Its history just how just with the selfproclaimed Islamic State terrorist group have recruited up to 30000 foreigners from all over the world to find for the. Sounds of russian citizens left their country to join the terrorists often bringing wives and children with them. But hes not going to lead is imposed on you. Thats a good move. On you to the. Hundreds of children and widows were held captive all disappeared. Back in russia those children families wait. Welcome to max guys are. Looking forward to a year thats without. Yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. Watched as a report. Hello and welcome across the uk 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 shame so how should we find the right balance is statue side the right answer. Crosscutting statue side im joined by my guest cleo voluntary in new york she is founder of the company there have been champ mint which teaches social Emotional Learning in schools as well as diversity and inclusion in companies and Government Agencies and in las vegas we cross one of our it he is an assistant professor of africanamerican and African Diaspora studies at the university of nevada las vegas all right crosswalk rules in effect that means you can shop me how you want her house appreciate greatly let me go to you in new york how this taking down statues and we can talk about which ones changed the condition of people of color in the United States and does that something is it just a political statement because were in a Great Recession were in a pandemic and working people or people been horrendous lee hit by this and i just have to ponder is statues the 1st thing we should be banking 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 who goal was to uphold slavery and 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 slaves 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 this 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 im reading but im 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. 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 are 2 names that. You know a friend of mine started saying americas a history wasteland a lot of people prefer to just get rid of things rather than deal with them and theres some debate suggests that that is whats going on with what we call the martinet 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 given when it was read to us actually horrendous and recent it made it very clear what the intention wasnt honoring the confederacy and it was deliberately White Supremacy now when the protesters asked for it to be removed or when they actually removed 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 things just fairness 1000 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 and i want in your opinion of course to preserve that and explain why. Why it was put up what the meaning was then and how we should interpret it now i think thats it i History Lesson all of it all in itself so i cant speak to that particular statue but i will say that i do agree with putting confederate statutes in 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 this is what happened successfully in new orleans 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 take a 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 he leaves a glitch he said himself shortly after sworn to not direct i mean. For consumers to me it was it was very clear that what happened was a traders add to the fact for us and so many others it is reflective of how i think a number of people want you gone now with the monuments being wrecked tonight was a deliberate act much of the beauty you know. Daughters of the confederacy in the early 20th century as an expression that they expected and wanted to maintain america as a white supremacist country in the end for its black people throughout all of these airlines was never considered and i just want to go on this point of you know cultures g h 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 overseas 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 heritage we have to be honest about what that heritage 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 unities under which they were 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 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 how folks really esteem those who fought on the side of the union who learn who can not 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 intimate. 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 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 confederate statues shouldnt be destroyed but should be put in his and so that they can place in the proper context colors should we read to actively judge people 100 years ago by their words and their way their way on their viewpoints but equally on race i mean even at Abraham Lincoln if you look at 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 living as far as judging people who passed under present circumstances i think most historians and most people who think about history generally agree that its not if we really believe that in the end in that kind of atmosphere that we live now i mean statues are being defaced 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 chemistries traditionally. The you do narrative that we do then 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 do you suppose to perceive them now i cant speak for all protesters or people who are too facing the monuments but one thing that i would see. Just as you chianti judge people based upon the circumstances of their own time and what i what im seeing with you know discussions about washington and jefferson is not that what they eventually did was a terrible thing as far as writing the constitution or the declaration of independence which eventually will open up freedom and liberty to numerous people is that they were talking about freedom and liberty while who explains so the the indictment against them is that they were hypocritical in their entire process how they conceptualize freedom and whats asked suggest to descendants of slaves people or descendants of Indigenous People or anyone else whos been marginalized in the prestons country is that there were a number of men who were not willing to extend the full benefits of all the liberty they were talking about to sort out. And they were aware of that at the time and if you look at the debates that look at the federalist papers you look at the then its the base that even of the declaration of independence i mean basically were going to kick the can down the road they were ok where they can say they didnt know any and they were very strong abolitionists and there were those there of course works and 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. Welcome back to process where all things are considered i feel about remind you were discussing statues i. Were going 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 atmosphere is the whole bill of rights in question now because some of the. Signatories the writers of those of the bill of rights were slave owners now and 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 esteem 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 all of their vices law 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 and 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 statutes that were put up or not of the Founding Fathers but job it looks likes a lot of people do and this is one of the things like i said. The very outset i dont know how many it its meant to be can confederates that isnt and money means that all. But a lot of it there are people that do it and what bothers me is that in what way it seem during the last few weeks is that this is kind of bled over to all spout views that are somehow. A day are going to fight with the establishment or traditional history and it seems to me this is a slippery slope that people are going down i mean some of the great bt written and some of these thousands of its 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 entirely against the american Education System and then i think a lot of younger people still lie to him that they have not received the full context of what the u. S. Has done and allowed people to do i mean the fact that a traitorous region was then reclaimed and defended in their envisions to put a confederate monuments not just within that region but all over the United States i mean there are reflections of this in california you must figures for our lives 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 its 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 for trade a very benign version of slavery and 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 but we also have to recognize that moving these to museums requires a lot of money and a lot of museums a suggested that they received calls from state legislatures who say look we want to reduce marna keepsake and they say no were not equipped we dont have the finances so if the state wants to actually invest in the present. Monuments and museums tell the truth about the confederacy. 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 symbolic and literal toppling the confederacy in its nunnery but also ensuring that structural change is actually implemented by the government its clearly what about the federal statues because weve been talking all about statues that are in cities and. Theyre under a local administration and troll and this is turning into a really heated debate right now because some of these doctors are are federally owned and theyre protected