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Khalifa Jayy · May 26, 2017

This address / speech is just so powerful and impactful. I think it truly is a must watch for everyone. They need to play this on tv for real. Like over and over again.

Excerpts:

Twitter so you can Like and RT: https://twitter.com/cnn/status/867550321656180739

YouTube: https://youtu.be/c6oPol68RCk

Full video of address: https://youtu.be/WQ29Uwz5yPU

Full transcript: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/opinion/mitch-landrieus-speech-transcript.html?_r=1

12 important lines as identified by CNN columnist:

1. "There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it."
2. "These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for."
3. "They were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. "
4. "So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race."
5. "I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing, and this is what that looks like."
6. "This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong."
7. "It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done."
8. "Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth. We are better together than we are apart."
9. "If we take these statues down and don't change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain."
10. "We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city's history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations."
11."Instead of revering a four-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years."
12. "The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered."

That's the spirit we need more of in this nation.

Dai101 · May 26, 2017

Powerful stuff.

12. "The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered."

That's takes the cake.

Vincent Alexander · May 26, 2017

Juat had to read OP for now, but damn, those are some solid lines. I'll be sure to watch whole thing tomorrow.

leakey · May 26, 2017

Those excerpts could have been the whole speech and I'd still be impressed.

Slayven · May 26, 2017

"They were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. "

Straight fire

Loxley · May 26, 2017

Amazing speech, and completely spot-on in every regard.

Just connecting the dots here - are these the same statues that those white-supremacists/Richard Spencer held a torch-lit rally in front of recently?

Kthulhu · May 26, 2017

Wandering Robot · May 26, 2017

Wonderful. We have so many better historical sites ones that don't celebrate an institution of hatred and I hope this sentiment is reflected elsewhere in the U.S.

Killa Sasa · May 26, 2017

Thank fuck yall have some sane leaders left. Fantastic speech.

Hope the majority of your countrymen (countrywomen too?) get their asses in gear to push behind this stuff and not tripe.

Karsticles · May 26, 2017

I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

water_wendi · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

The Confederacy can go into a museum. Putting statues in public places like parks and courthouses is absolutely a form of reverence.

TheOctodad · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

Take em down, put them in a museum in a "wrong side of history" section.

The Adder · May 26, 2017

Made a topic for this yesterday, didn't get enough attention so I'm glad someone else did as well. This speech needs to be heard.

Karsticles · May 26, 2017

water_wendi said:
The Confederacy can go into a museum. Putting statues in public places like parks and courthouses is absolutely a form of reverence.

TheOctodad said:
Take em down, put them in a museum in a "wrong side of history" section.

Good point.

The Adder said:
Made a topic for this yesterday, didn't get enough attention so I'm glad someone else did as well. This speech needs to be heard.

My wife posted this on FB and my cooky uncle got offended. -_-

Jotaka · May 26, 2017

Amazing people keep this statues for so long. It's literally putting an asshole in a pedestal.

Alucrid · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

I don't see how keeping statues of notable Confederates remind us of atrocities. Replace them with statues of slaves if that's what you want to do.

Transhuman · May 26, 2017

Honestly it's a little sanctimonious in parts. At a certain point it feels like he is just pandering to the audience.

Cocaloch · May 26, 2017

Jotaka said:
Amazing people keep this statues for so long. It's literally putting an asshole in a pedestal.

It's Louisiana.

On topic, I thought the speech was decent, but I honestly don't understand why people think it was amazing. It's an easy argument to make, and I think it could have been done better and more eloquently.

Dai101 · May 26, 2017

Transhuman said:
Honestly it's a little sanctimonious in parts. At a certain point it feels like he is just pandering to the audience.

Cocaloch said:
It's Louisiana.

On topic, I thought the speech was decent, but I honestly don't understand why people think it was amazing. It's an easy argument to make, and I think it could have been done better and more eloquently.

Racism still alive and kicking in 20 fucking 17 and moderates see racial cleansing as just "a different opinion"
Probably because that.

Karsticles · May 26, 2017

Transhuman said:
Honestly it's a little sanctimonious in parts. At a certain point it feels like he is just pandering to the audience.

Cocaloch said:
It's Louisiana.

On topic, I thought the speech was decent, but I honestly don't understand why people think it was amazing. It's an easy argument to make, and I think it could have been done better and more eloquently.

I think context is important. It's Louisiana post-Trump.

B-Dubs · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
Good point.

Or put up monuments meant to honor those whose lives were destroyed by the institution of slavery and the Civil War. There's no reason to have monuments honoring this shit up.

Nepenthe · May 26, 2017

Absolutely beautiful speech. Bless this man.

Angelus Errare · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

Problem with that argument is the idea the status represent the negatives of that time period. They don't in any capacity. Most statues by their very nature deify and memorialize the subject matter. No one looking at those will take away the horrors of slavery, there is no context that makes the "history" tragic. What historical teaching can be gleamed from a statue of a defiant as proud looking Robert E. Lee? What about his statue at any given moment invokes a sense of sorrow over fighting to preserve the right to own people? Imagine a young black child seeing these statues for the first time, in their eyes these people and symbols are of "great" people and events because that's what most statues symbolize. Now you have to explain "oh no these were actually terrible people who owned your ancestors" so...why glorify that?

This argument further loses merit when you realize that the history of that war has largely been rewritten to the point people will argue that slavery had absolutely nothing to do with the war despite the fact we have speeches, declarations of secession from every state literally saying this is a move to preserve slavery and lordship over a group of people.

This argument even further loses any merit when you realize these statues where erected 15+ years after the war BY the Confederates, who need I remind you seceded from the Union because they didn't want to be a part of it. So why honor them by allowing their statues to remain? Because they died fighting for what they believe? With that argument should we not erect statues of Japanese fighter pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor? After all they were fighting for what they believe no? Should Germany erect statues of Hitler and other Nazi soldiers? After all they too fought for what they believed in, should we not have statues of them posing as proud dignified men and women like Lee and Co throughout Germany to "remind" people of their horrors?

There is no way to create monuments that dignify and deify someone but it carry a message to "never forget" that they were against completely. You want to teach people the horrors of that time? You erect statues of men and women being treated as property, their kids taken from them, being burned, lashed, hunted, raped, lynched then you put words explaining the sheer disgust and inhumane treatment of these people. You show black slaves rebelling and killing their masters, you show black soldiers fighting for their freedom. You glorify the oppressed who rose above it not their oppressors who kept their foot on these people's necks.

This honestly isn't a "both sides" or "both views are of equal weight and measure".

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order · May 26, 2017

I still don't agree with removing stuff like this. Better to add a plaque explaining the context of the monument along with the modern version of history.

Nepenthe · May 26, 2017

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I still don't agree with removing stuff like this. Better to add a plaque explaining the context of the monument along with the modern version of history.

What is inherent in a statue that makes it a permanent fixture of any place it's arbitrarily sat upon?

Geist- · May 26, 2017

Mitch Landrieu for President!

Idk if I'm serious or not, but that speech was amazing.

Toxi · May 26, 2017

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I still don't agree with removing stuff like this. Better to add a plaque explaining the context of the monument along with the modern version of history.

Explain to me why propaganda should remain standing to "preserve history" while old buildings that people lived entire lives in are demolished without a care in the world.

And yes, that's what these statues are: Propaganda.

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order · May 26, 2017

Toxi said:
Explain to me why propaganda should remain standing to "preserve history" while old buildings that people lived entire lives in are demolished without a care in the world.

I don't think that should happen either. I'm just saying that using existing monuments to provide a modern context for history is far better than taking up iconoclasm.

Like for a statue of Stalin (to use a common tear-down example) i think it would be better to leave them along with plaque explaining Stalins crimes, why he was honored then, and how history has moved on from that view.

Big Baybee · May 26, 2017

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I still don't agree with removing stuff like this. Better to add a plaque explaining the context of the monument along with the modern version of history.

No, what NOLA is doing is right. You can preserve history without it being put on a literal pedestal. Sucks that so many southern whites just can't get over the fact that their ancestors were on the wrong side of history. Wish they would have all been hanged for treason and crimes against humanity.

The Adder · May 26, 2017

I'm all for leaving the statues where they are with the caveat they be shattered and left lying strewn about their pedestal. That seems like an appropriate way to historically contextualize these pieces of human refuse.

metalslimer · May 26, 2017

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I don't think that should happen either. I'm just saying that using existing monuments to provide a modern context for history is far better than taking up iconoclasm.

Like for a statue of Stalin (to use a common tear-down example) i think it would be better to leave them along with plaque explaining Stalins crimes, why he was honored then, and how history has moved on from that view.

They're going to be put in a museum where the context can be explained. I've passed that monument countless times and no one is reading the stupid plaque. It would remain a symbol of reverence to a traitor and the evil time he came from.

Personally I don't even see the need to put them in a museum besides pointing out how dumb NOLA was for even having the stupid statues. No one needs a reminder on the famous traitors of the civil war

Gentleman Jack · May 26, 2017

God damn this is FIRE. Sharing this everywhere I can.

Fine Ham Abounds · May 26, 2017

Transhuman said:
Honestly it's a little sanctimonious in parts. At a certain point it feels like he is just pandering to the audience.

Well, most people in here don't know the Landrieu family. He certainly legitimately feels strongly about this - he's not faking the sentiment, and it's good stuff to hear - but rest assured this entire enterprise has been carefully calculated for allowing himself maximum exposure. I mean, more power to him, he's profiting from something worthwhile at least.

Karsticles said:
I think context is important. It's Louisiana post-Trump.

Context is indeed important. This is New Orleans, always a blue boat adrift in a red sea for decades, and now inundated with gentrifying hipsters who have ruined the midcity housing market for the people they desperately try to associate with in an attempt to borrow local cred while complaining that creole food is cultural appropriation and there's no place here to find good kale or BBQ.

To be clear, I have no beef with the removal of the statues. I sorta had that misguided "keep em up to show how stupid we were and still are" view at first, but I eventually came to my senses and realized there's really only one message that gets delivered by leaving them up.

Forceatowulf · May 26, 2017

Amazing speech.

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order · May 26, 2017

metalslimer said:
They're going to be put in a museum where the context can be explained. I've passed that monument countless times and no one is reading the stupid plaque. It would remain a symbol of reverence to a traitor and the evil time he came from.

Personally I don't even see the need to put them in a museum besides pointing out how dumb NOLA was for even having the stupid statues. No one needs a reminder on the famous traitors of the civil war

Putting them in a museum is slightly better, but this type of historical redactivism removes a key type of normative historical sources.

I live in a area where loads of churches had their (everything) taken out and destroyed during the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism. Looking at history through a modern lens, the iconography the removed where largely symbols of greed and arrogance for nobility and high church authorities who built them to promote their view of the world on on the backs of the then peasant class they oppressed, which is a modern phrasing of the argument used then that the symbols, monuments and iconography were decadent and wasteful. But by removing them, the iconoclasts removed key parts of the local history which, at the time rarely recorded the type of information (f.eks who valued what where) you can infer from creative works. That may seem trivial now, but the further you go back anywhere, the more important non-written sources become.

Gordon Shumway · May 26, 2017

Beautiful. Kudos to him and all involved in removing such symbols of hate. I'd recommend for folks to watch the whole thing and not just the clip video.

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I still don't agree with removing stuff like this.

Glad you weren't part of the process then..

Hazmat · May 26, 2017

Excellent speech. It's disappointing that defense was needed, but I'm glad that he was able to give an eloquent, homegrown explanation of why this shit has to go.

RoyalFool · May 26, 2017

I'm not a fan of the rewriting of history. I seriously doubt the statue was built as a tribute to slavery and hate.

The Adder · May 26, 2017

RoyalFool said:
I'm not a fan of the rewriting of history. I seriously doubt the statue was built as a tribute to slavery and hate.

Well you're flat wrong about that, so...

Slayven · May 26, 2017

Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
I don't think that should happen either. I'm just saying that using existing monuments to provide a modern context for history is far better than taking up iconoclasm.

Like for a statue of Stalin (to use a common tear-down example) i think it would be better to leave them along with plaque explaining Stalins crimes, why he was honored then, and how history has moved on from that view.

Little tiny plate next to a man standing triumphantly, what are people going to pick more?

RoyalFool said:
I'm not a fan of the rewriting of history. I seriously doubt the statue was built as a tribute to slavery and hate.

What rewriting history? Please explain

Dreams-Visions · May 26, 2017

This was good shit.

RoyalFool said:
I'm not a fan of the rewriting of history.

That's why it needed to come down. People have been quick to try to forget the sins of their fathers, rewriting and ignoring all the atrocities they committed along the way.

RoyalFool said:
I seriously doubt the statue was built as a tribute to slavery and hate.

And this is why better education on such subjects is essential. We have kids walking around thinking statues of Confederate soldiers are anything but symbols of a way of life that used black bodies as burnable fuel to burn to keep their engines turning. You don't get to ignore the atrocities just because you say...liked their fashion taste.

Matty77 · May 26, 2017

Good move and long overdue. I never really understood why a bunch of traitors got statues and memorials in the first place.

Metal B · May 26, 2017

Karsticles said:
I watched and enjoyed this speech. I also talked about it with a coworker of mine who is a History teacher, and he said the monument should stay so that Americans cannot forget their past atrocities. His perspective seems reasonable, and I wonder if it's better to take monuments down or retain them while giving them plaques that recontextualize their significance.

I'm inclined to still say "take them down", but I wonder what others here think.

As somebody from Germany, we learned how to deal with our past in a good way, I can tell you, that we don't have statues of Hitler or other culprits around. We put the victims and the terrible actions in front, because they are the parts to not forget!

Akainu · May 26, 2017

RoyalFool said:
I'm not a fan of the rewriting of history. I seriously doubt the statue was built as a tribute to slavery and hate.

You're right it a tribute to southern pride...in hate and slavey big difference. Who's rewriting history numbnuts?

Dreams-Visions · May 26, 2017

Metal B said:
As somebody from Germany, we learned how to deal with our past in a good way, I can tell you, that we don't have statues of Hitler or other culprits around. We put the victims and the terrible actions in front, because they are the parts to not forget!

The American way to deal with its past has largely been to ignore it. Many people here still wrestle with the basics of American slavery at all, never mind our civil war and the reason for the conflict. White Americans will regularly jump through any number of hoops to minimize the brutality and destruction the trade and practice brought upon people of color in the Americas, perhaps in an attempt to absolve their forefathers and maintain a "we're the good guys" imagine in their minds. Exceptionalism and all that.

Good on you all for keeping the reality of the past up front and sober.

RoyalFool · May 26, 2017

Dreams-Visions said:
This was good shit.

That's why it needed to come down. People have been quick to try to forget the sins of their fathers, rewriting and ignoring all the atrocities they committed along the way.

And this is why better education on such subjects is essential. We have kids walking around thinking statues of Confederate soldiers are anything but symbols of a way of life that used black bodies as burnable fuel to burn to keep their engines turning. You don't get to ignore the atrocities just because you say...liked their fashion taste.

Most of our great grandfather's did what we would now consider attrocities. Mine fire bombed residential areas in Germany. Doesn't mean we should pretend it never happened, statues are a reminder of our history, if we forget it we are destined to repeat the mistakes.

I guess most folks think statues are reserved for the just, but when social norms change all the time it's a shame to see artworks get destroyed for political correctness.

Also in the news today is Islamics tearing down a liberty statue from one of their courts for showing too much skin (sic)..

The Adder · May 26, 2017

RoyalFool said:
I guess most folks think statues are reserved for the just, but when social norms change all the time it's a shame to see artworks get destroyed for political correctness.

Well someone clearly doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about in regards to these particular statues and their origins but really feels like running their mouth about them.

Caelus · May 26, 2017

RoyalFool said:
I guess most folks think statues are reserved for the just, but when social norms change all the time it's a shame to see artworks get destroyed for political correctness.

...we really playing this card?

Slayven · May 26, 2017

RoyalFool said:
Most of our great grandfather's did what we would now consider attrocities. Mine fire bombed residential areas in Germany. Doesn't mean we should pretend it never happened, statues are a reminder of our history, if we forget it we are destined to repeat the mistakes.

I guess most folks think statues are reserved for the just, but when social norms change all the time it's a shame to see artworks get destroyed for political correctness.

Also in the news today is Islamics tearing down a liberty statue from one of their courts for showing too much skin (sic)..

No one is going to forget the civil war and slavery, we are still dealing with the after effects in America today.

"Potlical Correctness" shows me where your head is, read up on Jim Crow and the civil rights era. Cause you are clearly not that informed.

Robert E Lee fought for the right to rape, murder, maim and treat people at caddle. Does Germany have a statue of Josef Mengele ? Does China have a statue of unit 731?

Karsticles · May 26, 2017

Angelus Errare said:
Problem with that argument is the idea the status represent the negatives of that time period. They don't in any capacity. Most statues by their very nature deify and memorialize the subject matter. No one looking at those will take away the horrors of slavery, there is no context that makes the "history" tragic. What historical teaching can be gleamed from a statue of a defiant as proud looking Robert E. Lee? What about his statue at any given moment invokes a sense of sorrow over fighting to preserve the right to own people? Imagine a young black child seeing these statues for the first time, in their eyes these people and symbols are of "great" people and events because that's what most statues symbolize. Now you have to explain "oh no these were actually terrible people who owned your ancestors" sowhy glorify that?

This argument further loses merit when you realize that the history of that war has largely been rewritten to the point people will argue that slavery had absolutely nothing to do with the war despite the fact we have speeches, declarations of secession from every state literally saying this is a move to preserve slavery and lordship over a group of people.

This argument even further loses any merit when you realize these statues where erected 15+ years after the war BY the Confederates, who need I remind you seceded from the Union because they didn't want to be a part of it. So why honor them by allowing their statues to remain? Because they died fighting for what they believe? With that argument should we not erect statues of Japanese fighter pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor? After all they were fighting for what they believe no? Should Germany erect statues of Hitler and other Nazi soldiers? After all they too fought for what they believed in, should we not have statues of them posing as proud dignified men and women like Lee and Co throughout Germany to "remind" people of their horrors?

There is no way to create monuments that dignify and deify someone but it carry a message to "never forget" that they were against completely. You want to teach people the horrors of that time? You erect statues of men and women being treated as property, their kids taken from them, being burned, lashed, hunted, raped, lynched then you put words explaining the sheer disgust and inhumane treatment of these people. You show black slaves rebelling and killing their masters, you show black soldiers fighting for their freedom. You glorify the oppressed who rose above it not their oppressors who kept their foot on these people's necks.

This honestly isn't a "both sides" or "both views are of equal weight and measure".

I agree with all of your points. Thank you for taking the time to type that out.

Metal B said:
As somebody from Germany, we learned how to deal with our past in a good way, I can tell you, that we don't have statues of Hitler or other culprits around. We put the victims and the terrible actions in front, because they are the parts to not forget!

What things does Germany have? I've never been there.

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Mayor Mitch Landrieu's speech on removing four Confederate Momuments was amazing.

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