Asheville, N.C.
Did you nazi that coming?
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The Asheville City Council has been in a state of reaction and neglect over the hysteria that has gripped the Nation over matters few are professionally qualified to address. Two days following the Durham incident on August 14, Wayne Goodwin, North Carolina Democratic Party chair, issued a statement via email at 3:20 PM on August 16, headlined “Add your name: tell the General Assembly to tear down every Confederate monument in our state.” The email stated clearly that the Governor “called for the removal” of Confederate monuments. The following day, on August 17, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported that the Mayor “agreed with Cooper.” The Mayor and other members of City Council were so eager to respond to Goodwin’s call for action that the hasty response became muddled and she had to clarify her statements when a headline from another source stated, “Mayor calls for Vance Monument removal.” Then on August 18, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported that four local residents had been “charged with damaging Lee plaque at Vance Monument.” In effect, the hysteria that erupted in the State, from the Governor to the party chair to the Mayor of Asheville and city council members, resulted in the vandalism at Pack Square. As a result of this hysteria, the Mayor had to issue a statement asking “city residents to express views peacefully.” But what the Mayor did not do, was admit to her part in fueling the anti-fascist violence that had started in Charlottesville on August 12. Ten days later, the Mayor and members of City Council gave one of the activists who vandalized the monument at Pack Square permission to speak at the Council meeting of Tuesday, August 22, when a Resolution was issued rejecting “the message of all hate groups.” The young woman, reported Mountain Xpress, “quoted Martin Luther King Jr. on one’s moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” and asked the members to “align yourself with the platform of Black Lives” and to “make Asheville a sanctuary city.” There is reason to believe that Cecil Bothwell was behind giving voice to the young activist who broke the law, and who used Dr. King’s words inappropriately to justify her actions. Dr. King would not have approved of that activist’s criminal actions, and City Council should be admonished for having offended the community by giving voice to an extreme left-wing activist who vandalized city property. The Mayor should admonish Bothwell for encouraging such lawlessness, and she should apologize to the community for the “No Brainer” actions and wrongful message she permitted to be expressed at City Hall. I call upon the Mayor to reject Bothwell’s anarchist message and to apologize to the citizens of Asheville who are disgusted with the irresponsible message that was permitted to be voiced by an extremist on August 22. It is a No Brainer that voter turnout in City election is so dismal. City Council should put this subject on their agenda for discussion, and not young activist who wrongfully justify vandalism by misinterpreting Dr. King’s message.
I disagree. I think Manheimer and City Council should be commended. It’s time to begin the process of removing symbols of hate and divisiveness from our public spaces.
LOL that will one day include Democrats.
Speaking of hate & divisiveness…
There has been a growing consensus from the community and the nation to “contextualize” the monuments.
On September 1, 2017, The Daily Planet’s opinion stated that “We think it is vitally important to preserve the 65-foot tall granite obelisk, erected in 1896 and designed by famed local architect Richard Sharp Smith….We think a better path forward would be to build new monuments to slaves and sons of slaves who helped to build Asheville and make it the great–and diverse–city that it is today.”
The U.S. Senator from our neighbor to the South, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina (the only African-American member of the Senate) stated: “The reality of it is that having those Confederate monuments there can remind us of how dark the human soul can be. It can also remind us of how bright the future can be. I think us having this great challenge around, of removing monuments, changing the name of counties, is in my opinion, too far, too soon.”
Professor Darin Waters, an African-American native son of Asheville and assistant professor history at UNC-A, stated that he did not favor removing the monuments. About the Vance Monument, Prof. Waters said “I think it stands as a historical artifact that says more about the time and the people who put the monument there than it does about Vance, and there’s something we can lear from that as a society. Looking into the future,” he continued to say, “my argument would be that this will really make us think about how we remember and memorialize people.”
Former Dallas City Council member, Sandra Crenshaw, an African-American citizen, said in late August, in response to the Texas man who tried to bomb a Confederate statue in Houston: “I am not intimidated by Robert E. Lee’s statue. I am very, very saddened by those people, particularly the African-Americans who are leading this agenda. Some people think that by taking a statue down that that’s going to eliminate racism. It’s misguided.”
The enormous cost of removal of these reminders of our dark past is an expense that could be directed toward erecting those memorials to the Native-American, the African Slave, the Farmer, the Laborer, the Textile Worker, etc.; symbols that would generate a new pride in our community. It’s time to honor the level-headed opinions of our African-American citizens who are not intimated by a statue of Robert E. Lee and who express the kind of wisdom and forethought that is lacking from both the right and the left in our nation. City Council went too far in permitting the young woman to speak in the Chamber on August 22. The Mayor and City Council members should be held accountable for the misguided “no brainer” they committed against the community and its non-affiliated citizens, many who no longer show up to vote in city elections. The members of City Council should address the dismal state of affairs where a near single-digit turnout for elections is growing worse; yet these politicians act as if this small number of citizens awards them with a mandate for acting so negatively and irresponsibly toward those citizens who are too discouraged to even bother to participate.
There has been a growing consensus from the community and the nation to “contextualize” the monuments.
You mean that this is the course that you prefer. You’re cherry-picking comments that support your preference, and calling it “consensus”. I can pull just as many comments that support removal over “contextualization”. (Full disclosure: I have leaned towards “contextualizing” the Vance Monument myself, but I think the Lee monument should be removed.)
Sorry to further puncture your “consensus” balloon, but here’s a national map showing all the cities that have already, or are considering removal, as of a week ago:
Confederate Monuments Are Coming Down Across the United States. Here’s a List.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/16/us/confederate-monuments-removed.html
BTW, your argument about the issue of the monuments might have more merit, if you didn’t then segue into a pretty transparent partisan attack on City Council.
I hear Detroit is such a bastion of democrat success that they find dead bodies months after they’ve died. And that’s INSIDE the city. Where whole blocks sit abandoned. But let’s not focus on that. It’s “things” that are causing problems and have to be taken down. Not the ideas or people behind such farces though.
Not that it matters, but: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jpmorganchase/2017/06/02/americas-comeback-city-the-rebirth-of-detroit/#17cd2b4f37a5.
Please realize that these left wingers need to vilify others merely to justify their own miserable existence. There’s always going to be a boogeyman whether real or made up. And yet the problems never really go away and whatever they do is merely preening and showmanship.
All one has to do is look at the stats of what a liberal society has resulted in. They call it progress. I call it circling the drain.
I finally get what you’re saying, Lulz. It’s wrong to call traitors “traitors” and racists “racists.”
It’s wrong to want to tear down monuments to those who killed Americans in pursuit of a racist political agenda.
Sheesh, guys, what were we thinking? We’re just self-absorbed knobs, apparently unable to grasp the bigger picture.
Only by honoring the past of traitors and racists can we truly move on. I think maybe some Confederate parades are in order. With some fancy uniforms and flags. And maybe some clever slogans. To help truly bury the past.
If people wanted to remember a painful past, they would put up a statue of General George Stoneman, widely regarded as the most incompetent general of the Civil War (a cavalry officer with hemorrhoids) who pointlessly sacked Asheville after Lee surrendered. Something for everyone there.
The fact that this debate continues after a century and a half is evidence that the “whole truth” has not been popular, especially to those who have a one-sided view about “the War Between the States.” The opinions of those, like Bothwell and his abolitionist friends, are so grounded in the intense emotional investments that were likely acquired in childhood (and not from any scholastic understanding they can boast of that could settle the matter in question or change the minds of those who think differently about what they insist is “the truth”…so hopelessly convinced that their opinions are proper and correct) that they are blind to the chance that their view of the conflict cannot be supported by facts as they relate to the “whole story,” the historical basis for scholarship that stands critically apart from the emotional righteousness that motivates them to destroy evidence of the past, be it politically correct or otherwise.
The fact that this debate continues after a century and a half is evidence that the “whole truth” has not been popular
You haven’t mentioned yet, that I can see, what that “whole truth” about the “War of Liberation for Which They’ll Thank Us Later” really is. Let me guess – it had nothing to do with slavery, right?
Also very interesting, “Roger”, is how you characterize those who want to remove Confederate monuments as “abolitionist”. A quick google search shows no one yet calling modern activists by that name. Perhaps it’s happening on some red pill site, but I can’t find it. Did you coin the usage of that term yourself?
Being “right” is everything to bsummers, so much so that he probably hopes Irma will strike the city and topple the Vance monument. Let’s change the subject to those who are struggling to get back on their feet after Harvey, those who are facing the wrath of the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record.
Wow, that’s got to be the most awkward dodging-the-question since W’s infamous “Now, watch this drive” moment.
Sure, when you’re facing an uncomfortable question about your use of racially-charged language – let’s talk about hurricanes instead. That makes complete sense and is not creepy and evasive at all.
Another descendant of a Confederate commander comes out in support of taking down monuments. This time, he is a member of the Commission that might be tasked with doing so.
Another Historical Commission member weighs in on monument removal
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2017/09/05/another-historical-commission-member-weighs-monument-removal/
“Ruffin, 68, grew up in conservative Ahoskie and is a descendant of Edmund Ruffin, the fiery Confederate who is said have fired the first shot at the Battle of Fort Sumter. His ancestor argued for secession years before the Civil War and famously committed suicide when the South lost, preferring death over submission to “Yankee rule.”
“My father took me to a wooded area when I was a child and told me about witnessing a lynching there,” Ruffin said. “That had a profound effect on me.”
LOL, he should visit the southside of Chicago.
I used to live on the southside of Chicago. If you’re trying to be funny, I don’t get it.
C’mon, Barry, he’s not trying to be funny. He’s trying to vilify African Americans.
Let’s all give “Roger” the (provisional) credit for coining the term “abolitionist”, in the context of criticizing those who currently want to remove monuments to the Confederacy. Wrong about ending slavery = Wrong about taking down monuments to slavery, eh “Roger”?
Most Americans celebrate the bravery and conviction of those who risked their lives to end the shameful practice of enslaving other human beings. Interesting that you use it as an expression of derision.
Whoa, I missed this earlier. Check out “Roger”‘s post at the top of the thread:
But what the Mayor did not do, was admit to her part in fueling the anti-fascist violence that had started in Charlottesville on August 12.
Soccer mom/Mayor Esther Manheimer had something to do with the violence in Charlottesville? Wow, her influence extends further than I had imagined. Was she involved in moving Vince Foster’s body, too?