Removing and Renaming Confederate Statues, Schools, Streets, etc: Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

What’s wrong with numbers? Almost everyone else deals with them and they don’t take any “charm” away from roadways.

It's like not being ok to say "beltway" or "Rockville Pike." Everybody says, maybe unintentionally, Lee Highway. Google still says Lee Highway. So, make it a different Lee person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

What’s wrong with numbers? Almost everyone else deals with them and they don’t take any “charm” away from roadways.

+1

Numbers, letters, flowers, birds, etc.

Definitely flowers, birds, plants! +10000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

What’s wrong with numbers? Almost everyone else deals with them and they don’t take any “charm” away from roadways.

It's like not being ok to say "beltway" or "Rockville Pike." Everybody says, maybe unintentionally, Lee Highway. Google still says Lee Highway. So, make it a different Lee person.

I promise that you’ll be able to handle it. Would that highway names were the most pressing issues for me! You’re smart and you can remember numbers (or flowers or animals, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

What’s wrong with numbers? Almost everyone else deals with them and they don’t take any “charm” away from roadways.

It's like not being ok to say "beltway" or "Rockville Pike." Everybody says, maybe unintentionally, Lee Highway. Google still says Lee Highway. So, make it a different Lee person.

Times change and you have to change with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

No Do the Right Thing on Red

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

[phone]

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

I’m not sure what you see as being a crucial difference — but you might pause and ask yourself why forced labor on the way to exterminating people and exterminating people in the process of using them as forced labor feels like an important distinction for you to make.

Because slavery, while inhumane and despicable, was not the same as murder.

But weren't slaves raped and murdered? Also, the boat trip from Africa to North and South America wasn't a cruise ship. There were lots of deaths at sea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im fine with removing confederate stuff. But why couldn't Fairfax County find a good Lee person to rename Lee Highway after to keep it generally known as Lee Highway rather than just Route 29? Like Spike Lee Highway?

What’s wrong with numbers? Almost everyone else deals with them and they don’t take any “charm” away from roadways.

It's like not being ok to say "beltway" or "Rockville Pike." Everybody says, maybe unintentionally, Lee Highway. Google still says Lee Highway. So, make it a different Lee person.

Times change and you have to change with them.

I haven’t been able to find DCA since the name was changed. So confounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

[phone]

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

I’m not sure what you see as being a crucial difference — but you might pause and ask yourself why forced labor on the way to exterminating people and exterminating people in the process of using them as forced labor feels like an important distinction for you to make.

Because slavery, while inhumane and despicable, was not the same as murder.

But weren't slaves raped and murdered? Also, the boat trip from Africa to North and South America wasn't a cruise ship. There were lots of deaths at sea.

Scholars believe that up to 2,000,000 deaths were attributable to the Middle Passage voyage alone. Slavery was institutionalized form of capitalist genocide. You couldn’t be held accountable for murdering “property.” Characterizing kidnapping and shackling human beings to a vessel for weeks with de minimis food and water and not even the most rudimentary medical care as a “boat trip” seems odd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the same reason Germany and Italy don’t have Hitler Boulevard or Mussolini Drive.

+1000
This is everything. End of thread right there.

I want to push back a bit and say there's actually more. The premise of the OP is that these names were once OK but no longer are. These names were never OK. This is not like the town of East Hamburg, NY, deciding to rename itself "Orchard Park" during WWI. Or french fries becoming "Freedom Fries" during the first Gulf War. There was never a time when Robert E. Lee was not a polarizing figure and a symbol of hate and racism.

[phone]

Ah, but there is the fact that Germany had the Nurenberg trials. What does U.S. do but welcome the traitors back into Congress.

There is a difference between wanting to exterminate people and treating them as property. Both dehumanizing and neither worthy of commemoration, but also not the same.

I’m not sure what you see as being a crucial difference — but you might pause and ask yourself why forced labor on the way to exterminating people and exterminating people in the process of using them as forced labor feels like an important distinction for you to make.

Because slavery, while inhumane and despicable, was not the same as murder.

But weren't slaves raped and murdered? Also, the boat trip from Africa to North and South America wasn't a cruise ship. There were lots of deaths at sea.

Scholars believe that up to 2,000,000 deaths were attributable to the Middle Passage voyage alone. Slavery was institutionalized form of capitalist genocide. You couldn’t be held accountable for murdering “property.” Characterizing kidnapping and shackling human beings to a vessel for weeks with de minimis food and water and not even the most rudimentary medical care as a “boat trip” seems odd.

Ehh, it was 200 years ago. Who cares, really? I mean are you going to go on a crusade to right all the wrongs Ghengis Khan committed? Why not?

[Anonymous]

Because they are offensive

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile in Florida…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile in Florida…

Florida Man is a racist? Shocker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We must prohibit those who come from Yankee states to Virginia from voting for at least five years to a decade, in order for them to be able to culturally assimilate with southerners! I’m only half kidding, but it’s easy to understand why people who come from such progressive, northern states would be taken back by the way of living of the historical differences even here in northern Virginia. I would be willing to bet half would not even know that Robert E Lee was the general of the Army of Northern Virginia! You live and you learn.

Don’t het ahead of yourself. The North wasn’t that great, either.
http://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2017/1/3/when-did-slavery-really-end-in-the-north

But they weren’t traitors.

Only traitors to the Constitution...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile in Florida…

Thats super weird