Hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered im Peter Lavelle the primary purpose of history is to understand the past as a guide to understanding the present and future history should not be goodness because a lot of history is painful and so how should we find the right balance is statue side the right hands. Across talking statue side im joined by my guest cleo both dari in new york she is founder of the company there have been salmon which teaches social Emotional Learning in schools as well as diversity and inclusion in companies and government. Agencies and in las vegas because i love pirates he is an assistant professor of africanamerican and African Diaspora studies at the university of nevada las vegas all right rostock rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want right now is appreciate greatly let me go to you in new york how does taking down statues and we can talk about which ones changed the condition of people of color in the United States and does it something is it just a political statement because were in a Great Recession were in a pandemic and working people or people have been horrendous lee hit by this and i just have to ponder is statues the 1st thing we should be thinking about go ahead. Well sure i mean i think i would defer to the former mayor of my state in new Orleans Mitch landrieu who courageously took down the confederate statutes in new orleans a few years ago and his argument was essentially that you know we are a melting pot as a city and we really celebrate that but we should not force our citizens to look up to have to look up at you know monuments of confederate soldiers whose goal was to uphold slavery this is a thing certainly a traumatic experience for someone to see and someone especially someone of color will inevitably see that and wonder well am i actually in a place where i belong culturally does this place actually represent my values if its willing to you know have a monument that celebrates my ancestors and slave meds and i think that culturally and psychologically it is important to make sure that those kinds of monuments do not remain are going to those those that using money means came down after a Broad Community discussion correct sure because they would see this is well you know i have no attachment to confederate statues and monuments 0 i dont i simply dont i was born that outside boston massachusetts ok and so i dont have that kind of. On the ground cultural history however tyler my point in asking this was that you know it should be communities that decide because people come together and they make a decision if they want to remove it have it moved someplace else as a historical artifact because we all except the fact that slavery did exist in the United States and we should never forget that it did and ensued through history particularly at it after the civil war there were political reasons why these statues were put up some reading but up during the Civil Rights Movement as a as a protest and we need to understand we have to understand where these statues came from i dont think they should be. Destroyed i think we should preserve them and understand them ok well i think that the us has a lot of reminders of the consumer see out the monuments now on the one hand or tribune argument that. You know a friend of mine started saying americas history wasteland a lot of people prefer to just get rid of things rather than deal with them and theres some debate to suggest that is whats going on with what we call the martin wars on the other hand i advise for people who want to tear down these monuments simply because a case example being the university of North Carolina there is a structure called silent sound which was supposed to represent all of those who fought for the confederacy that attended that particular school and if you look at the history behind i mean the speech that was in when it was read to us actually horrendous and recent it made it very clear what the intention wasnt concern or c m it was deliberately White Supremacy now when the protesters asked for it to be removed or when they actually removed it themselves there was a deal struck between the University Administration and a local group of those who were sympathetic to the confederacy is not very so wish it was going to be over a 1000000. 00 to essentially preserve the monument that was going to be i think it are the taxpayers expenses or through the jewish and it was paid by the students so i understand the argument that communities should decide but on the other hand it seems that its a number of people who are at the top who are making these decisions are more interested in just getting the problem away and willing to donate money for that which i dont think represents the Community Centers and i think thats a disservice to history is well ok i mean like i said in my introduction we dont remember a thing just fairness ows you to feel good about something we actually remember most things because theyre very painful and i think the if i go out i think its really important you know when this actually that was just mentioned here i think that it and i want in your opinion of course to preserve that and explain why it was put up what the meaning was then and how we should interpret it now i think thats it i his be last and all and it all in itself. So i cant speak to that particular statue but i will say that i do agree with putting confederate statutes and museums so all that we can still preserve that history and understand that history in the proper context but to have those statutes put on pedestals and to have the confederacy and its value celebrated and glorified is an obvious problem and i would echo the professors point that there is an issue when you have you know institutions claiming to be for justice and for equality but really theyre just trying to silence people from protesting more sort of divert attention away from whats going on by whether its donating money to people who are interested in preserving the can or glorifying the confederacy as legacy. Of perpetuating other issues so i hear what youre saying about Community Input and i agree obviously if thats what happened successfully in a war lens but i do think that the statute should be put in museums and that is the proper context that they should be observed there its going to go step through the current lets say look at robert e. Lee ok one of the most important if not the most important very general during the civil war but he also was commandant of west point before the civil war and hes renowned for reforming it in some of those reforms stand to this day should his legacy and west point for example be wiped away disappear well i think whats interesting about robert e. Lee is a belief he said himself shortly after the civil war to not correct any. Concern or said he was it was very clear that what had happened was traders add to the fact from the u. S. For days and so many others it is reflective of how i think a number of people want to move on now with the monuments being read to that was a deliberate act by much of the view of the united daughters to satirise see in the early 20th century as an expression that they expected and wanted to maintain america as a white. Premise this country in the end for its black people throughout all of these airlines was never considered and i just want to go in this point of you know cultures gee i mean we talk about the wrecking of culture all the time and i think thats a misunderstanding of the term culture is not static i mean what we believe now of ours is 100 years ago i think is drastically different and has progressed to a large degree and i think thats a good thing and so when people talk about preserving erics original we have to be honest about what their parents are just and since the mid 20th Century America is a very different place as far as diversity than it was prior to 965. 00 so the degree to which any of these monuments represents the communities under which they are placed is now questionable and i think within this particular moment communities are rising up because they feel that they have an actual voice and input that is now salyut those who are leading clear how how can we cant with physical culture remember this is a whole war what is a way what is an avenue to do that without glorifying or without dividing us so i think there can be an educational approach to this and addition to putting these confederate statutes in museums there should be an educational push to have folks really esteem those who fought on the side of the union who learn we can learn so that we can learn more about these individuals. And really uphold though the values of those individuals this summer actually read team of rivals which was about you know the political sort of strategizing of Abraham Lincoln and his character and what what shaped him and as a president as well as his you know upbringing and it seems to me that we dont actually teach that much about these individuals again who fought on the side of the union so i think that if we could have an approach our Education System by emphasizing the values of the union and emphasizing. Those soldiers who died on behalf 9 of america and who did not you know prove to be a traitor so the country i think that would provide a good balance and again to reiterate putting those confederates that should shouldnt be destroyed but should be put in his saddle so that they can place in the proper context colors it should we read to actively judge people 100 years ago by their words and their way their way their viewpoints but equally on race i mean even as Abraham Lincoln if you look at it very closely i mean he he he believed ending slavery was in principle as a christian thing but he didnt particularly like black people ok but he did it on principle all right and if you go to his leg recent things like that it doesnt come off as this you know this squeaky clean abolitionist ok i mean he had he did it on principles and i think are universally agreed now i mean obviously but he was a pioneer and particularly the president of the United States well i think as far as judging people who passed under present circumstances i think most historians and most people who think about this would generally agree that its not if you really believe that in the end in that kind of atmosphere that we live now i mean statues are being to face that abolitionists are being defaced ok Francis Scott key ok im sorry to interrupt but i think that you know we have to be very careful thats why were doing this program well i think its an indictment against women are chemistries traditionally hot degeneres and that weve been doing i think ever since weve been attached to monuments throughout the u. S. As we valorize individuals and i think thats always a problem i mean if youre going to position marty minute around a particular individuals memory the idea behind that is this is a mess this is a persons message histories to how youre supposed to perceive them now i cant speak for all protesters or people who are too facing the monuments but one thing that i would suggest is you cheat and judge people based upon the circumstances of your own time and what i what im seeing with you know discussion. About washington or jefferson is not that what they eventually did was a terrible thing as far as writing the constitution or the directly. Which eventually will open up freedom and liberty to numerous people is that they were talking about freedom and liberty was. So the indictment against that they were hypocritical. Their entire process how they consumptions freedom and what that suggests to descendants of people who are descendants of Indigenous People or anyone else whos been marginalized the prestons country is that there were a number of men who were not willing to extend the full benefits of all liberty they were talking about to start. And they were aware of that at the time and if you look at the debates they look at the federalist papers you look at the the debates even of the declaration of independence i mean basically were going to kick the can down the road they were over where they can say they did no end in they were very strong abolitionists and there were those there of course works were going to im going to jump in here were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue work its question on statutes id say. The u. S. Is losing its cachet as worlds single superpower what u. S. Dollar is losing its status as World Reserve currency are moving into a post u. S. Dollar as World Reserve a currency era and so buffett is picking up stakes and hauling out the states moving to asias actually big portion of his portfolio and. Dahlia who is another huge name in the Money Management space has got 20 percent of his portfolio hes the worlds Biggest Hedge Fund now in actual gold bullion gold bullion circuits. And so that tells you also that the u. S. Dollars days are numbered. Trade and investment to become magic spells to conjure economic development. Most people think about trade they think about goods and services being exchanged between countries and the a vast chapter of a trade agreement is about something very different but what one investment leads to toxic manufacturing the destroys sacred sites all ruins the environment. That means local communities that are being poisoned if they have jack if they do anything that the company feels is interrupting their profits they can they serve. The nationals of taking on the whole nation Philip Morris is trying to use i. S. T. s to stop oracle by implementing new tobacco regulations aimed at cutting domestic smoking rates a French Company sued egypt because egypt resists minimum wage democratic choice trump Corporate Law joining us as we try to find dont want to. Welcome back to cross talk were all things are considered i remind you were discussing statues. Were going to go back to chloe in new york. At the very end of the 1st part of the program were talking basically about the Founding Fathers they the framers in your mind in this out mysterious the whole bill of rights in question now because some of the. Signatories and writers of those of the bill of rights some were slave owners. Now i have to say i think on this point i disagree with the professor i dont think i think if the standard is do not put up statutes of any human being period i think thats a consistent standard but if the standard is do not put up statutes steaming the Founding Fathers because they were hypocrites i think thats a bit of a slippery slope because who knows that we will be able to esteem our own values in 2020 and moving forward who knows that we were not also proved to be hypocrites and trying to stem the values of morality and equality moving forward and i think that the statues that were put up to honor jefferson and washington and the Founding Fathers in contrast to those put up to honor the soldiers of the confederacy were not put up just elevate their vices but to celebrate their virtues and to celebrate the ideals that they represented in spite of the fact that they fell short of those ideals and i dont think that theres anything wrong with that and i also dont think theres anything wrong with putting up a plaque next to them to highlight the hypocrisy and to expand upon the complexity of their of their lives and what they did in the brutality that they did uphold but again if the standard is to not put up statutes of people who are hypocrites then there will be no statutes of anyone and perhaps that is the way we should move forward and thats an argument thats thats worth making perhaps but again i dont personally have a problem with the actions that were put up or not of the Founding Fathers but tell a bit like sex a lot of people do and this is one of the things like i said at the very outset i dont mean to be can can better its that isnt in monuments at all 0 but a lot of good there are people that do that and what bothers me is that what weve seen during the last few weeks is that this is kind of bled over to haul down views that are somehow. Again are going to fight with the establishment or traditional history and it seems to me this is a slippery slope that people are going to. I mean some of the great bt written on some of these that is that its theyre written by people that are illiterate i mean do they know what theyre doing or is this just some kind of rage go ahead well i think once again it might be an indictment against the american Education System and then i think a lot of younger people still lie too in that they have not received the full context of what the us has done and allowed people to do i mean the fact that a traitorous region was then reclaimed and defended in their ambitions to put out confederate monuments not just within that region but all over the United States i mean there are reflections of this in california even in las vegas where i live to the degree that what we are seeing is a number of people feel that this is something that should have been it should have been reckoned with and it should not should not have been tolerated it struck the early 20th century in the war was over but a number of people wanted it to be alive and even in the textbooks of that time that portrayed a very benign version of slavery so when i say that we have a lot of reminders of the confederacy and thats inference in American History now in regard to the degree to which they should be moved to museums i sense that we also have to recognize that moving these to museums requires a lot of money and a lot of museums as you just said that they received calls from state legislatures who say look we want to reduce market keepsake and they say no were not equipped we dont have the finances so if the state wants to actually invest in the preservation of monuments and build museums there its all the truth about the confederacy im all for it its just that i think whats happened within the United States is that government funding has not been sufficient to actually sell the history of the United States for those who go to these places to try to learn about it so what i see with what young people are doing is that they might be destroying monuments as a way to get attention to i think larger issues this might be some ball. And literally toppling the crusaders units memory but also ensuring that structural change is actually implemented by the government. Clearly what about the federal statutes because weve been talking more about statues that are in cities and. Theyre under a local Administration Control and this is turning into a really heated debate right now because some of these issues are are federally owned and theyre protected in the taxpayer subsidises them how do we deal with that i mean would you like to see congressional action an executive order how would you see this play out yeah i mean its an interesting question in terms of the process that would need to be embarked upon to take down problematic statutes that are put up under the jurisdiction of the federal government im sure thats a conversation we can have in congress weve had congressional testimony has lots of reparations for example im sure there can be another kind of session in congress that where we can talk about this and perhaps secure that finding that for us or just mentioned to put that in place i dont see why it should be such a barrier in theory just because were talking about statutes that are held under federal jurisdiction why do we stay with you why is this so how can he now i mean. He was like i mean we have been discussing i think its been a couple you 23 years that weve been talking about now is off and on and its very very i mean we are living in an extremely charged political environment and obviously were going to win elections is this part of this also keep going well yes i think its the election cycle its also the case that we are a nation that has been dealing with the adverse effects of coal that 19 weve been you know trapped in our homes many of us are unemployed many of us are trying to figure out where were going to get food where were going to get work and then we have these racial tensions that are sort of put. Into the spotlight because of the murder of george floyd the murder of armory the murder of brown and teller and so this creates a cascading effect where i many people feel that enough is enough to compound the situation and people. Many of them rightfully protest because this is just too much to deal with on the other hand i would have to caution against how some of those protests might manifest themselves and so nihilistic pathological tendencies whereby we are saying to your earlier point folks try to pull down not only sections that belong to the confederacy that actually represent emancipation actually represent the antithesis of the confederacy where some just step for some of the people who are pulling down these statues there is no moral ethic at all i mean it begs a question as to how one can claim a promote the taking down of a statue of Jefferson Davis for example and also promote the taking out of the statute that celebrates the emancipation of slavery or of slaves or other that is a contradiction in terms that suggest and illiteracy as you say and actually supports the professors point that there has been or there does need to be an indictment of the Education System in this country but but a much more much more consistently and much more thorough than perhaps we thought of not just to the extent that we critique obviously and condemn the confederacy but to the extent that people are even aware that you know Frederick Douglass and Dr Martin Luther King Jr invoked Thomas Jefferson in order to criticize Thomas Jefferson and so we need to be educated not only on the historical facts on the complexity in nuance of the our statesmen and women who lead us so i agree with them for some terms of education and i meant but its far more reaching that well i think all 3 of those are uniformly. Even one of the reasons why a very Different Reasons are going to be many. Said on fox news hes a. Matter leader he said if change doesnt happen then quote we will burn this says you agree with that not me read. Well agree with the rhetoric i mean i think he starts talking metaphorically i mean burning the system could connote a number of things i mean if the system is an equal if it does mistreat people and it does marginalized people then that is a system that you want to get rid of and so i have to hear the whole concert so what mr newsome was saying but i think a lot of people have a similar sentiment that if if our education or Health Care Systems are failing if our political process is failing certain groups that is a system you want to get rid of now burn the system i think has maybe some rhetoric used to invoke a seriousness of the nature of what i assume that he needs is that you bring the system by placing leaders in place that are actually going to change or rather than what we might call the corporatists who need a number of promises but as soon as they get into congress the senate or the presidency they essentially just align with the same people who were there who made laws that are largely been some in social change rather than literal so i agree with the sentiment that burning the system might be 11 way forward in actually remedying the process and you know america will no longer just be the history wasteland in which people for sleep things under the rug which rather than actually deal with them in the classroom well being a train has part of his story when i hear things like you know we will burn the system its revolutionary rhetoric and ill tell you in the modern period at least revolutions usually go well they never work out they end up eating their own all right but how does that mean i feel like i understand what youre saying but i think that many people saw the Civil Rights Movement as a wakes burma system going to know what as it was going to burn jim crow. Overseas road it was going to ravage today and so i think there is a certain social context and we always have to be mindful. I mean but there was a goal i mean like the Voting Rights act i mean these are positive space ok i dont know what the goals are except burning down and people are angry and theres some people use it for criminal activity ok thats something that i mean it will but i agree with you that the Civil Rights Movement is a model that had positive goals and they were achieved and we should all be proud of that maybe if the movement remains under sorry then there are reasons for people to question that i agree with him so if people are saying were going to system do not replace it with something that is a problem that does need to be changed well we finish up for us no i mean i would i would echo tylers last comment i think that there needs to be a moral ethic at the heart of a movement and it needs to be very clearly defined because without that this will just have as you said a tendency to eat itself to the center and to nihilistic rage when i actually hear the term burn the system i am reminded of the film black panther and lets kill mongar also wanted to burn the system down and by that myth destroying everything that his ancestors had created and that was obviously a problem and and so well for him so i agree that we must you know and its us and our and and those who are protesting for right but we must also make sure that theyre educated out and literate enough to uphold that moral ethic of justice and equality in high regard and to access to it that you know when i when i hear burn burn it down i reminds me of a place where i live here in russia and thats when the pulse you get said it and they earn it down and they brought a. Totalitarian regime that lasted for 70 years so be careful what you wish for i guess ok thats all the time we have i want to thank my guests in new york and the last big. And i want to thank our viewers for watching see you next time remember. She stressed to. The other question was to you she. Didnt remember to check or a moment man or shant. Want to. Be. There mr hayward supporters are still with him. Or does he seem to be a valuable piece that its a studio. Person very vocal pushing. Him spinning
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