https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000006064843/silent-sam-monument-north-carolina.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=15&pgtype=sectionfront
Silent Sam has been silenced. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a group of protestors and students have gotten together to take down a Confederate statue that was on the campus. Many students and protestors believed it was a symbol of white supremacy. As least as 250 people were involved in this political movement. The North Carolina's Senate passed bill 22 which reads “Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015” says that an “object of remembrance located on public property may not be permanently removed… With Confederate monuments and other Confederate memorabilia comes white supremacy and a symbol of hate. Before all of this happened a debate over the controversial symbol was brought back up in 2015 when Dylann Roof, who killed nine African American churchgoers including one member of the South Carolina Senate. That was the spark of people wanting to get rid of the confederate flag and statues and memorabilia around the United States. Many schools have hopped on the bandwagon with people who believe that the confederate flag is considered hate, and have banned the flag at their school and have even went as far as expelling their students for wearing clothes that has it on it.
Do you believe that it is fine that people are trying to cover up the United States past? Would you be part of this protest? What should we do with these monuments of our past? How does this make you feel?
Work Cited
https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2015-2016/SL2015-170.html
I think it is wrong to try and cover up our nation’s past. If history is covered up, it is doomed to repeat the same mistakes made in years past. I would not have been a part of the protest. The Confederate Monuments are an important part of American history that reminds us of a darker time. If we are not reminded of that time, we will fall to the same errors as before. America should shine a light on these monuments. Instead of looking at them and seeing hate, we should see them as a teaching opportunity to show the American youth the error of our ways and how to avoid them. The protests make me feel sad because it shows how deep hatred runs in America. -Liberty C.
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree with the comment above. I would also like to point out that I have heard some people suggest that some of these monuments be moved into museums rather than just be struck down, which is much more reasonable, though I still think it wouldn't hurt to be reminded of our history without having to go to a museum just to see a statue.
ReplyDeleteI would support any monument of any person in our history as long as the person was important, even if that meant having a statue of Adolf Hitler himself in America. I don't think I need to bring up the saying we all know about what happens to those who ignore history, and I do not think that there is anything wrong with having a monument in public of a significant figure in history, no matter how atrocious such a figure may appear to someone. At worst, we will be reminded of what we should and should not follow.
-Jesse F.
I do not believe that any statues should be removed because there are lessons to be learned from that period of time. I also do not believe we should erase or try to cover up history so I would not be apart of this protest. That being said, I do not believe that any American should glamorize the confederate flag with the racial implications that it has. I find adorning the flag as clothing to be disrespectful to African Americans just as a swastika or a Nazi flag is disrespectful to Jewish people. -Bethany F.
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