Mayor Lavar Stoney proposes further "contextualization."

"Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced Wednesday that he and 9th District Councilman Mike Jones will introduce an ordinance on July 1 to remove all city-controlled Confederate statues from Monument Avenue.

A commission appointed by Stoney recommended taking down the Jefferson Davis statue and adding context to others.

“I appreciate the recommendations of the Monument Avenue Commission – those were the appropriate recommendations at the time," Stoney said in a statement. "But times have changed, and removing these statues will allow the healing process to begin for so many Black Richmonders and Virginians." RTP

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"Richmond is no longer the Capital of the Confederacy – it is filled with diversity and love for all – and we need to demonstrate that.”

A law set to take effect July 1 allows local governments to take down Confederate monuments. The five on Richmond’s Monument Avenue — raised between 1890 and 1929 — have been some of the most controversial in the state. Four of the five are on city property, while a statue honoring Robert E. Lee is on state property and would not be subject to local control.

Asked about the Lee monument at a news conference Tuesday, Northam said he would "follow that discussion, and follow the lead of the city council and ... the people that live in Richmond.""  RTP

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It is interesting that Mayor Stoney is "filled with love for all."  I am beginning to think that "contextualization" is the least offensive of the possibilities in terms of desecration.

There are future candidates for "contextualization" in Richmond.  Hollywood Cemetery (full of dead Johnnies including Jeb Stuart),  The Virginia Historical Society Library (too many rebel  uniforms in cases and murals), The Museum of the Confederacy and CS White House,  The Medical College of Virginia where people like Doctors Hunter McGuire and Simon Baruch were trained.  Both were medical corps majors in the CSA.  Reverence for them must be ended.  And that VA medical center that TTG uses must have its name changed (Hunter McGuire).  And then there is Oakwood Cemetery where solders were brought from Chimborazo hospital to be buried.  I should not forget the statue of Lee that stands in the state capitol on the spot where he accepted command of Virginia's forces in 1861.  The possibilities are endless.

It is announced today that Ralph Northam will order Lee's statue removed from Monument Avenue.

Hopefully Richmond will sink into being a boring middle sized city bereft of an industrial base now that tobacco is gone and filled in the downtown with parking lots where grand houses once stood..  Without its past it is a rather ugly city without much context at all.  pl

https://www.richmond.com/news/local/government-politics/stoney-to-propose-removing-all-confederate-statues-from-monument-avenue/article_b427ca62-fbd3-578c-82a7-c7d32071d8c6.html

Comments

[J]

Colonel,

"The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department told reporters Sunday that Black Lives Matter and antifa rioters set fire to a multi-family home with children inside and then blocking access for firefighters to get through to save the children."

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/pure-evil-police-chief-breaks-describing-richmond-leftist-rioters-torched-home-children-inside-blocked-fire-department-video/

[jose]

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming. - https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/cancel-culture/#:~:text=Cancel%20culture%20refers%20to%20the,the%20form%20of%20group%20shaming.

This the future of love for all, except those "Basket of deplorables."

Isn't love beautiful...

[Stephanie]

Mayor Stoney is certainly filled with something.

I believe the cemetery for Chimborazo Hospital was Oakwood Cemetery. (Was anything ever named after Dr. McCaw? Something should have been.)

It'll be Washington, Jefferson, and Madison up - or down - next.

[William Fitzgerald]

Pat Lang,

What would have been unthinkable a short time ago has become the norm. The people of Virginia, since they won't preserve their history, don't deserve to keep their history. They're watching passively as the story of The Commonwealth is systematically dismantled.

WPFIII

[Bill H]

We were harshly critical of the Taliban when they removed the Budda statues because they represented a regime which came before theirs, or perhaps because they represented a point of view which disagreed with theirs, but now in either case we are removing statues which... Oh what's the point? I'm preaching to the choir.

[Fred]

The radical left has taken control of the narrative of American history. I'm sure Nikki Haley is ready to show them how to tear down America's past.

[turcopolier]

William Fitzgerald

Yes, the people of Virginia lack the courage and will to preserve their heritage. They are not the men their fathers were. I will try to stop writing about this.

[Barbara Ann]

Virginia is close to your heart Colonel, but we non-Virginians can empathize as we see similar vandalism all around. A black man murdered by a white cop is just the latest excuse for the cultural genocide in the name of 'equality' permeating Western civilization. But what is the purpose of a civilization, other than to ensure that sons do become the men their fathers were, if not better men?

[eakens]

interesting video on Antifa.

https://streamable.com/5rj80x

It seemed suspicious to me that all these police vehicles, etc. were being left out in the open to be destroyed, and the police doing little to stop it. This video seems to confirm my belief that law enforcement is either (a) in on this [unlikely], or (b) they are luring Antifa in and using the first wave of protests/riots as an intelligence gathering operation.

The crackdown on the Commies will be epic.

[turcopolier]

Barbara Ann

"close to your heart" Not any more.

[AK]

eakens

"The crackdown on the Commies will be epic."

I hope you're right, but I don't believe that's likely in any substantive sense. To truly out the rot, you'd have to dig so deeply into so many institutions in American society that I don't know if even the federal government has the time or the resources to catch up to it. This stuff has been inculcated and cultivated for a couple of decades now. It's incredibly deeply seated in the universities, for sure, and Antifa has been given a free pass on campuses since at least the Occupy Wall Street movement, but likely much earlier than that. No matter who you arrest tomorrow, the new cadre are being trained up dutifully as we speak in every humanities and arts department in every university in the land. The "long march through the institutions" has been going on for some time and we are only now seeing its first real fruits.

Furthermore, we have one major political party, virtually the entire media complex, and a wide segment of the electorate who truly do not want this to be exposed for what it is, and will attempt to stymie it in every way possible. The American left does indeed fundamentally hate America, and by exploiting the high compassion and low critical thinking skills of many of the sheeple who comprise our body politic, they now have an overflowing font of white liberal guilt to use along side the canard of institutional racism to get a huge part of the voting public to bow to their demands at a wholesale remake of society. We are only months away from a national election, and if the Democrats are successful, all official efforts to combat this scourge at the federal level will be terminated forthwith. Can the Trump Justice Dept. make the necessary progress in a matter of mere months against something which has been building and organizing for a generation? I don't know.

[jerseycityjoan]

I put myself in the camp that believes that history is history and that what remains of our past should be preserved and protected as much as possible.

But I have to acknowledge that this is easy for me to believe as a WASP in America. If Confederate items were signs of the past I am not sure what I would think about them if I were black. But some whites still use Confederate flags and symbols to show contempt and dislike -- even hatred -- towards blacks. Under the circumstances can we be surprised that some blacks have had enough of the Confederacy?

I think we need to ask ourselves how we would feel about this if we were black. I think we have to admit the role that nasty white people and their Confederate flag waving play in this.

There are many thorny issues here. Certainly anyone who thinks that simply getting monuments out of prominent public places is going to change race relations is naive.

[turcopolier]

jerseycityjoan

So, your opinion is that if someone misuses a symbol then that symbol and the people who first revered it are responsible for the misuse.

[Fred]

jerseycityjoan,

Nikki Haley, Ilhan Omar, Mazie Hirono, AOC and tens of thousands more must be especially grieved that their ancestors' conduct in America was not memorialized nor is being waived about - by politicians of the same party as Wallace and LBJ; it is still an appropriation of cultural symbols for political purpose. The end - acquisition and maintenance of political power - remains the same.

[The Twisted Genius]

Here are some words contemporary with the conception and dedication of the Lee monument. IMO all three were prophetic.

At the 1870 meeting to initiate the movement to erect the Lee monument, Jubal Early said that former Confederates owed it to themselves to “vindicate our manhood and purge ourselves of the foul stain [of defeat] by erecting an enduring monument to [Lee] that will be a standing protest, for all time to come.”

John Mitchell was the editor of the Black newspaper, the Richmond Planet, at the time of the monument’s dedication. He wrote, “The emblem of the union had been left behind—a glorification of the lost cause was everywhere.” Mitchell witnessed a particularly unperturbed gentlemen, “an old colored man,” as Mitchell said, who “after seeing the mammoth parade of ex-Confederates … and gazing at the rebel flags, exclaimed, ‘The Southern white folks is on top—the Southern white folks is on top!’” Mitchell continued, “After thinking for a moment a smile lit up his countenance as he chuckled with evident satisfaction, ‘But we’ve got the government! We’ve got the government!’”

Mitchell also said, “The Negro was in the Northern processions on Decoration Day and in Southern ones, if only to carry buckets of ice-water. He put up the Lee Monument, and should the time come, will be there to take it down. He’s black and sometimes greasy, but who could do without the Negro?”

[jerseycityjoan]

Colonel:

It seems to me that the people who use Confederate symbolism to express negative thoughts about blacks aren't misusing it. They agree with the Confederates of more than 100 years ago that blacks are inferior and without rights and whites are superior and have rights. The Confederates would see them as their heirs.

I wish that Southern whites would find another symbol for themselves. They have 400 years of history. There's no reason to continue to identify with the Confederacy. There's other ways to protest against the Yankees and show support for the South.

[turcopolier]

jerseycityjoan

Bigotry that loves itself.

[Fred]

TTG,

"The Southern white folks is on top—the Southern white folks is on top!’"

Well, after 155 years of freedom we have the reverse, and Southern, well, of any color, where are they now? There is only one color of skin whose life matters, the rest are non-essential. The Honorable Deborah Dingell of Michigan has a photo of herself lying prone in submission to the new power elite one of her Facebook pages. "Kowtowing" is what I believe they call it in the orient.
https://www.facebook.com/RepDebbieDingell/photos/pb.639796166125261.-2207520000../2750601485044708/?type=3&theater
What did her husband and predecessor in office for 50 years do about all that abuse? What did she do in all those years at the DNC? Yes, only Blacks are victims, it is their individual businesses being destroyed by shutdown orders or burned out by rioters. They can not be allowed to be sef-sufficient and must remain relient upon their new masters - government. Lord Acton's insights on the political power struggle the Col. posted is quite appropriate to today. Monopolist multi-nationals like Amazon are doing quite nicely, don't you dare open that barbershop in Michigan though, the power of the state will be used to against you.

[Diana Croissant]

Because we can't transport ourselves backwards in time, our understanding of the past is highly dependent on what our teachers have told us, how we processed the history we studied and read, and more other very complicated and personal factors.

Does anyone here remember that Cotton Mather--a dreaded Puritan type--pushed the idea of inoculations to prevent disease from spreading and more specifically to prevent oneself from acquiring a disease? He volunteered to take that first inoculation.

For every stereotypical pinch-nosed and judgmental Puritan, one can name a stereotypical member of the Inquisition.

I've learned over the years to listen for the "sill small voice" as I attempt to understand God. People of all religious creeds have done the same. There are as many ways that God's grace can work in individuals as there are stars in the sky, and there are many ways that a pilgrim can take as he/she is searching for the strait and narrow gate that leads to life rather than the wide way that leads to destruction.

I appreciate the diversity of our Christian ways of worship. That diversity provides more ways that a person can attempt to navigate in order to find his/her way to God.

I appreciate the Calvinists who wanted to worship their way instead of being forced to follow the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Yes, thy became dogmatic about their way also. I appreciate my Pietist forefathers who followed after the footsteps of Luther.

However, I can also appreciate the Catholics and the Anglicans. Each Christian denomination works alongside other denominations and religions to provide the many "languages," so to speak, that help us to follow and keep trying to understand God.

What I do not like is the modern tendency in academia to put forth a dogma of some sort and then expect that one believe it is the only way to think or to believe. Academia whould not attempt to take the place of Religion.

[Walrus]

You want some Contextualization? My old battalion 6 Btn., , Royal Victorian Regiment headquarters building in the city of Melbourne is to become. the city’s second safe legal heroin injecting centre.

Our roots go back to the Victorian State militia prior to federation.