These resources are compiled, evaluated, compared, and contrasted with each other, and from them the historian — mixing in their understanding of the contexts in which the resources appeared — produces their interpretation of the event. Vital Opinions by thevitalblog June 10, 2020 June 10, 2020. Removing Statues, Erasing History Doesn't Cure Racism Police stand watch near the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the center of Emancipation Park the day after the Unite the Right rally devolved into violence August 13, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are monuments placed in the late 1800s which usually depict a skinny teenager in a slouch hat, carrying a rifle. None of this is anything new. Removing historical monuments sets a dangerous precedent that we would not want to see widely applied. But statue removal is not “erasing history.” Of course, they have a history. To remove a statue in this day and age is not close to “erasing history,” it is a contemporary decision to stop certain things being honoured going forward. Destroying archives, because they are full of those primary sources that help us understand the past: letters, diaries, manuscripts, newspaper accounts, all the things that captured the experiences of eyewitnesses and transmit that information to us today. The police killing of George Floyd sparked widespread protests and reignited efforts across the U.S. to remove Confederate and other statues viewed as symbols of slavery and racism. Ceasing to venerate them does not bid us to “forget” history. Too long has the history of Britain belonged to just one portion of its demographic. Of Elizabeth Warren’s amendment to a defense spending bill requiring that American military bases be stripped of Confederate names, her fellow senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, said, “I just don’t think that Congress mandating that these be renamed and attempting to erase that part of our history is a way that you deal with that history.”. What did they do? In several cities, these tributes have been vandalized or torn down by protestors or removed by public officials. August 30, 2017 . © 2021 Advance Local Media LLC. That does not even speak to the thousands of black people who were murdered in those public spectacles called lynchings. It is the removal of (a certain kind of) connection to (a certain kind of) history, as I will mention below and try to address in my sequel post, but it’s not erasing history itself. These will be questions I will tackle in my next post. The removal of Confederate statues isn’t ahistorical, or erasing the remembrance of our past. ), How then do historians gain an understanding of the past? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to … The statues themselves don’t tell us much at all. The statues themselves don’t tell us much at all. My father had a grandfather was a soldier in that conflict. People gather at the Robert E. Lee Monument, now covered by protest graffiti, in Richmond, Va., earlier this month. That statue or that name are failing on their own to give you any sense of Dhan-Kampa’s life or the era in which she lived (well, the statue might provide a bit of a sense for the kinds of clothes that were worn when she was alive or even something of the amazing actions for which she is so justly famous). But their actions are bringing closer scrutiny on the figures these monuments celebrate — allowing history to be retold from the viewpoint of their victims. Shutting down classrooms, because teachers have the unparalleled ability to help students learn about and explore the past. Chris argues that it's not "erasing history" to remove Confederate commemoration from public spaces. Period. This isn’t a matter of not erecting new statues, this is … Removing statues of racists is not erasing history: it’s finally acknowledging it. It’s a way to honor the people whose families these figures fought to enslave; it’s a way to put a kinder foot forward and refuse to uplift figures who represent little more than racism, violence, and treason. It calls us to examine it. As for whether removing statues is erasing history - in many ways it is. The study of the events of the past, (My mother assumed my majoring in history in school meant I was just getting better at A — “you’ll just memorize dates?” — when what I was doing was getting better at B, reinterpreting and recontextualizing the events of the past in light of new knowledge. Barricading archaeological sites, because they are the places where the physical world of the past is literally unearthed and given its initial context. As a Southerner, I am steeped in William Faulkner’s bitingly accurate phrase, “The past is never dead. 5 min read. Email her at fcoleman1953@gmail.com and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances. Now we must re-examine our past under a more scrutinising lens, and from … Their suffering is not reenacted or glorified, but it is the ugly and unpleasant history of warfare. When we consider history and cherish the notion of the past and venerate those who have “always” been our heroes, we all should consider some facts. What does that have to do with history? Or you can see the issue in a broader historical scope and understand that slavery was a part of the economic system that enriched the British empire and the United States, and that we live with the effects of enslaving millions. There is a subset of statues of Confederates whose statues I hope will continue to stand. People of the United Kingdom: the time has come for you to kill your darlings. Quite a lot. When we humans do bad things in large groups -- the way that our ancestors supported a government that defended or participated in slavery -- we are not to blame for their sins. History is how we see whom. OTTAWA — The minister responsible for Parks Canada says tearing down statues is not the solution when it comes to addressing the darker side of Canadian history. Frances Coleman is a freelance writer who lives in Baldwin County, Alabama. So I believe we can stop suggesting that removing statues or renaming military bases is “erasing history.” They aren’t conveying historical knowledge in the first place, so there is no history there to be erased. So if not as history itself, why do we create monuments and name all manner of things after historical people? To say that removing a statue from public land, even if the intent is to move the monument to a museum, is "erasing history" is not only ridiculous, but rather ignorant. A high-profile decision to tear down a famous bronze figure of … Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. No, it is not erasing history, because statues are mythology, not history. Who if anybody does deserve such an honor, especially when everybody is flawed (because they’re people)? Would Sir like a seat for the car as well? The people who erected his statue were his heartbroken parents and family members. No matter what war or political persuasion, we should always remember those who gave themselves up for a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Remember the dead teenagers. What monuments and names do do is provide a point of connection to the past. No, Removing Monuments Isn’t ‘Erasing History’ by Crystal Marie. To say this “erases history” is to miss the point. He stands with his hand to his brow, scanning the horizon. Burning books, because there are no richer or more efficient sources for sharing historical material and the understanding of the past that their analysis permits. “Always” last about two generations. “Removing a statue is not going to change how people feel,” he said. If no, it’s not erasure of history.). Recall that 60 years ago a black person could not sit at a lunch counter, vote or marry a white person. Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission. It’s not even past.”. We do, however, have to live in the aftermath. If you are my age, you knew people who knew people who had living memory of the Civil War. (Tim Bradbury / Getty Images) … All of these things carry historic content the way a dipper carries water when we are thirsty. Share this: The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (each updated 1/1/21). Several years ago, in one of D.C.’s largest suburbs in Arlington, Virginia, I came home to the cheerful apartment I shared with two fellow Southern women and I was surprised to see a new book positioned carefully … Removing statues like this is not about erasing history… They might trigger an observer — the visitor of the statue or the student at the school — to delve more deeply into why the statue or the name is there. To wit: Would the removal of [this thing] notably limit our ability to understand the history of [this event]? It does something more important than that. Removing racist monuments is about making history, not erasing it We need to memorialize more statues of trailblazers such as physician Vivian Pinn by Andre Perry November 7, 2017 March 30, 2020. Statues are coming down in Mobile, New Orleans and Richmond -- not to mention Bristol, England -- because the truth is, a lot of people in those cities don’t want to see people who supported slavery honored with public monuments. They provide us with information about the past that cannot be obtained in other ways. Until I was in my late teens, we made their offspring an underclass in this country. But that is not the same thing as itself acting as a vehicle for historical information. Were their acts and their lives really that bad (or that good)? If yes, you may be concerned about erasure of history. Removing the statutes reflects a sea change in who we, as a society, honor. I wholeheartedly concur. The people whom the statues commemorate supported or profited from slavery. A group of neo-Nazis who stormed the University of Virginia’s campus aimed to defend the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who led the traitorous army during the Civil War. Some, however, worry that the removal of public monuments will equate to the erasure of our collective history. There has been a call for their removal for many of those years. Colston made a fortune in the slave trade, something our tea-sipping English cousins might like to forget and foist only on the American South. Is removing a statue erasing history? So what then would be an erasure of history? (A point reinforced here, I hope, because I entirely made her up; but anybody walking up to a statue or seeing a school name for the first time travels in that very same ignorance as did you — unless they have gotten historical information from elsewhere. Critics of its removal used a specious argument of erasing history to defend its presence. Read Next. Why yes to founders but no to Confederates? Putting up or taking down statues is not about which history you want to remember. Watch a Hurricane Harvey Survivor Find Out His Dad Survived the Storm . There have been several letters to the editor about removing or nor removing statues and monuments related to the Confederacy or to individuals who held racist views. In doing this, we are not turning away from history. But if you are ignorant about Anastasia Dhan-Kampa going into your encounter with her likeness or her name, then their removal, I would wager, would do little to affect your actual knowledge of her or of her life — because, on their own, they cannot teach you anything about her. At its core, we do it by examining original sources of information created during the events that we are studying: letters, diaries, manuscripts, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts. They bear little information content for you. The events of the pastB. It is the difference between looking at a picture of water and drinking the water itself. There are and have been many routes to damnatio memoriae, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. I believe there are places for them, such as in the battlefield or by museums, where they signify and have meaning in relation to the Taking down statues is not erasing history. The Interesting History of Vaseline (aka Petroleum Jelly), Lessons from the Civil War still need to be learned, When flesh and blood meet bronze and marble. Stewart, a noted Canadian historian, labelled it a crime against history itself. Our willingness to take down racist traitors also signifies. Those generations are dead, and with them any soft focus on what slavery was and did. That “from elsewhere” is the key: that is where the actual history is found.). J.D.M. (A picture of water, after all, might make you want to learn more about water.) While the governor of Virginia initiated plans to remove the statue, saying that the “divisive monument” … Our statues are monuments of the state of our democracy as much as they honor our beloved. And we look at the places and landscapes where, and artifacts with which, events happened. Nonetheless, he believes that removing Confederate statues and memorials, often erected several decades after the Civil War is a way to … Rewriting history is positively Orwellian, and a terribly dangerous path. I have heard family and friends say the same sorts of things — “I guess the protesters just want to erase history!” — their words a mix of defiance with an undercurrent of what I take to be legitimate puzzlement. History is, as the saying goes, “written by the winners.” The past is what we perceive it to be. Why, then, is removing Confederate monuments or striking Confederate names from military installations not erasing history, too? He was a soldier -- a kid who went away to war and died from typhoid, food poisoning, starvation in a Yankee prison camp or maybe a Union Minie’ ball. Removing the statutes reflects a sea change in who we, as a society, honor. To quote John Oliver, “Monuments are not how we record history—books are, museums are, Ken Burns’ 12-part miniseries are. Removing a statue — or putting one up in the first place — signals which values our culture … My hunch is: not much. Removing monuments from the public square is pulling it out of the public eye and trying to reduce its significance and recognition. All rights reserved (About Us). It makes us think about history. Removing any of them lessens our ability to tell and interpret the story of the past. ‘Statues are not history’: considering the removal of Sir John A. Macdonald Click to return to homepage. Erasing history, though, is a dangerous path because it means that the truth becomes something malleable that has been created instead of recorded. It’s about who the society as a whole wants to venerate and honor in public places. In doing this, we are not turning away from history. To say this “erases history” is to miss the point. Which is to say, how do we “do” history? Is the removal of Confederate monuments and the names of Confederates from streets and military installations “erasing history” as so many who oppose those moves contend it is? They bear the raw material from which understanding of history is built. … It is people now deciding what they want or don’t want now. A statue of Christopher Columbus is seen with its head removed at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park on June 10, 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts. Article content. Paving over historic battlefields, because no amount of documentary evidence can substitute for an understanding of the landscape over which such historic events took place. Meanwhile, the same folks who cry that taking down monuments to Civil War generals erases history also complain that doing so blames today’s white Southerners for the sins of slavery. As protesters and public officials remove statues and memorials to conquerors, oppressors, enslavers and murderers, people like King Leopold II of Belgium, Cecil Rhodes, Robert E. … He said addressing these monuments isn't erasing history. A favourite argument of those who oppose the removal of statues is that we must not erase history but instead learn from it. Because statues and names in and of themselves lack that power to convey historical information. Are any monuments worth preserving? Now that chain is broken. First, though, what is “history?” This is a large question and one that entire courses of study — and careers — are built on, but people generally use to the term to mean one of two things: A. We remember things through so many more methods than statues, which are designed to honor their subjects. The preservation of history is not the concern of these neo-Nazis and white nationalist groups: the … To pretend otherwise is actually erasing history more than mothballing a statue or changing a name would be. Closing museums, because the artifacts they preserve are material evidence of the past, the things people created and used and found important or commonplace. When I look at Semmes, Lee and Edward Colston, I see the ugly face of slavery looking back at me. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. We are turning away from those people on those pedestals -- and what they represent -- as models to be admired and fondly remembered. 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