In Fit Of Wokeness, Confederate Statue Removed By Woke Mayor Of Woke ... (Checks Notes) ... Jacksonville, Florida
By: Doktor Zoom
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Good riddance!
After years of fighting, the City of Jacksonville, Florida, yesterday finally removed a Confederate monument from a city park that literally used to be named "Confederate Park," but was renamed "Springfield Park" in 2020, in honor, we assume, of The Simpsons' home town and its world-famous monorail. The removal of the monument is actually the city's second erasure of history; the city had previously taken down another Civil War Participation Trophy near City Hall, also in 2020. The second monument was removed quickly yesterday, with crews starting work at dawn and hauling off the fugly memorial to white supremacy and Jim Crow on a flatbed trailer by 11 AM local time.
It's like Confederate Monument Removal Christmas in America, what with the big ugly Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery having been yeeted from that place of honor on December 20. So sad. The former home of traitor Robert E Lee no longer has its treason statue anymore.
The monument consisted of a statue of a Southern white lady reading to two children, titled "In Memory of Our Women of the Southland," as well as an ugly fucking thing on top of the monument depicting a Liberty-like female figure carrying a Confederate flag. We'll assume the woman in the main statue was not reading WEB Du Bois.
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who ran on a promise to remove the monument once and for all, explained in a statement,
"Symbols matter. They tell the world what we stand for and what we aspire to be. By removing the Confederate monument from Springfield Park, we signal a belief in our shared humanity. That we are all created equal. The same flesh and bones. The same blood running through our veins. The same heart and soul."
Anticipating the inevitable whining, Deegan's statement continued that the point here is to correct the false history of the "Lost Cause" that motivated the erection of Confederate monuments by white supremacists who sought to downplay the ugly history of slavery — a mission that's still being pursued by the far Right today, hello Nikki Haley.
"This is not in any way an attempt to erase history but to show that we've learned from it — that when we know better, we do better by and for each other. My prayer today is for our beautiful city to continue embracing unity and bending the arc of history toward justice. Let's keep lifting as we climb."
Dazed citizens of the city, their historical knowledge wiped from their minds, were overheard yesterday afternoon asking "Civil War? Huh? You mean that Marvel movie with Captain America fighting, uh, Irony Man?"
The statement noted that the monument was erected, like most Civil War memorials, not in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but "during the peak of early 20th century Confederate monument-building, part of a widespread campaign to promote and justify Jim Crow laws in the South and intimidate African Americans."
The removal of the monument was met with the usual howls of sadness from white people in Confederate flag T-shirts who explained that they are not racist, they just want history to be remembered, especially if it's false history that portrays the Confederacy as noble and gallant and shit. Typical was a dude named Wayde Alford, who told WJXT TV he's with a group called "Save Southern Heritage." Here's his sentimental reflection on the defunct statue:
"It's a representation of my ancestry. […] It's about the women who stayed home, took care of their homes and their farmsteads ... women who couldn't even vote. They stayed home and did what they did while the men were away, and some of those men were conscripted."
Aww, isn't that nice? Back when white women also knew their place, with all the moonlight and magnolia blossoms, and hardly any rape of enslaved women by the menfolk, or lynchings of troublemakers or any of that.
Naturally, Alford rejected the notion that the monuments were meant to remind Black citizens to know their place, explaining, "That's a typical talking point from the left."
To be fair, WJXT also spoke to JoAnn Brooks, a volunteer with a community group, who said the monument represented "a lost cause, hatred, division" and said its removal was like
"a chain being broken, where we can now grow and develop and see what Jacksonville can do together so that we can be a better place where we can invite our family and friends."
And let's hope that is the case, because that's way healthier.
It's not clear what the ultimate fate of the two statues included in the monument will be; perhaps they can be melted down and the bronze used to cast a statue of Homer Simpson holding a giant donut aloft.
Tags
Who is online
89 visitors
The great Wonkette opens 2024 for us.
It seems a better way to do that would be to keep the statues and maybe add a plaque explaining what we learned since then. Bottom line is you get rid of a statue and you are erasing a little bit of history. A few generations from now and people will have forgotten what the statues represented and what we learned from it because the statues won't be there to remind us.
Lynching was history too. Should they have statues in praise of the white people in the KKK?
In other words, not all history is worth memorializing.
[deleted]
Whataboutism? Really?
that is not whataboutism
Byrd renounced his racism.
How many statues of lynching do you see?
I liked Senator Harry Byrd (from Virginia) and Senator Robert Byrd, both did a lot for their states
That is different
Everything is history, but we don’t preserve and celebrate everything. Should we have left the World Trade Center as a pile of rubble because it’s history?
Knowing this:
Why would you want to keep this particular monument to racism - that attempted to rewrite history - at all, much less have it on display in a park?
You can't erase history.
Of course you can.. And it is being attempted on MSNBC every day.
Then you should have no problems giving say....5 examples of it over the last 5 days.
Donna Deegan took this statue down without the consent of the city council, using taxpayer money to do so. That is a no no here in Jacksonville.
It would have probably been approved by the CC, but she decided to move crews in the middle of the night to do it because she is too much of a coward to explain to the citizens of Jacksonville her reasoning behind it.
She is already proven to be a mediocre mayor and like our last democratic mayor, she will be one term.
She was only voted in because of name recognition from being an anchor on a local news channel years ago, her run for breast cancer (which is a good thing) and her affair with the weather guy on the channel she worked while her husband was the sports guy on the same channel. She left the sports guy and married the weather guy.
Wow. Look at the negative partisanship on display in this comment! A 'complete' rundown on the mayor and yet ne'er a nasty word about the former president who is ceaseless in making headlines. . . .
A two trillion dollar deficit during peace time with no national health emergency that could possibly justify it. Declining real wages for the working class thanks to inflationary policies. An unprecedented invasion of illegal aliens that even Democratic cities admit are destroying them and will cause a cut in services to actual Americans. WAr in Europe. War in the Middle East.
And woke democrats wage war on statues. Their stalinist urges to destroy what came before them never lies dormant for long. They are the worst of zealots.
The only way for democrats to try to hide their history is to destroy it.
Only fools believe that confederate statues represent today's Democratic Party.
Only fools deny history, and the democrats are the only party who still believes people of color are inferior, embracing the party’s history of racism.
Your argument would be laughed out of any intelligent gathering of people.
So you don’t have an argument for it, maybe you should invite someone from that group to respond to my comment.
Sometimes I seriously think that someone has unleashed a band of AI hate trolls on NT. Things that are said here are so over the top they can’t actually be from an authentic human.
Frankly, I have been thinking the same thing. Nobody can be this indifferent to the the truth. . .unless they are being paid to be so.
Suspect no. 1.
Totally agree. And not a very good version of AI.
Contain your hysteria. You make it sound like taking down Confederate monuments is something horrible, when it actually is something good.
Please tell us why you object to taking down these statues. Were they meant to last forever?
The ''lost causers'' never seem to give up or understand how these statues are a salute to an era when the color of your skin could/would get you lynched or enslaved.
So, we can start taking down statues of fine upstanding citizens such as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, etc. 'cause they believed the color of your skin made you inferior, right?
Asking for a friend.
You, as a Redman should understand the answer to your question, you can tell your friend, is he a Redman or something else, our side of history, both past and present.
As President Teddy Roosevelt once said:
Stated as a Redman - our population went from over 50 MILLION in the 1500's to 254,000 in 1954 - and the governments want to place statues "honoring" those who believed we amounted to NOTHING, so, kill'm all was their motto.
And Roosevelt's words were the anthem of the U.S. government culture - so we build statues to Honor him because he believed in the genocide "his" government perpetrated??
Unfortunately, I'm well aware of the US position towards NA's. If I had my way there would be no statues that are based on the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny or slavery. Most Americans have no idea that well over 3 million NA's were enslaved by the Europeans.
The Daughters of The Confederacy raised money to erect most of these statues as part of the Lost Cause mythology. I think they have books and articles about that time period if you are actually interested in learning what it was all about.
Like so many other things, you know nothing about why such statues were erected.
Maybe nobody meets the criteria to have a public statue in their honor?
I think you're on to something here. No one person is without flaws.
This period of time in history will be known as the period of stupidity. With all the things that need attention we are focused on old statues that people have been walking past for a hundred years without giving it a second thought, making sure we call people by the desired pronoun, cutting the balls off Mr. Potato head, making sure there are gender neutral sections in stores while stores are closing down due to looting, saying words are violence yet genocide against Jews is OK, etc. We will be laughed at for generations to come.
Some people can focus on more than one thing at a time.
Anyone who has a problem with taking confederate statues down has more problems that can be addressed on an internet forum.
Anyone who has a problem with confederate statues has more problems that can be addressed on an internet forum.
Yet the important things are not getting done because we are all consumed over ridiculous "feel good" things
Anyone that thinks taking a statue down accomplishes anything is delusional. Anyone that wants statues taken down does it so they can feel better about themselves. Whose life has been made measurably better because a statue was taken down?
On the top of this monument is a woman carrying the confederate flag.
Just take that shit down and be done with it.
Who, in this country, do you think deserves a public statue?
Not anyone carrying a confederate flag.
only criteria?
Do you think the gentleman in the picture is as outraged as you are about it? How many times have you walked by the statue and said "this has to come down because it fills me with rage"? How many people that walk by a statue daily really care about it? Why should people from other states have any say what statues are in other states?
Just looking for a reason to be outraged and control others lives.
Shakespeare wrote a line in one of his plays about people who protest too much. He must have had in mind the right wingers who care so much about keeping confederate monuments up.
Seems it is the left that complained too much about statues that were up for over 100 years with no real issues. Then probably some white liberal who had never been south of the mason dixon line found a picture of a confederate statue on line and decided they all must go. Wasn't hard finding a bunch of sheep to follow him after that. And a "movement" was founded.
Also reminiscent of the Conservative movement of being outraged over the ''War on Christmas'' or the ''War on Christians'', and finally the General Fuck up leading the ''War on Woke'' Ron "I can't explain what woke means'' DeSantis.
How can you tell?
I dont know why they dont tear the whole structure down instead of just removing the statues but maybe that will come later.
Thanks, from the picture at 7. it was too furled to tell, thought that it might be a Florida flag.
The movement was actually the democrat movement to move away from saying Merry Christmas to Happy holiday.
Just another way to try and control every little thing in peoples lives.
At least get the facts right
I would like to see statues to people who deserve them, those that have worked for the great good of the country, Medal of Honor recipients, Civil rights leaders, inventors and artisians. That would be so much better than a group of confederate leaders who fought against what this country is supposed to stand for.
Wow. Just look at the true colors of some of these commenters coming through. . . . Statues come and statues go. The confederacy happened. It does'nt need a permanent display for the nation as a whole is not proud of it happening. No more than we should establish a monument to January 6th protestors at the U.S. Capitol. It was not this nation's "finest hour"!
This issue is caused by people who can't mind their own business, just like many of our problems.
Whose business is it then to take down monuments to traitors ?
I have not seen any statues of traitors.
The entire confederacy was traitorous.
They were loyal to their states which was more important at the time and they stood up to being told what to do by Washington and those who would not mind their own business.
Did they teach you that in school down there?
It was taught in school everywhere
"Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union . Lee opposed secession, but he was a loyal son of Virginia."
"Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union . Lee opposed secession, but h e was a loyal son of Virginia."
The states did not go war with the United States, the Confederacy did. From the southern perspective, the war was fought to protect slavery. "States rights" was a smokescreen.
Individual Confederates fought for a number of reasons. Why do you feel the need to oversimplify?
I don't think so, at least to the ordinary citizens of those states. They didn't own slaves yet still volunteered, fought, and died. Now to wealthy Democrats, no doubt it was used as one to shield their racism to some degree...
Narrative is more important than facts.
Of course, facts can get in the way of a point of view.
There are many problems caused by people who won't tend to their own business
Once Robert E. Lee resigned and Virginia succeeded he was under no obligation to the Union
This monument was to woman, not traitors.
What women?
Do you have other information other than the plaque you posted?
Why on earth would the north try and stop them from secession if they were all traitors. Seems the north should have told them to not let the door hit them on the way out.
Interesting point
Excuse me, it was for an inverse reason that Andrew Jackson gave see here:
The 'short' version: Jackson, and for differing reasons with similar logic Lincoln wanted to "preserve the union" and its constitutionally CONTRACTED states .
Where in the Constitution did it say a State could not leave?
White Southern woman.
Do read the reasoning on the link I provided. presidents Jackson and Lincoln used similar reasoning to accomplish upholding the Union. I couldn't articulate it better than "sitting" presidents in their own 'words.' It is not a point of contention as our civil war happened in time already in the past!
Ah, traitors by association because they were boinking known traitors.
Any port in a storm.
Excerpt from
The quality of my life has risen considerably since these statues have been removed. Seeing them used to be so upsetting and I couldn’t understand their history while they were standing.
How?
I find that reading books can be a valuable source of information.
I’ll never see those triggering statues of woman and children.
Exactly.
How do they trigger you?
How do 19th Century Southern Woman not trigger you?