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Discussion » Questions » Current Events and News » Monroe, MI citizens want to remove a statue of George Custer as he was instrumental in removing native Americans before he was cut down.

Monroe, MI citizens want to remove a statue of George Custer as he was instrumental in removing native Americans before he was cut down.

Should we remove statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they were slave owners? Let's include Andrew Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Remove Washington from the one dollar bill and the current twenty five cent coin. Remove Jefferson from the two dollar bill and the five cent coin. Remove Jackson from the twenty dollar bill. If you are offended by this question, please report me.

Posted - June 14, 2020

Responses


  • 52905
    The Constitution and Declaration of Independence will have to go also, right?
    ~
      June 14, 2020 5:47 PM MDT
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  • 44175
    Our sarcasm has no boundaries. I hope we are on the same side.
      June 14, 2020 5:51 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    I don't know what the answer is.

    I get your point. But I get some protesters' points, too.
    In addition to truly wonderful and admirable things done, what our government and some leaders did to Native Americans and advocating slavery and putting fellow American citizens in internment camps -- not so laudable for a monument to me. I get why some people may want to remove monuments to some of them. 

    Two of my most memorable learning experiences happened in schoolrooms -- during a silent reading time, at about 11 or 12 years old, I first read about Harriet Tubman. I was so visibly upset my teacher came over to check on me. That was the day the atrocity of the entire horror of slavery rocked my young world.

    And at 17 years old or so, in my American History class, I broke down in tears in front of everyone when my teacher started talking about the internment camps for American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. It was the first I ever heard of it. All the "God Bless America" and "We're the Best" and "We're Number One" went out the window. I yelled out at him in class in disbelief, "In this country?!" I didn't believe him. I never spoke like that in class  in front of others or to a teacher. To his huge credit, my teacher worked through my frustrations with me.

    Yes, I do get your point. But I also don't agree with some of what the United States has done in its past.
    Take down every monument? I don't know. I find that maybe extreme. But I understand some people's disagreement  in glorifying the past and simply glossing over or ignoring the rough spots.  
















    This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at June 15, 2020 2:04 PM MDT
      June 14, 2020 8:06 PM MDT
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  • 52905

     

      It’s a shame that you were already 12 and 17 years old when you first learned of those things.  On the other hand, it’s positive that you did learn them at all, because some people have never been either taught about them or informed of them at all. 

      I wonder if the boy who approached me in school when I was 5 years old and uttered to me the very first racial insult I ever heard in my life was ever educated properly on historical facts that may have changed his attitudes from negative to positive, or if he was raised specifically with those bigoted ideals ingrained in him. He was at least two or theee years older than I was, and for a 5-year-old kindergarten student, all bigger kids seemed older to me, all older kids seemed bigger to me. The insult didn’t even register in my brain immediately, I was 5 and had absolutely no reference for understanding what he meant. When it finally dawned on me later (I don’t know if it was one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year or more), it left an indelible mark in my brain that separates innocent childhood with wariness for my personal safety. Five little words he uttered and made me realize that bad exists. 


    ~

      June 14, 2020 9:27 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    Thanks, Randy D. I'm glad you shared.
    I'm very sorry to hear of your experience.

    And I was unclear about my slavery reference. I indeed had heard of slavery (in the United States, at least) before I was 12. It all simply did not "hit home" for me until I read about Harriet Tubman. Somehow her life story just slammed into me and I realized Harriet was just one person here - - yet, all of this happened to literally countless, countless individual real people with names and personalities. People who could be my friends. I remember how I physically felt while reading about everything she went through. And then everything she did. I truly was overwhelmed in every aspect by her life. I felt sick, almost ill. Sick, yet incredibly, incredibly awestruck in admiration for her. Like I've said on the site before, from that day on, she has been my biggest real life hero. (Or heroine or whatever.) I continue to find out more and more outstanding accomplishments about her. I can hardly comprehend her.

    And I can say my parents, in many aspects, were great role models for me. I always saw them treat all people with respect. We lived in various areas with people of all different backgrounds and cultures. From observing them, I was used to seeing the two adults in my life treat others well.
    And Harriet somehow cut through my up-until-then general "concept" of slavery. She showed me that individual real people were involved. Thousands and thousands of real people. 

    I'm trying very hard to describe my experience but I feel I'm not communicating well my details or points.

    As far as the internment camps -- yes, I was 17 before I knew anything at all about them. My words up there in my answer are only a little bit of how that moment impacted me.
    Again, I must give credit to my teacher (and fellow classmates, who did not make fun of me for being so upset and, from what I remember, just observed and listened) -- a life-changing moment for me and he was right there with me, helping me through my disbelief and outrage and disappointment. This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at June 14, 2020 10:41 PM MDT
      June 14, 2020 10:22 PM MDT
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  • 52905

     

      I understood that you meant specifically learning about Harriet Tubman at age 12.  

    ~

      June 14, 2020 10:28 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    Oh, I get your point now. I don't know why I went on and on about knowing about slavery before that day in that classroom "with Harriet."
    Yes, you're right -- I may have known about slavery before then but it was not until that moment in about fourth grade that I first learned specifically about Harriet Tubman. 

    Yes, like you said up there, in both instances, regardless of when they happened, I'm glad I was exposed and that I learned.
      June 14, 2020 10:42 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    P.S.

    And I saw the "Harriet" movie in the theaters last fall. I was in tears through almost all of it.
    And, weird -- it felt like a lifetime going by as I watched and, at the same time, when the movie ended, it felt like no time had passed at all. I was literally surprised the movie ended.

    I was enthralled.
    :)

    HARRIET | Official Trailer | Now Playing - YouTube

      June 14, 2020 10:51 PM MDT
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  • 44175
    I forgot about the interment camps. Roosevelt is off of the dime now.
      June 15, 2020 6:53 AM MDT
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  • 22853



    :)

    And while we're at it, let's quit admiring Andrew Carnegie. He, along with his steel industrialist friends , allowed the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club's earthen dam to be incredibly unsafe (lowering the top of the dam so two lanes of traffic could travel on top instead of just one lane) and unkept (a few months before the dam failed, a professional engineer said the dam needed work). The Club did nothing.
    During a big storm, the dam failed and 2,200 people perished.
    The Club and none affiliated with it were ever charged with anything.

    My personal opinion is that Carnegie donated a library to Johnstown out of guilt. And then he donated them all over the country. :)



    This post was edited by WelbyQuentin at June 15, 2020 2:00 PM MDT
      June 15, 2020 7:02 AM MDT
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  • 44175
    I saw that on the mini-series 'The Men Who Built America.'.
      June 15, 2020 2:02 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    Really? About the Johnstown Flood and Carnegie and Andrew Clay Frick and others?
    That 1889 flood just mesmerizes me somehow. There are so many different aspects to the story. I've read a lot about it and been to Johnstown numerous times.
    Awful event. But fascinating, too. That area of Pennsylvania is gorgeous scenery, too. (Johnstown is just about an hour east of Evans City, PA - - where thy filmed "Night of the Living Dead," ha.)

    Your question has had me thinking a lot since I first read it. And the grain of sarcasm you mentioned makes sense, too. :) And where do we draw the line /etc.

      June 15, 2020 2:52 PM MDT
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  • 44175
    The series has been on twice now. How the built America is basically how the stole America. The were all very ruthless...especially Rockefeller.
      June 15, 2020 4:40 PM MDT
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  • 22853
    Yeah, not surprised on the ruthless quality. Interesting stuff for sure.

    I've been to Frick's house in Pittsburgh (it's like a museum, whatever; open to the public; beautiful home). I've read a couple of books about him. I probably would not have read anything about him had it not been for the Johnstown Flood connection.
      June 15, 2020 5:46 PM MDT
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  • 52905

    President John F. Kennedy endorsed both the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba and opening stages of the Vietnam War, is he out also?

    President Harry S Truman gave approval for the go-ahead of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet there is extremely low probability that had Germany not surrendered first, atomic bombs would ever have been used on Caucasians. Delete Truman too? 

    President William McKinley and military commander/future president Theodore Roosevelt both implemented The Philippine “Insurrection” beginning in 1899, resulting in the deaths of about one million Filipinos. It was also one of the first times the US government used concentration camps to subdue an entire populace. 

      The list could potentially go on and on. 

    ~

      June 15, 2020 7:10 AM MDT
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  • 22853
    (I don't know enough about the Phillipine "Insurrection." The little I've read is troubling to me. I think you've mentioned it here on the site at other times, too. Feel free to share any material/book titles if there are any you admire.)
      June 15, 2020 7:41 AM MDT
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  • 14795
    I should think anything to do with the almost complete decimation of the American Indian tribes by the maland white Europeans that wanted their lands should be dealt with before all others...How much longer must these great tribes of people wait before are compensated for the slaughter of their ancestors and in many ways still continues to this day...
    If another country did the same to America now.....what could they say in their defence....?
      June 14, 2020 8:46 PM MDT
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  • 52905

     

      It’s difficult to place those atrocities in chronological order and assign any correct timetable of repairing them based on which was worse than another. From the very start of Caucasian presence on a permanent basis in the North American continent, kidnapped people from African countries were dragged along with them. As those same Europeans began the genocide of the Native American people  who already populated the land, they were well into enslavement of others. 
    ~

      June 14, 2020 9:16 PM MDT
    5

  • 13251
    Nobody uses the $2 bill anyway. I have a few that were given to me at various times, but I just keep them in a drawer.
      June 14, 2020 9:55 PM MDT
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  • 14795
    Nerver a truer word spoken Randy...The so called Royalty of those times also put the English poor through the same things and more likely far worse.
    Look what the English did to the Irish people and still did until only a few decades ago.....the stupidity still goes on to this very day...
    The English were doing it to our selfs ,long before Africa was discovered..?.

    Our so called royality are multi billionaires...and there are lots of then lording it up here in England still.....why are they not made to dig deep into their pockets to compensate those they stole from...Why is Royal crime just forgotten...
    Who invented the word justice and why is it used differently on the rich than/then the poor...
      June 14, 2020 9:55 PM MDT
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  • 52905

     

      No place that is already populated by people is “discovered” when other people show up. 

    ___

      June 14, 2020 9:56 PM MDT
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  • 14795
    They keep discovering new tribes in the Amozon rain forest as they clear the rain forest of its century's old trees......people live there,yet have never been seen before..
      June 14, 2020 10:03 PM MDT
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  • 52905

    You may have misunderstood me. I’m not saying that new things or new places are not happened upon all the time. What I’m saying reflects part of what you wrote about colonization.  A “conquering” power arrives on the shores of a land to which they have never been before and “claim” it as their own, even though other people already live there. The conquering power then takes over the land, the resources, the people, everything. They claim that they discovered it, which in their justification, makes it theirs, ignoring the fact that it had already been discovered by the original inhabitants, who are then shunted into unimportance. 

    ~

    This post was edited by Randy D at June 15, 2020 12:29 PM MDT
      June 14, 2020 10:09 PM MDT
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  • 14795
    Very well put I think...I couldn't have put it better..... Impossible to give back now as where would three hundred and fifty plus displaced people go to ...They could and should return suitable arrable lands and their special burial places places back to them and let them police them selfs and more important compensate them for every thing the Europeans stole form them....
    I beleive all those countries that stole form them should cough up vast sums to..more so England's so called Royal family... 
      June 15, 2020 5:17 AM MDT
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