so….the robert e lee statue, thoughts ?

i ask because i recall you mentioning being both southern and a historian — so if anyone is qualified to give a nuanced analysis on the matter i figured you’d be the best candidate. i am broadly against iconoclasm of all kinds but i (a European) am not well versed in the particular history of this period or the statue itself.

mayhaps you can help.

many thanks

visenyaism:

sure. so for people who don’t know, today, the Robert E. Lee statue formerly installed in Charlottesville, Virginia, was melted down so that a local Black public history organization can use the material to create new community art.

This is unequivocally a good thing!!! it’s what the community, a substantial portion of which is Black, wanted! This was the same Robert E Lee statue whose potential removal sparked the unite the right rally in 2017, where white nationalists and nazis holding tiki torches attempted to intimidate the community into keeping the statue up. Eventually, we finally got it removed in 2021, and there was like live music and extremely loud cheering as they took that thing down.

To describe confederate memorials in the south as just iconoclasm is to me a little reductive. They are unambiguously racist. Putting up a statue of someone who fought and sometimes died to continue the mass enslavement of african-americans is racist. The history of these statues is clear: they weren’t installed during or shortly after the Civil War, when the Confederacy was still in living memory. Most of them were put up in the 1890s, during the origin of the jim crow apartheid governments, the 1920s, which saw a huge national revival of white supremacy and KKK racist terrorism, and the 1960s, with the racist backlash to the civil rights movement.

Most statues, including the Charlottesville Lee statue, were put up specifically in front of courthouses and in town squares: the goal was not to celebrate any kind of southern history, but to intimidate Black defendants going to Jim Crow court or Black residents trying to live their lives in white spaces. The message that Confederate statues were intended to send is that the community is not for African-Americans, and to remind them of the legacy of white supremacist violence inflicted against them. They are hateful and all of them need to be taken down.

Today is a great day for Charlottesville and the realization of 7 years of community activism. There are thousands of statues still left across the country to work on next.

As a Taylor Swift expert, Gaylor hater, and recovering 1989er, you probably don't want to know that apparently in the notes of the re-recording Taylor Swift talks about how she wasn't dating any of her female friends, and the Gaylors are having meltdowns on twitter. Words like "gaslit" and "queerbaiting" are being used.

hatingongodot:

wizardshark:

booksandfiltercoffee:

gpedia:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

rosslynpaladin:

vaspider:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

of COURSE I want to know about that, I need to go log back into my twitter account RIGHT NOW

also goddddd as a certified 1989 enjoyer I’m gonna have to listen to Taylor’s Version :/

oh damn the girlies are NOT taking this well

sorry I’m so sorry this is the funniest thing that has EVER happened

our homegrown tumblr gaylors are also going through it btw

Holy fuck.

People literally getting ANGRY AT HER for daring to mention she’s STRAIGHT. It’s personally offending her marginalized fans for her to not go along with their desperation for HER to be Queer.

… Me, I’m a P!nk fan, I have no idea what this is about. Delighted not to be Le Involved here.

You left the best part in the tags!

Wow what a coincidence @booksandfiltercoffee was just telling me about gaylor panic in the streets of social media.

That was brought upon by this post

I especially love that Tumblr screenshot saying “if what you’re implying is the truth, just SAY IT” because she has! She’s stated over and over again “I am not gay, I am straight, I am heterosexual” and they REFUSED to believe her and blamed it on compulsory heterosexuality, or her being too scared to come out. She LITERALLY did just say it!