Different times, racism was a part of life....It's wrong and terrible but we also have to remember that these people and people now had relatives from these times. Sure some demonise and some understand and know it was wrong and a product of the times.

I think most of us agree that slavery and racism is wrong but as soon as you start screwing around with people's histories people get upset...whatever side they are on.

Hot-heads create more hot-heads. This said, people are responsible for their own actions but rhetoric doesn't help. Life has taught me that a closed fist meets a closed fist. If someone spat on a statue for the leader of an army that I had a relative in....well I'm going to be pissed off.

Other people don't get to tell them how they should feel about that. I know the resentment that causes. Essentially I can tell that more violence is on the way from both sides.

Edited by Stirlingsays (16 Aug 2017 2.41pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Not for me I'm afraid. A walk around the moneyed old quarters of Bristol is a walk through the riches earned through slavery. Should it all be torn down and replaced by modernist apartment blocks, or monuments to abolitionists?

Of course not. That visual history helps you tell people the full story; misery, greed, exploitation and all.

If people have a mindset that venerates a confederate general because he fought for the slave owning side and not because he was a half decent general and his image is a memorial to thousands of dead people, then moving a statue isn't going to change that view and appears to be little more than gesture politics at best and blatant revisionism at worst.

Yankee soldiers or emancipated slaves tearing down confederate statues I could understand.

Well I think Simon's head is large; always involved in espionage. (Name that tune)

The American Civil War cost the lives of over 800,000 Americans, and ended in 1865. Robert E. Lee lead the Confederate (Southern) Army in that war, fighting to preserve his right to buy, sell and own people.

The statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville was commissioned in 1917 and installed in 1924. Still think it's appropriate?

Edited by Ray in Houston (16 Aug 2017 3.50pm)

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

This is such nonsense as a rationale to defend the south in the civil war. Many Germans died fighting for the Nazis too so, by your reckoning, it'd be ok - in 1990 - to erect a statue of Hitler in Berlin to honour those reluctant German soldiers who died in WW2?

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

Remember, the statue of Lee wasn't going to be just taken down, it was going to be moved to another location where it would not have such a celebratory prominence. If the people of Washington DC want the Sheridan memorial moved, then that's their prerogative.

It seems to me that it's all about perspective. Auschwitz has been preserved and there are Holocaust museums all over the world (including one in Houston); but these are in order that we never forget. The statues of Lee and Sheridan were erected after the event by people wanting the celebrate these men, which is something that merits strong consideration when deciding whether to leave them on their pedestals or place them somewhere more respectful to those they oppressed.

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

Not in the slightest. Read it again.

What you should be inferring is that ugly history should remain as something visible to challenge, learn from and serve as a clear reminder of what can happen when the rule of reason and ethics is sacrificed to the will of the rich and powerful.

I am not as relaxed about the airbrushing of history by lessening the visibility of its darker side as some people obviously are.

Well I think Simon's head is large; always involved in espionage. (Name that tune)