at the location where the last Confederate flag was lowered in an official capacity after Appomattox. The monument is inscribed with such, therefore moving it negates it's purpose.

People need to understand one thing: These monuments and memorials were often a derivitive of a reconciliation process wherein both sides fought and came back together to honor each other as part of the healing process. It was a family fight and after it was over we came together and got right with each other as opposed to a foreign invasion.

These things at art. They are interpretive. They have no singular meaning.

A black person can see them as symbols of oppression. A white person can see them as symbols of oppression. A person can look at them with a sense of pride because their 3rd great grandad wanted to represent his state when called and had no hate in his heart. They can be looked at as warnings regarding what happens when divisions escalate to a level so high that no choice seems available other than taking up arms against someone that you shouldn't.

The old cliche' is that those that forget history are condemned to repeat it.

What happens when you erase history?