January 16, 2018 • 47 mins
Public monuments can be removed for a variety of reasons, from public sentiment changing, to governments being overthrown, to just being downright ugly. Learn all about this hot button topic today.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
So this is Stuff you Should Know Controversy Edition. Yeah. Sure,
(00:24):
there will be some of that in here, for sure.
But I also think it's important when we're talking about
removing public monuments that it's not all about Confederate monuments. No. Actually,
I'm glad you said that, because that actually brings up
a pretty good intro. There's some monuments in New York City,
(00:45):
New York City, New York City. Um. Yeah, that was
such a great commercial, wasn't it. And it's endured. Um.
There's four of them actually that are being targeted for
removal by UM activists. Baldy no all. The Columbus is
one of them. I believe that the Columbus statue in
(01:08):
Columbus Circle one of Teddy Roosevelt. I think it's at
the Museum of Natural History. Interesting, and um, I was like,
what's wrong with this one? It's from Teddy Roosevelt. And
then if you go and look at the statue in
this context, you're like, yeah, Okay, I can kind of
see that one. He's like valiantly astride this horse, and
this African tribesman and this Native American chief are down
(01:32):
on the ground on either side of him, like he's
just in charge of the show, right, So I can
kind of see that one. There's another one of a
guy named J. M. Sims I believe is his name.
He's known as the father of guy in ecology. He
I don't know why I laughed at that. I just
I guess I'll just go ahead. So his that's why
(01:56):
he had a statute. So it's just him, just him
with a giant volva right behind him. It's just him,
like you know, a normal statue honoring a man and um.
The problem is is that although he's the father of
gyne incology, he was also known in the first half
of the nineteenth century to carry out like um experimental
(02:19):
surgery on slave women with like zero anesthesia, obviously without consent,
and he's been compared to Joseph Mangel It basically it's
just this mad scientist with zero regard for human life.
And you might say, well, this is the first half
of the nineteenth century, but some people argue that even
at the time what he was doing would have been
(02:42):
considered by his contemporaries as as unethical. Well, and as
you will see as we go through this, uh so,
much of the conversation around this controversy is, Um, do
we look at it through the lens of when it
was put up, why it was put up, who it
was put up by? Or do we look at it
do lens of Hey, it's do we still need to
(03:05):
honor someone now who we know did monstrous things? Yeah,
those are all really great questions. Or should we leave
it up as a cautionary tale is another argument? And
we're gonna wait into all these waters. So the reason
that we're even talking about this and and the reason
why you can had you been around towns like Baltimore,
(03:27):
New Orleans, um, Helena, Montana in the summer of two
thousand seventeen, you would have seen Confederate statues being removed,
uh sometimes in the dead of night. Um. The whole
reason all of this started was actually back in two
thousand and fifteen when the the was it the Columbia.
(03:48):
It was Columbia, South Carolina. It wasn't Charleston, right, it
was Charleston. The church. Yeah, the church shooter, the Charleston
church massacre where nine people died by an a bowed
white suprema assist right, really started up this idea that
and I think it woke a lot of you know,
the establishment up to the idea that there's all this
(04:11):
iconography all around the country that a pretty large section
of people have a real issue with and that everybody
has just totally ignored their their problems with it for decades. Right.
That really kind of woke a lot of people up.
And it got a lot of city councils around the
country reevaluating why they had these things up still was
(04:32):
it worth just taking down? And a lot of them
did take some stuff down, right. And then in the
summer of two thousand seventeen, I think it was, was
it May or August? Um was it August, the Charlottesville
rally was held. I can't remember the month, but but
it was. It was two thousand seventeen. The hotter months
of two thousand seventeen, there was a there was a
(04:53):
white supremacist rally in favor of the Roberty Lee statue
that was marked to be It was it was controversial
the statue of Roberty Lee from Charlottesville UM and people
have been talking about taking it down. So white supremacists
met to support the statue. Counter protests UM were met
(05:14):
the white supremacists and violence broke out. One woman died
UM and it was just a bad scene that created
even more like a second wave of people looking at
these statues and said, Okay, not only are these possibly
like creating an unfriendly public environment for people like whole
(05:37):
swaths of people that are Americans here in the United States,
but they can also serve as flashpoints for violence, and
we should really rethink these. And by the time the
second wave happened, state legislatures around the country, especially in
the South, had intervened between the first wave and the
second wave and started passing UM legislation that said, you
(05:59):
can't move public monuments, especially ones that are dedicated to
UM war heroes, wars that have been around for like
forty years or more, basically putting an end to the
easy removal of Confederate monuments around the country. And so
all this is done is created this huge conflict. Well
(06:19):
it was already a conflict one way or the other,
but this the the the conflict is is now both
sides are just butting up against each other. And you know,
when you push two masses together, they tend to go upward.
And and that's basically what's happening right now. Lava is
going upward here in the United States as tensions are rising,
(06:40):
and it has never been more tense in my lifetime
and probably your lifetime as well, Chuck, which are virtually
the same thing. But that's where we stand right now
in January of two thousand and eighteen. Right, Uh, can
we cover some history here though? Yeah, let's all right,
So this is nothing new though, Um, as far as
just taking down public monuments, the world since the beginning
(07:02):
of time has erected monuments and then eventually had someone
that wants to take down that monument um right here
in America when we one of the first things we
did when the Revolutionary War kicked off was said, Hey,
let's go down to the King George the Third Statue
in Manhattan and let's pull that thing down. Uh. In
(07:23):
on July six we just heard the Declaration of Independence
for the first time and we got them. Yeah, and
let's take down that statue. And you know what, let's
not only do that, let's melt down that thing into
forty plus thousand bullets to fire upon them with. Yeah,
that's pretty sweet. It's pretty pretty ironic. You know. He said,
(07:46):
here's some King George for you red coat. I think
that's what they said. Uh. And this, this goes well
well beyond that. Of course, um Spanish raised Aztec and
other temples in the America's so Catholic cathedrals could be built.
Like basically someone would would take over, tear down those statues,
(08:09):
put up their own. Then someone else would come along
tear down those statues. And you know it wouldn't always
a lot of times it was a good thing, So
you would have like in in Hungary in ninety he
had the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets and they storm
Budapest and tore down a statue of Stalin. Stalin had
(08:30):
quite a few, and Lenin quite a few statues of
themselves the years. Yeah, wherever communism spread, if there was
like a communist backed regime or country, or even just
a non backed communist polarized country, you could probably find
a statue of at least Lenin, if not Stalin two
in this country, even like places like Ethiopia had them. Right,
(08:54):
And so when there's an invading army or a revolution
or a regime change. This is usually when you see
a statue torn down. It's a symbolic gesture, sure it
it is, and and it's almost like not it's but
it's also like a part of the healing process that
seems like too, or at least the transition process, let's
(09:14):
call it that. Right. Yeah, Then there's another there's another
type of situation where statues tend to get torn down,
and that's when there's like a cultural shift. And that's
kind of what we're seeing now in with this um
with the Confederate monument controversies, right, and what you've also
seen in the two thousands in Latin America where in
(09:36):
places like Venezuela, statues of Columbus started to come down
and replaced with things like uh indigenous chiefs who once
tried to fight off people like Columbus. Yeah, Gouai kai Porto, Yeah,
which is a that's a full shift from not only
are we gonna not walk by this Columbus statue every
(09:56):
day now that we know we know, but we're gonna
put up a statue of people that try to defend
against him, right, right, So It's almost like they are
hundreds of years later throwing off the uh, the shackles
of imperialism, I guess, the stank of imperialism. Right. Should
(10:17):
we take a break? I'm pretty worked up? Yeah, yeah,
I feel like we need to go rub each other's
shoulders for a minute. All right, prepare for it, Josh, Okay,
(10:56):
So the the place we find in ourselves right now? Well,
how about this, chuck? Why why are there any public
monuments anywhere anyway? Right? Look like, I think that's kind
of the core of this. We have to get to
what is really being talked about here, because it's if
it's just some statue or something like that, especially in
(11:18):
some places like far flung as Helena, Montana. Um. What
does the statue of the Confederacy have anything to do with?
What does any statue have anything to do with? Yeah? Well,
first of all, they're more than um according to Southern
Party Law Center, more than statues, flags, plaques, city names,
county names, street names, and holidays uh named and even
(11:41):
military bases named after Confederate generals or dedicated somehow to
the American Confederacy. UM. And that includes everything from like
like you said, street names and flags and all that.
There's like, there's seven hundred statues and monuments just on
public property UM in the so seven statues and monuments
(12:02):
and thirty two of those who have either been dedicated
or rededicated since two thousands, right, So what these these
range anywhere from uh Confederate Avenue over on the east
side of Atlanta, which is just a street name to um.
You drive through Atlanta and you see, if you pay attention,
you see Civil War battle plaques all over the place.
(12:27):
And these are I put these in a slightly different
category because they are literally just historical markers. Like they're
very neutral on this in this sonic parking lot, there
once was was a battle waged between this brigade and
this brigade on this date, and this is what happened here,
(12:49):
not even that. Sometimes it'll be like the the the
Confederate Army thought about making camp here but decided not to,
So they did a quarter mile east of this because
it's a little hilly, don't you think. Can you blame them? Yeah?
And those I put those in different category because those
are historical markers of where something happened. It's not saying
(13:13):
maybe some of them do, but it's not saying this
is where the proud sons of the eighteenth Brigade fought
off the evil Yanks in their bid to ensure slavery. Yeah,
that tends to be. You'll find those more unlike monuments
or statues, especially ones that were bankrolled by private individuals
(13:35):
or private groups who were just one and the same
with the people who were running that that little town
at the time. Yeah, I mean all right, So that's
that's sort of the crux for me with this whole
thing is when, where, when, and why were these things
erected to begin with, and by whom and in many
(13:58):
many cases, uh, some private rich person paid for this
thing to be put up as a definitive screw you
to what was going on in the country at the time.
And it's very rarely has it just been like, hey,
(14:18):
you know what, we should just put up a statue
because we think Robert Lee is a great general um.
Time and time again, you see stories, for instance, Charlottesville,
that statue of Robert E. Lee. It was commissioned and
paid for by a wealthy individual named Paul Goodlow McIntyre
in nineteen seventeen, when he also bought the surrounding park
(14:41):
and said this is for whites only, and let's put
a statue of general lee Like, the context of how
that happened is key to me, right, and actually, Chuck,
that still goes on today. A lot of the monuments
that are erected to the Confederacy are erected through private funding,
private land, which makes them wholly out of reach of
(15:04):
any debate over whether they should be removed or not.
Because that, uh, that is covered by two very important
American rights, which is the right to free speech whether
people like it or not, and private property rights. You
put those two things together, something is basically untouchable. Yeah,
(15:27):
and and listen, we say all of this, uh, like,
I'm not really weighing in. I think people probably know
I feel let's be honest, Um, I'm not weighing in
here one way or the other. But we say all
that just to say that just because there is a statue,
uh that looks great and it was really expensive, um
(15:47):
in a in a town square, it doesn't mean that
it represented ever maybe or certainly now the um wants
of the community at large. Sometimes it may have just
been a single individual that had enough sway and money
to say I'm at the statue. Yeah, you know what
(16:08):
I'm saying. So it's a very and I think who
wrote this was a Dave Ruce. He put it best.
He said, you know, what it represents is a very
narrow historical record. Right, especially at the time, it might
have really not represented a lot of people. It might
even in some cases it may more people may feel
(16:29):
represented by it now than they did at the time. Um. Apparently,
especially for some of these older ones, it was not
a normal thing to erect some sort of memorial to
the Confederacy immediately after the Civil War. Two for a
couple of reasons. One is that there are plenty of
Union veterans still around the country and they would not
(16:51):
have been very happy to have seen something like that.
And then secondly, the South was very, very poor for
decades after the war. Um it was. It was not
a wealthy place. There's not a lot of money running
around for towns to put together, um enough money to
erect a decent statue that would last for a hundred years. Um.
(17:14):
But like you said, though, by the time that they
did start to be erected, um there there there, it's
it coincided with some really important something very important, which
was the Jim Crow era. Yeah, either Jim Crow a
lot of them or the civil rights movement. Yeah, so
(17:34):
this it's not an accident. Now, the Southern Poverty Law
Center UM is a it's an organization that tracks hate groups.
And if you're a hate group, you probably don't put
much stock into studies created by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But um, the the SPLC did a study of Confederate markers,
(17:56):
monument statues, street names, all that stuff around the country
tree and they found that the vast majority of these
things were erected in like the Jim Crow era at
the from like say eight ninety till just after the
First World War. That that's when most of the statues
to the Confederacy and monuments were erected. And this is
(18:19):
a time when the South had gone through reconstruction, the
North had abandoned the reconstruction project. From what I understand,
I didn't realize this before, but basically there was this
period what was called a period of healing between the
(18:40):
North and the South, that the divisiveness between the two
areas grew so so deep that war broke out, and
then afterwards the hurt feelings started to subside enough that
there was this desire to to come back together to heal,
and the North and the South decided that they would
heal at the expense of the African Americans and they
(19:02):
would find common ground by saying, yeah, I think we
can find we can all agree that that whites are
the supreme race. And the African Americans, who had just
recently been freed in the South and we're carrying out reconstruction,
said wait what and um, this is the Jim Crow
era that kicked off the Jim Crow era, and this
was the time when these monuments started to be erected.
(19:24):
Like you said, it doesn't seem to have been much
of an accident the timing. And if you talk to
some historians, they say, Nos, no accident whatsoever. This was
white saying you might not be under by law under
white control any longer. But it's pretty plain and simple.
We've just directed a monument to remind you that about
(19:45):
white supremacy and that that's the law of the land.
Where's your statue and your monument. I don't see it anywhere,
So I guess we win. Yeah. I mean the Georgia
State flag controversy is the prime example I remember when
that was happening on the early two thousand's. For those
of you don't know, the Georgia state flag, uh, from
nineteen fifty six to two thousand one, um was was
(20:08):
changed and had the the good old Confederate stars and
bars on the right hand right half of it. And
I remember at the time a lot of people saying,
you know, this is our history, this is uh, you
can't change our flag. You can't change our flag racing history.
And I think many of them may not even have
(20:29):
realized that that was not the original flag. They went
back to the original flag after two thousand one, but
they they threw those stars and bars on there in
nineteen fifty six. And what what was going on in
Atlanta in nineteen fifty six, you know, right the civil
rights Sarah de segregation or desegregation, I should say, yeah,
(20:50):
And it was just very plainly a middle finger to
desegregation and once again a reminder, we're gonna fly this
flag now that has the Confederate battle flag on it.
And in you know, fifty something years later in the
two thousand's, maybe a lot of people will forget that
(21:10):
this was not the original flag. And that's exactly what happened. Man,
it happened in aces too, So the that so the
SPLC study found the same found what you were saying
that there are basically two big and and there are
always Confederate monuments and statues being erected or streets being
named that, or flags going up. But there were two periods,
(21:32):
the Jim Crow era in the Civil Rights era where
they really increased. And the fact that those those statues
and monuments really increased and coincided with these these times
of struggle for white supremacy um really provides a pretty
compelling case that those Confederate monuments and those rebel flags
(21:54):
on those state houses are meant to express white supremacy. Yeah,
it's tough to it's tough to look at it any
other way when you when you look at this timeline
like that, And that's what's that issue. You know, what
what is the meaning of the Confederate flag on a
(22:15):
state house, What is the meaning of a Confederate monument
or statue in a town square? What is it ultimately
trying to say? And that's that's really at the heart
of this controversy, is what are you trying to say
with that thing? What are we now, as the society
in the small little town in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana wherever,
(22:36):
What are we saying by fighting over keeping this statue
or this flag flying? What's what's what's the argument here? Well, yeah,
people in favor of keeping them will say that it's uh,
you know, it's dangerous to a race history. You're we
can learn from these things. They can serve as reminders
(22:57):
of how not to be maybe, Um. But at the
very least, you can't erase history. So don't even try
to erase history. Um. So that's basically the one of
the main arguments against taking these down, right, Just you
can't whitewash history. You can erase history, right. So that's one.
(23:18):
Another one is um and this is a big one.
That's that's really kind of kept a lot of these
things up so far, is that, Um, the Confederate monuments,
the Confederate statutes, the Confederate flags are not meant as
symbols of hatred or slavery or oppression. They are Um.
(23:39):
You'll see people say that it's heritage, not hate, right,
And what they mean with that is this thing called
the lost Cause narrative. Right. So the Lost Cause narrative
is this idea that um, well, actually I found that
there's like six parts to it. All right, are you
ready for these, because I'm gonna lay them out. So
(24:00):
the Lost Causes basically this narrative that says that the
the South, the Confederacy, the Civil War, none of it
had to do with slavery, or if it did, it
had very very little to do with slavery. That really
the Civil War was the War of Northern aggression. There
was the North that started it. The South just wanted
to seceed from the North, just wanted to get away
(24:22):
from this federal government that cared not about states rights,
that cared not about the South and it's its economy
or it's anabellum mansions or anything like that. That really
was the War of Northern aggression, and that the Confederacy
was just protecting their homeland, protecting their way of life,
and that it was secession not slavery that was um
(24:42):
at issue here. And a lot of people say, well,
what was the South seceding from if not the the
the right exactly right. There's some other tenants to it too.
There's this is very important. This is an important part
of the Lost Cause narrative is that actually e slaves
were happy to be enslaved. They were happy with their servitude.
(25:05):
They didn't have to think about what to do with life,
they didn't have to worry about wondering what they were
gonna do, and they were maybe too shiftless to really
be responsible to manage their own life anyway. So they
were actually happier under the Anabellum plantation system of slavery
than they were free. That's a huge tenant of the
Lost Cause UM. And then the other part of it,
(25:27):
and the whole reason that it has the name the
Lost Cause, is that the only reason, the only reason
that the Confederacy lost the Civil War was because the
UM the North was just so so vastly richer with resources, manpower,
UM industry, that the South from the beginning UM was
(25:50):
destined to lose the war. It just couldn't couldn't compete
in that respect. Hence the name lost cause. The South's
cause was lost from the outset. So if you were
a defender of Confederate at monuments, this is probably the
reason you're giving for defending them, that these are these
things are not up to intimidate anybody that the people
who are intimidated by them, the people who are taking
(26:11):
them as white supremacy are simply taking them the wrong way.
And then Chuck, there's one other thing that, like is
a question that has to be answered around this whole thing,
and that is that, like, if if it's true that
like the original Confederate monuments that were put up around
like say the eighteen nineties or up to the nineteen
twenties or something, right, if those things like actually were
(26:32):
put up out of like respect for the people who
fought for their homeland, um, and for family members who
have just recently died, and was actually out of like
this respect for heritage, rather than as a symbol of
hate and oppression. Isn't it possible though that those still
those same monuments could develop racist symbolism over time for
(26:56):
some people. And if that's the case, then you know,
if you are somebody who believes in them as a
point of heritage and pride, how do you reconcile that
that for other people there there? Um they're saying, hey, yeah,
white supremacy, buddy, I'm with you on that. How do
you how do you separate those two? And if that
is the case, if you do agree that there are
people out there who you have nothing to do with
(27:18):
who view these things as a as a symbol of
white supremacy. Then isn't your beef with them rather than
the people who are offended by that and want to
take those things down. That's a good point. I don't
have the answers, of course. Well no, I don't either,
But I mean, just the this is just such a
hornet's nous. It's just a ball of worms writhing around. Yeah,
(27:41):
it's complicated with with you know, seven hundred plus like
literal statues, each with their own backstory. It's kind of
hard to make some huge generalization probably for sure, for
sure it's true. All right, we let's take another break.
Let's take our final break, and what's talk a little
bit about just the ins and outs, like the sort
(28:04):
of the mechanics of really removing these and how that works.
Uh and uh the counter argument to lost cause legally,
which would hinge on the equal protection argument right after this. Alright, so, um,
(28:48):
here's how these things are generally, um, not only taken down,
but how they're how they're put up. To begin with,
we already mentioned the private, wealthy citizen who UM, just
want to do something like this. It's obviously one way
you can go down. Uh. The other way is as
a lot of cities now UM, starting in the nineteen nineties,
have commissions for approving these monuments. UM. The US Savannah, Georgia,
(29:12):
very historic city in our own state as an example,
they have a Historic Site and Monument Commission. They meet
every month. They look at applications. Most cities will have
an application process that you fill out that has to
prove certain criteria to us if you want a public monument. UM.
And they look over these all over the country all
the time and either approved them or not. UM. I
(29:34):
always thought it was funny that one of the big
parts is usually like what's this gonna cost us? Right exactly?
You know, like upkeep like what are we looking at here? Um?
And like I said, these are pretty new, starting mostly
in the nineteen nineties and later. UM. But it's generally
to ensure that newer monuments has public support, whereas many
(29:57):
of these older monuments did may not have had wide
public support, but it was influential, wealthy few that decided
what went up, right, right, Yeah, So like what like
we said, the the the massacre at the church in
Charleston really set off the first wave, and then the
(30:20):
um Charlottesville protests set off the second wave of statue removal.
But in between, a lot of state legislatures intervened and
said no, because you towns and cities, you're in our
state and where the law of the land. So we're
saying you can't remove these monuments without our approval, and
we're not going to give our approval to these things. Right.
(30:41):
But previous to that, when the states previously them reacting
to that and making these laws, it could be the
city that decided or the county or whatever the local
government was, or if it's on state owned land, obviously
it would be the state legislature. Yeah. So I mean
there's a lot of ways that, Like if the state
hasn't intervened and created a state law that says you
(31:04):
can't remove that, Yeah, if you're a city council or
a board of commissioners in a county or something like that,
you have full authority to remove these things. Um, and
you can remove them for all sorts of different reasons. Um.
There's this the article sites the statue in New York,
the scary lucile ball statue. Remember that, man, I went
(31:26):
back and looked, and oh, I feel so bad for
that sculptor. The fish guy. The second lady nailed it.
I mean she did such a good job. I didn't
see the second one, man, the first Oh yeah, I
did see the second one. It's just when you see
him side by side, you just one looks like Lucio
Ball and one looks like Lucio Ball. Got um zombie
(31:47):
Lucio Ball. Yeah, you're drawn by Ralph Steadman or something
weird like that, you know, so um her, No, it
really doesn't. So the city council of Sellern, New York,
Lucio Ball's hometown, said, uh, we're we don't like the statue.
It's terrible. We're gonna take it down, scaring the kids.
So they took it down because it was an ugly statue.
(32:08):
But a city council could say we're gonna take it
down because we've heard from enough of our citizens that
they're intimidated by it, or they think that this is
um uh, they it's it's it's creating an unsafe place,
like it could be a flashpoint for violence, or it
could it's in the way of the new whole foods
(32:29):
that our town's getting. So let's get rid of this monument.
So they can do this stuff unless the state has said,
you guys can't move those things. This is where the
state and you guys can't move these monuments, even on
city land right right. So there's there's been I think
in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, UM at the very least, and
(32:53):
I think several other states UM they've have have passed
these laws that say you can't, you can't remove these things.
So some states have had or some cities have had
to get creative where their will has continued. Their desire
to take these statues down has continued even after the
states that they can't. So the city of Memphis, which
(33:14):
had a couple of statues that wanted to take down,
one of Robert E. Lee and one of one of
Nathan No, they're not touching that one of Nathan Bedford Forest,
who was one of the early leaders of the clan Um.
They wanted these these statues taken down, but they couldn't
take them down because they resolved to take them down
after Tennessee passed its protection law. Well, the city of
(33:37):
Memphis sold the land that those two statues were onto
a nonprofit, and the nonprofit just immediately took them down
to work around. So, as I mentioned before the break,
we talked about the the lost cause narrative, and the
flip side of that legally is the equal protection argument.
(33:58):
So we're talking about the fourteenth Amendment, ratified in eighteen
sixty eight to grant citizenship and equal rights two former slaves. UH.
And this, to be clear, has not been used successfully
yet in court as an argument to have a statue removed,
but it is what groups like the a c l
U or UH does, the Southern Poverty Law Center, they
(34:21):
actually argue cases like this probably, I'm sure this is
what they would try to use, most likely as a
legal argument or a tactic at least to say that
this isn't right, because basically what it means is what
you were saying earlier, is it would be it would
be under the guys that this was erected as an
expression of white supremacy, and that's why it was erected,
(34:43):
That's why it's there. States supported racism that's still there
to make people feel unequal in the fourteenth Amendment says
we can't do that. Yeah, that's the that's the approach
that there will be some test case at some point
in the next year two that will make it to
the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court will probably rule
on that, and then that will either open the floodgates
(35:06):
or shut down that legal argument one way or another.
What's interesting to me, though, is that historians are probably
going to come into these lawsuits. Right Like, if you
ask just about any professional historian what started the Civil War,
the consensus is and has been for a long time
that it was slavery. That all the other stuff, the
(35:29):
ability to succeed, states rights, um, hatred of Lincoln, all
of these other things are are follow slavery, the the
South's um desire to continue aus as slave based economy. Right. Um,
If you ask the general public what caused the Civil War,
(35:52):
apparently something like forty percent will tell you that it
was secession, and only like will say slavery. So here's
here's the problem with that. This is part of a
kind of a larger trend that we've been seeing the
last like five years or so maybe less, where there's
just been a loss of faith in expertise, right where
(36:16):
like the people who we used to turn to for answers,
we we have just kind of tossed to the wayside,
and so just shut up. We don't want to hear
what you have to say any longer. We'll will decide
what's true on our own, and when that happens with
enough people, then history has a chance of being rewritten
just by just by sentiment. Hey can I have nothing
(36:38):
to do with reality, But everybody can decide that they're
going to collectively remember things a certain way, and brother,
that's history. That becomes history, whether it's fact based history
or revisionist history or not. And that's a that's a problem.
Like we have to remember history, whether it is enjoyable,
(36:58):
whether it's um something that it stands as a cautionary tale,
whether it's something that is painful, whether it's something that's inspiring.
We have to remember our history. We just have to,
or else we're gonna lose a lot of valuable lessons.
The question that still remains is whether we have to
remember that history in through monuments and statues or if
(37:22):
we can in other ways. So it's weird. There's a
defensive history, but there's also a loss of faith in
historians and and their reading of history. It's pretty interesting.
It's a bizarre and it's a weird place to be
right now here in the States. It is. And that's
why I'd never buy the you're a racing history argument
(37:44):
because it's not like these are. It's not like the
Civil War placke that just says this thing happened here.
Like to me, that is a historical marker, that just
says this, this action took place. It's not a monument
glorifying the thing. Yeah, there's just this. There's a monument
(38:05):
in Rossville, Georgia, which is close to Andersonville, South Carolina,
and it's a it's a monument to a guy named
Henry Wors who was one of the few executed war
criminals from the Confederacy. He ran Andersonville Prison and um
basically ran like a concentration camp, and he was executed
(38:26):
by the North. Publicly, he was he was hanged, and
very quickly, within a couple of decades UM, I think
the Daughters of the Confederacy UH erected this monument to
him and basically explained that he had been unfairly tried,
that evidence against him had been faked, and that he
was actually a war hero, not a war criminal. Yeah,
(38:50):
so that's kind of like not the neutral plaque that
you're talking about. It's the the antithesis of that. Well,
I certainly don't have the answers. It's a complicated thing.
But and there's so many of these and things, and
you know that there's the whole can of worms argument
that like do we then where where does it stop?
Do we blast off the face of Stone Mountain or
(39:15):
or Mountain rot more people think we should? Yeah, so
stone Mountain one for sure, Yeah, yeah, Or where does
it stop with the founding fathers because at the time
some of them on slaves and this and that. Um,
I don't purport to have the answers. I just my
my advice would be to encourage people to just for
a moment, to think about to walk in someone else's
(39:36):
shoes and think about what how some of these monuments
might make you feel. In twenty thousand eighteen, that's the
way in the future in two thousand eighteen, just maybe
step outside yourself for a minute and walk in someone
else's shoes. That's just Uncle Chuck's advice. I think it's
good advice no matter what. And I think what this
(39:57):
is is a symptom of the need to a society
that needs to heal and is not healing in productive
ways right now? Ye what I think? Well, I don't
have the answers either, though I certainly don't purport to.
So I agree with you on that. I look forward
to hearing all sides and email. Yeah, no death threats, please,
(40:19):
no death threats. Oh quickly. We should talk about very
famously in the Iraq War, when Saddam Hussein's statue was
toppled on television, uh, And there was always a lot
of speculation like this really reeks of something America cooked
up as a bit of a rara thing um, and
(40:41):
apparently Pro Publica looked into it along with the in
the New Yorker magazine was where the piece was said.
It was a crowd of Iraqis and it was it
happened to be a statue in front of the Palestine
Palestine Hotel, which is where a lot of the journalists were,
so that's why it got the coverage. And they there
were Americains and they were saying, hey, can we have
(41:01):
that sledgehammer? Can we have a little help? Can we
use that crane on that humby Now that we think
about what you guys, just go ahead and do it
for it. Well, apparently there was an official request submitted
by the army sergeant saying, hey, they want to use
our crane. Can we do this? And they got to
go ahead to do it. So that is the party
(41:24):
line story at least. Yeah, take it or leave it. Yeah,
but very indelible image. You know when that statue was
taken down, Oh yeah, it definitely was, like it felt
pretty hard. And Saddam was still alive at the time too,
which made it even more shocking. He's hiding in a hole.
Kind of an interesting time, like I said, to be
in America, weird, weird time. Well, I've seen other people
(41:45):
call for saying like maybe don't take it down, Maybe
erect another statue next to Roberty Lee of Rosa Parks
or something, and maybe add to the stone Mountain my
hum it and make it a history of it of Atlanta,
and add Martin Luther King to it and make it
(42:07):
more of a diorama and more inclusive. So it's I've
seen arguments all over the place with all kinds of suggestions,
because with fifteen hundred Confederate markers of some kind, I
mean that's a lot of it's a lot of stuff,
a lot of statues to balance things out that we'd
have to erect that kind of thing well, or a
(42:28):
lot of statues to tear down. Um. I mean, obviously
it's going to come down to and should come down to,
whatever they want to do locally. But we have one
right here indicator Georgia still you know which one. I
can't remember the name of it, but it's right there
in the town square. And there there's been a lot
of talk in the obviously the last couple of years
(42:48):
about getting rid of that. So yeah, and then also
like some people dig in so much to leave that
statue there, they take it down and then a week later, like,
is your life really changed materially? Is it that big
of a deal that that's not there anymore? I don't know.
I don't know. I think this whole I think this
(43:09):
is all just innuendo, nuance, um and illusion and allegory
and nobody's really talking about where most people aren't talking
about what's really being discussed here. It's it's weird, weird time, man,
such a strange time. It's a sad time for America,
but it's also a very hopeful time too, if you
(43:29):
really think about it in the right way, it is
and you know what this uh, I know this is
gonna be a lightning round in some ways, but I
am happy we're a part of this conversation in some way.
Nice again, No death threats, please everyone, No one likes
to get those. Put yourself in our shoes. You wouldn't
like getting them. If you want to know more about
(43:52):
Confederate monuments, monuments in general, and possibly removing them, go
type those words into the search bar how stuff works.
That common will bring up the article. And since I
said that it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna
call this, um, well, this one's pretty current, so I'm
gonna call this current clearing up of accordion definition. Oh boy,
(44:16):
that's good choice, Chuck. Okay, so this is a day
or too late, guys, But I just had a chance
to listen to the Great Mary Celeste episode, and I
figured i'd be remis if I didn't heed the call
of the alluring weird Al Yankovic shout out, because everyone
loves weird Oult. So it now comes apart where I
say that I don't actually know anything about accordions, but
I think Josh pretty much nailed it the second time through.
(44:37):
According to my sources, in general, melodeon is an accordion
with buttons, and an accordion technically known as a piano
accordion is an accordion with piano keys, not unlike the
style played by both Alfred and Frankie Yankovic. No relation,
believe it or not, No way, Uh yeah. Basically all
(44:59):
melodions are accordions, but not all accordions or melodians, So that,
in a nutshell, is how melodians work. Not to be
confused with the concertina pictured here. And that is the
literal handheld thing that you like, I might think of
an old Italian man playing in the eighteen hundreds that
you just there are no there may be, but it's
(45:21):
it's a squeeze box, like the who talked about mom
has got a squeeze box. Yeah, and that is from anonymous?
Is it really? You're not gonna say who is from?
Wow that anonymous? Have no idea who it's from. It's
just some some weird, weird al fan. That's funny. No.
My My exclamation of surprise was that Alfred and Frankie
(45:45):
Yankovic have no relation to weird Al Yankovic. That's beyond bizarre. Yeah,
I not don't even know who Alfred and Frankie Ankovi
car I don't either, but surely every Yankovics related to
weird Al Yankovic. Right, Yeah, but I also have a
feeling that like they're eight percent of Yankovic's play the accordion.
All right, well, weird Al, please please, as is custom,
(46:07):
we end every episode like this, please get in touch
with us and let us know how you're doing. Okay,
if you're weird Al Yankovic and you want to get
in touch with us, you can tweet to us. I'm
at josh um Clark and you can also hit up
the official s Y s K podcast one. You can
join Chuck on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck
(46:29):
Bryant or slash stuff you Should Know either one. You
can also send us an email and Jerry too to
Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and weird
Al join us as always at our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff Works
(46:50):
dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
So this is Stuff you Should Know Controversy Edition. Yeah. Sure,
(00:24):
there will be some of that in here, for sure.
But I also think it's important when we're talking about
removing public monuments that it's not all about Confederate monuments. No. Actually,
I'm glad you said that, because that actually brings up
a pretty good intro. There's some monuments in New York City,
(00:45):
New York City, New York City. Um. Yeah, that was
such a great commercial, wasn't it. And it's endured. Um.
There's four of them actually that are being targeted for
removal by UM activists. Baldy no all. The Columbus is
one of them. I believe that the Columbus statue in
(01:08):
Columbus Circle one of Teddy Roosevelt. I think it's at
the Museum of Natural History. Interesting, and um, I was like,
what's wrong with this one? It's from Teddy Roosevelt. And
then if you go and look at the statue in
this context, you're like, yeah, Okay, I can kind of
see that one. He's like valiantly astride this horse, and
this African tribesman and this Native American chief are down
(01:32):
on the ground on either side of him, like he's
just in charge of the show, right, So I can
kind of see that one. There's another one of a
guy named J. M. Sims I believe is his name.
He's known as the father of guy in ecology. He
I don't know why I laughed at that. I just
I guess I'll just go ahead. So his that's why
(01:56):
he had a statute. So it's just him, just him
with a giant volva right behind him. It's just him,
like you know, a normal statue honoring a man and um.
The problem is is that although he's the father of
gyne incology, he was also known in the first half
of the nineteenth century to carry out like um experimental
(02:19):
surgery on slave women with like zero anesthesia, obviously without consent,
and he's been compared to Joseph Mangel It basically it's
just this mad scientist with zero regard for human life.
And you might say, well, this is the first half
of the nineteenth century, but some people argue that even
at the time what he was doing would have been
(02:42):
considered by his contemporaries as as unethical. Well, and as
you will see as we go through this, uh so,
much of the conversation around this controversy is, Um, do
we look at it through the lens of when it
was put up, why it was put up, who it
was put up by? Or do we look at it
do lens of Hey, it's do we still need to
(03:05):
honor someone now who we know did monstrous things? Yeah,
those are all really great questions. Or should we leave
it up as a cautionary tale is another argument? And
we're gonna wait into all these waters. So the reason
that we're even talking about this and and the reason
why you can had you been around towns like Baltimore,
(03:27):
New Orleans, um, Helena, Montana in the summer of two
thousand seventeen, you would have seen Confederate statues being removed,
uh sometimes in the dead of night. Um. The whole
reason all of this started was actually back in two
thousand and fifteen when the the was it the Columbia.
(03:48):
It was Columbia, South Carolina. It wasn't Charleston, right, it
was Charleston. The church. Yeah, the church shooter, the Charleston
church massacre where nine people died by an a bowed
white suprema assist right, really started up this idea that
and I think it woke a lot of you know,
the establishment up to the idea that there's all this
(04:11):
iconography all around the country that a pretty large section
of people have a real issue with and that everybody
has just totally ignored their their problems with it for decades. Right.
That really kind of woke a lot of people up.
And it got a lot of city councils around the
country reevaluating why they had these things up still was
(04:32):
it worth just taking down? And a lot of them
did take some stuff down, right. And then in the
summer of two thousand seventeen, I think it was, was
it May or August? Um was it August, the Charlottesville
rally was held. I can't remember the month, but but
it was. It was two thousand seventeen. The hotter months
of two thousand seventeen, there was a there was a
(04:53):
white supremacist rally in favor of the Roberty Lee statue
that was marked to be It was it was controversial
the statue of Roberty Lee from Charlottesville UM and people
have been talking about taking it down. So white supremacists
met to support the statue. Counter protests UM were met
(05:14):
the white supremacists and violence broke out. One woman died
UM and it was just a bad scene that created
even more like a second wave of people looking at
these statues and said, Okay, not only are these possibly
like creating an unfriendly public environment for people like whole
(05:37):
swaths of people that are Americans here in the United States,
but they can also serve as flashpoints for violence, and
we should really rethink these. And by the time the
second wave happened, state legislatures around the country, especially in
the South, had intervened between the first wave and the
second wave and started passing UM legislation that said, you
(05:59):
can't move public monuments, especially ones that are dedicated to
UM war heroes, wars that have been around for like
forty years or more, basically putting an end to the
easy removal of Confederate monuments around the country. And so
all this is done is created this huge conflict. Well
(06:19):
it was already a conflict one way or the other,
but this the the the conflict is is now both
sides are just butting up against each other. And you know,
when you push two masses together, they tend to go upward.
And and that's basically what's happening right now. Lava is
going upward here in the United States as tensions are rising,
(06:40):
and it has never been more tense in my lifetime
and probably your lifetime as well, Chuck, which are virtually
the same thing. But that's where we stand right now
in January of two thousand and eighteen. Right, Uh, can
we cover some history here though? Yeah, let's all right,
So this is nothing new though, Um, as far as
just taking down public monuments, the world since the beginning
(07:02):
of time has erected monuments and then eventually had someone
that wants to take down that monument um right here
in America when we one of the first things we
did when the Revolutionary War kicked off was said, Hey,
let's go down to the King George the Third Statue
in Manhattan and let's pull that thing down. Uh. In
(07:23):
on July six we just heard the Declaration of Independence
for the first time and we got them. Yeah, and
let's take down that statue. And you know what, let's
not only do that, let's melt down that thing into
forty plus thousand bullets to fire upon them with. Yeah,
that's pretty sweet. It's pretty pretty ironic. You know. He said,
(07:46):
here's some King George for you red coat. I think
that's what they said. Uh. And this, this goes well
well beyond that. Of course, um Spanish raised Aztec and
other temples in the America's so Catholic cathedrals could be built.
Like basically someone would would take over, tear down those statues,
(08:09):
put up their own. Then someone else would come along
tear down those statues. And you know it wouldn't always
a lot of times it was a good thing, So
you would have like in in Hungary in ninety he
had the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets and they storm
Budapest and tore down a statue of Stalin. Stalin had
(08:30):
quite a few, and Lenin quite a few statues of
themselves the years. Yeah, wherever communism spread, if there was
like a communist backed regime or country, or even just
a non backed communist polarized country, you could probably find
a statue of at least Lenin, if not Stalin two
in this country, even like places like Ethiopia had them. Right,
(08:54):
And so when there's an invading army or a revolution
or a regime change. This is usually when you see
a statue torn down. It's a symbolic gesture, sure it
it is, and and it's almost like not it's but
it's also like a part of the healing process that
seems like too, or at least the transition process, let's
(09:14):
call it that. Right. Yeah, Then there's another there's another
type of situation where statues tend to get torn down,
and that's when there's like a cultural shift. And that's
kind of what we're seeing now in with this um
with the Confederate monument controversies, right, and what you've also
seen in the two thousands in Latin America where in
(09:36):
places like Venezuela, statues of Columbus started to come down
and replaced with things like uh indigenous chiefs who once
tried to fight off people like Columbus. Yeah, Gouai kai Porto, Yeah,
which is a that's a full shift from not only
are we gonna not walk by this Columbus statue every
(09:56):
day now that we know we know, but we're gonna
put up a statue of people that try to defend
against him, right, right, So It's almost like they are
hundreds of years later throwing off the uh, the shackles
of imperialism, I guess, the stank of imperialism. Right. Should
(10:17):
we take a break? I'm pretty worked up? Yeah, yeah,
I feel like we need to go rub each other's
shoulders for a minute. All right, prepare for it, Josh, Okay,
(10:56):
So the the place we find in ourselves right now? Well,
how about this, chuck? Why why are there any public
monuments anywhere anyway? Right? Look like, I think that's kind
of the core of this. We have to get to
what is really being talked about here, because it's if
it's just some statue or something like that, especially in
(11:18):
some places like far flung as Helena, Montana. Um. What
does the statue of the Confederacy have anything to do with?
What does any statue have anything to do with? Yeah? Well,
first of all, they're more than um according to Southern
Party Law Center, more than statues, flags, plaques, city names,
county names, street names, and holidays uh named and even
(11:41):
military bases named after Confederate generals or dedicated somehow to
the American Confederacy. UM. And that includes everything from like
like you said, street names and flags and all that.
There's like, there's seven hundred statues and monuments just on
public property UM in the so seven statues and monuments
(12:02):
and thirty two of those who have either been dedicated
or rededicated since two thousands, right, So what these these
range anywhere from uh Confederate Avenue over on the east
side of Atlanta, which is just a street name to um.
You drive through Atlanta and you see, if you pay attention,
you see Civil War battle plaques all over the place.
(12:27):
And these are I put these in a slightly different
category because they are literally just historical markers. Like they're
very neutral on this in this sonic parking lot, there
once was was a battle waged between this brigade and
this brigade on this date, and this is what happened here,
(12:49):
not even that. Sometimes it'll be like the the the
Confederate Army thought about making camp here but decided not to,
So they did a quarter mile east of this because
it's a little hilly, don't you think. Can you blame them? Yeah?
And those I put those in different category because those
are historical markers of where something happened. It's not saying
(13:13):
maybe some of them do, but it's not saying this
is where the proud sons of the eighteenth Brigade fought
off the evil Yanks in their bid to ensure slavery. Yeah,
that tends to be. You'll find those more unlike monuments
or statues, especially ones that were bankrolled by private individuals
(13:35):
or private groups who were just one and the same
with the people who were running that that little town
at the time. Yeah, I mean all right, So that's
that's sort of the crux for me with this whole
thing is when, where, when, and why were these things
erected to begin with, and by whom and in many
(13:58):
many cases, uh, some private rich person paid for this
thing to be put up as a definitive screw you
to what was going on in the country at the time.
And it's very rarely has it just been like, hey,
(14:18):
you know what, we should just put up a statue
because we think Robert Lee is a great general um.
Time and time again, you see stories, for instance, Charlottesville,
that statue of Robert E. Lee. It was commissioned and
paid for by a wealthy individual named Paul Goodlow McIntyre
in nineteen seventeen, when he also bought the surrounding park
(14:41):
and said this is for whites only, and let's put
a statue of general lee Like, the context of how
that happened is key to me, right, and actually, Chuck,
that still goes on today. A lot of the monuments
that are erected to the Confederacy are erected through private funding,
private land, which makes them wholly out of reach of
(15:04):
any debate over whether they should be removed or not.
Because that, uh, that is covered by two very important
American rights, which is the right to free speech whether
people like it or not, and private property rights. You
put those two things together, something is basically untouchable. Yeah,
(15:27):
and and listen, we say all of this, uh, like,
I'm not really weighing in. I think people probably know
I feel let's be honest, Um, I'm not weighing in
here one way or the other. But we say all
that just to say that just because there is a statue,
uh that looks great and it was really expensive, um
(15:47):
in a in a town square, it doesn't mean that
it represented ever maybe or certainly now the um wants
of the community at large. Sometimes it may have just
been a single individual that had enough sway and money
to say I'm at the statue. Yeah, you know what
(16:08):
I'm saying. So it's a very and I think who
wrote this was a Dave Ruce. He put it best.
He said, you know, what it represents is a very
narrow historical record. Right, especially at the time, it might
have really not represented a lot of people. It might
even in some cases it may more people may feel
(16:29):
represented by it now than they did at the time. Um. Apparently,
especially for some of these older ones, it was not
a normal thing to erect some sort of memorial to
the Confederacy immediately after the Civil War. Two for a
couple of reasons. One is that there are plenty of
Union veterans still around the country and they would not
(16:51):
have been very happy to have seen something like that.
And then secondly, the South was very, very poor for
decades after the war. Um it was. It was not
a wealthy place. There's not a lot of money running
around for towns to put together, um enough money to
erect a decent statue that would last for a hundred years. Um.
(17:14):
But like you said, though, by the time that they
did start to be erected, um there there there, it's
it coincided with some really important something very important, which
was the Jim Crow era. Yeah, either Jim Crow a
lot of them or the civil rights movement. Yeah, so
(17:34):
this it's not an accident. Now, the Southern Poverty Law
Center UM is a it's an organization that tracks hate groups.
And if you're a hate group, you probably don't put
much stock into studies created by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But um, the the SPLC did a study of Confederate markers,
(17:56):
monument statues, street names, all that stuff around the country
tree and they found that the vast majority of these
things were erected in like the Jim Crow era at
the from like say eight ninety till just after the
First World War. That that's when most of the statues
to the Confederacy and monuments were erected. And this is
(18:19):
a time when the South had gone through reconstruction, the
North had abandoned the reconstruction project. From what I understand,
I didn't realize this before, but basically there was this
period what was called a period of healing between the
(18:40):
North and the South, that the divisiveness between the two
areas grew so so deep that war broke out, and
then afterwards the hurt feelings started to subside enough that
there was this desire to to come back together to heal,
and the North and the South decided that they would
heal at the expense of the African Americans and they
(19:02):
would find common ground by saying, yeah, I think we
can find we can all agree that that whites are
the supreme race. And the African Americans, who had just
recently been freed in the South and we're carrying out reconstruction,
said wait what and um, this is the Jim Crow
era that kicked off the Jim Crow era, and this
was the time when these monuments started to be erected.
(19:24):
Like you said, it doesn't seem to have been much
of an accident the timing. And if you talk to
some historians, they say, Nos, no accident whatsoever. This was
white saying you might not be under by law under
white control any longer. But it's pretty plain and simple.
We've just directed a monument to remind you that about
(19:45):
white supremacy and that that's the law of the land.
Where's your statue and your monument. I don't see it anywhere,
So I guess we win. Yeah. I mean the Georgia
State flag controversy is the prime example I remember when
that was happening on the early two thousand's. For those
of you don't know, the Georgia state flag, uh, from
nineteen fifty six to two thousand one, um was was
(20:08):
changed and had the the good old Confederate stars and
bars on the right hand right half of it. And
I remember at the time a lot of people saying,
you know, this is our history, this is uh, you
can't change our flag. You can't change our flag racing history.
And I think many of them may not even have
(20:29):
realized that that was not the original flag. They went
back to the original flag after two thousand one, but
they they threw those stars and bars on there in
nineteen fifty six. And what what was going on in
Atlanta in nineteen fifty six, you know, right the civil
rights Sarah de segregation or desegregation, I should say, yeah,
(20:50):
And it was just very plainly a middle finger to
desegregation and once again a reminder, we're gonna fly this
flag now that has the Confederate battle flag on it.
And in you know, fifty something years later in the
two thousand's, maybe a lot of people will forget that
(21:10):
this was not the original flag. And that's exactly what happened. Man,
it happened in aces too, So the that so the
SPLC study found the same found what you were saying
that there are basically two big and and there are
always Confederate monuments and statues being erected or streets being
named that, or flags going up. But there were two periods,
(21:32):
the Jim Crow era in the Civil Rights era where
they really increased. And the fact that those those statues
and monuments really increased and coincided with these these times
of struggle for white supremacy um really provides a pretty
compelling case that those Confederate monuments and those rebel flags
(21:54):
on those state houses are meant to express white supremacy. Yeah,
it's tough to it's tough to look at it any
other way when you when you look at this timeline
like that, And that's what's that issue. You know, what
what is the meaning of the Confederate flag on a
(22:15):
state house, What is the meaning of a Confederate monument
or statue in a town square? What is it ultimately
trying to say? And that's that's really at the heart
of this controversy, is what are you trying to say
with that thing? What are we now, as the society
in the small little town in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana wherever,
(22:36):
What are we saying by fighting over keeping this statue
or this flag flying? What's what's what's the argument here? Well, yeah,
people in favor of keeping them will say that it's uh,
you know, it's dangerous to a race history. You're we
can learn from these things. They can serve as reminders
(22:57):
of how not to be maybe, Um. But at the
very least, you can't erase history. So don't even try
to erase history. Um. So that's basically the one of
the main arguments against taking these down, right, Just you
can't whitewash history. You can erase history, right. So that's one.
(23:18):
Another one is um and this is a big one.
That's that's really kind of kept a lot of these
things up so far, is that, Um, the Confederate monuments,
the Confederate statutes, the Confederate flags are not meant as
symbols of hatred or slavery or oppression. They are Um.
(23:39):
You'll see people say that it's heritage, not hate, right,
And what they mean with that is this thing called
the lost Cause narrative. Right. So the Lost Cause narrative
is this idea that um, well, actually I found that
there's like six parts to it. All right, are you
ready for these, because I'm gonna lay them out. So
(24:00):
the Lost Causes basically this narrative that says that the
the South, the Confederacy, the Civil War, none of it
had to do with slavery, or if it did, it
had very very little to do with slavery. That really
the Civil War was the War of Northern aggression. There
was the North that started it. The South just wanted
to seceed from the North, just wanted to get away
(24:22):
from this federal government that cared not about states rights,
that cared not about the South and it's its economy
or it's anabellum mansions or anything like that. That really
was the War of Northern aggression, and that the Confederacy
was just protecting their homeland, protecting their way of life,
and that it was secession not slavery that was um
(24:42):
at issue here. And a lot of people say, well,
what was the South seceding from if not the the
the right exactly right. There's some other tenants to it too.
There's this is very important. This is an important part
of the Lost Cause narrative is that actually e slaves
were happy to be enslaved. They were happy with their servitude.
(25:05):
They didn't have to think about what to do with life,
they didn't have to worry about wondering what they were
gonna do, and they were maybe too shiftless to really
be responsible to manage their own life anyway. So they
were actually happier under the Anabellum plantation system of slavery
than they were free. That's a huge tenant of the
Lost Cause UM. And then the other part of it,
(25:27):
and the whole reason that it has the name the
Lost Cause, is that the only reason, the only reason
that the Confederacy lost the Civil War was because the
UM the North was just so so vastly richer with resources, manpower,
UM industry, that the South from the beginning UM was
(25:50):
destined to lose the war. It just couldn't couldn't compete
in that respect. Hence the name lost cause. The South's
cause was lost from the outset. So if you were
a defender of Confederate at monuments, this is probably the
reason you're giving for defending them, that these are these
things are not up to intimidate anybody that the people
who are intimidated by them, the people who are taking
(26:11):
them as white supremacy are simply taking them the wrong way.
And then Chuck, there's one other thing that, like is
a question that has to be answered around this whole thing,
and that is that, like, if if it's true that
like the original Confederate monuments that were put up around
like say the eighteen nineties or up to the nineteen
twenties or something, right, if those things like actually were
(26:32):
put up out of like respect for the people who
fought for their homeland, um, and for family members who
have just recently died, and was actually out of like
this respect for heritage, rather than as a symbol of
hate and oppression. Isn't it possible though that those still
those same monuments could develop racist symbolism over time for
(26:56):
some people. And if that's the case, then you know,
if you are somebody who believes in them as a
point of heritage and pride, how do you reconcile that
that for other people there there? Um they're saying, hey, yeah,
white supremacy, buddy, I'm with you on that. How do
you how do you separate those two? And if that
is the case, if you do agree that there are
people out there who you have nothing to do with
(27:18):
who view these things as a as a symbol of
white supremacy. Then isn't your beef with them rather than
the people who are offended by that and want to
take those things down. That's a good point. I don't
have the answers, of course. Well no, I don't either,
But I mean, just the this is just such a
hornet's nous. It's just a ball of worms writhing around. Yeah,
(27:41):
it's complicated with with you know, seven hundred plus like
literal statues, each with their own backstory. It's kind of
hard to make some huge generalization probably for sure, for
sure it's true. All right, we let's take another break.
Let's take our final break, and what's talk a little
bit about just the ins and outs, like the sort
(28:04):
of the mechanics of really removing these and how that works.
Uh and uh the counter argument to lost cause legally,
which would hinge on the equal protection argument right after this. Alright, so, um,
(28:48):
here's how these things are generally, um, not only taken down,
but how they're how they're put up. To begin with,
we already mentioned the private, wealthy citizen who UM, just
want to do something like this. It's obviously one way
you can go down. Uh. The other way is as
a lot of cities now UM, starting in the nineteen nineties,
have commissions for approving these monuments. UM. The US Savannah, Georgia,
(29:12):
very historic city in our own state as an example,
they have a Historic Site and Monument Commission. They meet
every month. They look at applications. Most cities will have
an application process that you fill out that has to
prove certain criteria to us if you want a public monument. UM.
And they look over these all over the country all
the time and either approved them or not. UM. I
(29:34):
always thought it was funny that one of the big
parts is usually like what's this gonna cost us? Right exactly?
You know, like upkeep like what are we looking at here? Um?
And like I said, these are pretty new, starting mostly
in the nineteen nineties and later. UM. But it's generally
to ensure that newer monuments has public support, whereas many
(29:57):
of these older monuments did may not have had wide
public support, but it was influential, wealthy few that decided
what went up, right, right, Yeah, So like what like
we said, the the the massacre at the church in
Charleston really set off the first wave, and then the
(30:20):
um Charlottesville protests set off the second wave of statue removal.
But in between, a lot of state legislatures intervened and
said no, because you towns and cities, you're in our
state and where the law of the land. So we're
saying you can't remove these monuments without our approval, and
we're not going to give our approval to these things. Right.
(30:41):
But previous to that, when the states previously them reacting
to that and making these laws, it could be the
city that decided or the county or whatever the local
government was, or if it's on state owned land, obviously
it would be the state legislature. Yeah. So I mean
there's a lot of ways that, Like if the state
hasn't intervened and created a state law that says you
(31:04):
can't remove that, Yeah, if you're a city council or
a board of commissioners in a county or something like that,
you have full authority to remove these things. Um, and
you can remove them for all sorts of different reasons. Um.
There's this the article sites the statue in New York,
the scary lucile ball statue. Remember that, man, I went
(31:26):
back and looked, and oh, I feel so bad for
that sculptor. The fish guy. The second lady nailed it.
I mean she did such a good job. I didn't
see the second one, man, the first Oh yeah, I
did see the second one. It's just when you see
him side by side, you just one looks like Lucio
Ball and one looks like Lucio Ball. Got um zombie
(31:47):
Lucio Ball. Yeah, you're drawn by Ralph Steadman or something
weird like that, you know, so um her, No, it
really doesn't. So the city council of Sellern, New York,
Lucio Ball's hometown, said, uh, we're we don't like the statue.
It's terrible. We're gonna take it down, scaring the kids.
So they took it down because it was an ugly statue.
(32:08):
But a city council could say we're gonna take it
down because we've heard from enough of our citizens that
they're intimidated by it, or they think that this is
um uh, they it's it's it's creating an unsafe place,
like it could be a flashpoint for violence, or it
could it's in the way of the new whole foods
(32:29):
that our town's getting. So let's get rid of this monument.
So they can do this stuff unless the state has said,
you guys can't move those things. This is where the
state and you guys can't move these monuments, even on
city land right right. So there's there's been I think
in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, UM at the very least, and
(32:53):
I think several other states UM they've have have passed
these laws that say you can't, you can't remove these things.
So some states have had or some cities have had
to get creative where their will has continued. Their desire
to take these statues down has continued even after the
states that they can't. So the city of Memphis, which
(33:14):
had a couple of statues that wanted to take down,
one of Robert E. Lee and one of one of
Nathan No, they're not touching that one of Nathan Bedford Forest,
who was one of the early leaders of the clan Um.
They wanted these these statues taken down, but they couldn't
take them down because they resolved to take them down
after Tennessee passed its protection law. Well, the city of
(33:37):
Memphis sold the land that those two statues were onto
a nonprofit, and the nonprofit just immediately took them down
to work around. So, as I mentioned before the break,
we talked about the the lost cause narrative, and the
flip side of that legally is the equal protection argument.
(33:58):
So we're talking about the fourteenth Amendment, ratified in eighteen
sixty eight to grant citizenship and equal rights two former slaves. UH.
And this, to be clear, has not been used successfully
yet in court as an argument to have a statue removed,
but it is what groups like the a c l
U or UH does, the Southern Poverty Law Center, they
(34:21):
actually argue cases like this probably, I'm sure this is
what they would try to use, most likely as a
legal argument or a tactic at least to say that
this isn't right, because basically what it means is what
you were saying earlier, is it would be it would
be under the guys that this was erected as an
expression of white supremacy, and that's why it was erected,
(34:43):
That's why it's there. States supported racism that's still there
to make people feel unequal in the fourteenth Amendment says
we can't do that. Yeah, that's the that's the approach
that there will be some test case at some point
in the next year two that will make it to
the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court will probably rule
on that, and then that will either open the floodgates
(35:06):
or shut down that legal argument one way or another.
What's interesting to me, though, is that historians are probably
going to come into these lawsuits. Right Like, if you
ask just about any professional historian what started the Civil War,
the consensus is and has been for a long time
that it was slavery. That all the other stuff, the
(35:29):
ability to succeed, states rights, um, hatred of Lincoln, all
of these other things are are follow slavery, the the
South's um desire to continue aus as slave based economy. Right. Um,
If you ask the general public what caused the Civil War,
(35:52):
apparently something like forty percent will tell you that it
was secession, and only like will say slavery. So here's
here's the problem with that. This is part of a
kind of a larger trend that we've been seeing the
last like five years or so maybe less, where there's
just been a loss of faith in expertise, right where
(36:16):
like the people who we used to turn to for answers,
we we have just kind of tossed to the wayside,
and so just shut up. We don't want to hear
what you have to say any longer. We'll will decide
what's true on our own, and when that happens with
enough people, then history has a chance of being rewritten
just by just by sentiment. Hey can I have nothing
(36:38):
to do with reality, But everybody can decide that they're
going to collectively remember things a certain way, and brother,
that's history. That becomes history, whether it's fact based history
or revisionist history or not. And that's a that's a problem.
Like we have to remember history, whether it is enjoyable,
(36:58):
whether it's um something that it stands as a cautionary tale,
whether it's something that is painful, whether it's something that's inspiring.
We have to remember our history. We just have to,
or else we're gonna lose a lot of valuable lessons.
The question that still remains is whether we have to
remember that history in through monuments and statues or if
(37:22):
we can in other ways. So it's weird. There's a
defensive history, but there's also a loss of faith in
historians and and their reading of history. It's pretty interesting.
It's a bizarre and it's a weird place to be
right now here in the States. It is. And that's
why I'd never buy the you're a racing history argument
(37:44):
because it's not like these are. It's not like the
Civil War placke that just says this thing happened here.
Like to me, that is a historical marker, that just
says this, this action took place. It's not a monument
glorifying the thing. Yeah, there's just this. There's a monument
(38:05):
in Rossville, Georgia, which is close to Andersonville, South Carolina,
and it's a it's a monument to a guy named
Henry Wors who was one of the few executed war
criminals from the Confederacy. He ran Andersonville Prison and um
basically ran like a concentration camp, and he was executed
(38:26):
by the North. Publicly, he was he was hanged, and
very quickly, within a couple of decades UM, I think
the Daughters of the Confederacy UH erected this monument to
him and basically explained that he had been unfairly tried,
that evidence against him had been faked, and that he
was actually a war hero, not a war criminal. Yeah,
(38:50):
so that's kind of like not the neutral plaque that
you're talking about. It's the the antithesis of that. Well,
I certainly don't have the answers. It's a complicated thing.
But and there's so many of these and things, and
you know that there's the whole can of worms argument
that like do we then where where does it stop?
Do we blast off the face of Stone Mountain or
(39:15):
or Mountain rot more people think we should? Yeah, so
stone Mountain one for sure, Yeah, yeah, Or where does
it stop with the founding fathers because at the time
some of them on slaves and this and that. Um,
I don't purport to have the answers. I just my
my advice would be to encourage people to just for
a moment, to think about to walk in someone else's
(39:36):
shoes and think about what how some of these monuments
might make you feel. In twenty thousand eighteen, that's the
way in the future in two thousand eighteen, just maybe
step outside yourself for a minute and walk in someone
else's shoes. That's just Uncle Chuck's advice. I think it's
good advice no matter what. And I think what this
(39:57):
is is a symptom of the need to a society
that needs to heal and is not healing in productive
ways right now? Ye what I think? Well, I don't
have the answers either, though I certainly don't purport to.
So I agree with you on that. I look forward
to hearing all sides and email. Yeah, no death threats, please,
(40:19):
no death threats. Oh quickly. We should talk about very
famously in the Iraq War, when Saddam Hussein's statue was
toppled on television, uh, And there was always a lot
of speculation like this really reeks of something America cooked
up as a bit of a rara thing um, and
(40:41):
apparently Pro Publica looked into it along with the in
the New Yorker magazine was where the piece was said.
It was a crowd of Iraqis and it was it
happened to be a statue in front of the Palestine
Palestine Hotel, which is where a lot of the journalists were,
so that's why it got the coverage. And they there
were Americains and they were saying, hey, can we have
(41:01):
that sledgehammer? Can we have a little help? Can we
use that crane on that humby Now that we think
about what you guys, just go ahead and do it
for it. Well, apparently there was an official request submitted
by the army sergeant saying, hey, they want to use
our crane. Can we do this? And they got to
go ahead to do it. So that is the party
(41:24):
line story at least. Yeah, take it or leave it. Yeah,
but very indelible image. You know when that statue was
taken down, Oh yeah, it definitely was, like it felt
pretty hard. And Saddam was still alive at the time too,
which made it even more shocking. He's hiding in a hole.
Kind of an interesting time, like I said, to be
in America, weird, weird time. Well, I've seen other people
(41:45):
call for saying like maybe don't take it down, Maybe
erect another statue next to Roberty Lee of Rosa Parks
or something, and maybe add to the stone Mountain my
hum it and make it a history of it of Atlanta,
and add Martin Luther King to it and make it
(42:07):
more of a diorama and more inclusive. So it's I've
seen arguments all over the place with all kinds of suggestions,
because with fifteen hundred Confederate markers of some kind, I
mean that's a lot of it's a lot of stuff,
a lot of statues to balance things out that we'd
have to erect that kind of thing well, or a
(42:28):
lot of statues to tear down. Um. I mean, obviously
it's going to come down to and should come down to,
whatever they want to do locally. But we have one
right here indicator Georgia still you know which one. I
can't remember the name of it, but it's right there
in the town square. And there there's been a lot
of talk in the obviously the last couple of years
(42:48):
about getting rid of that. So yeah, and then also
like some people dig in so much to leave that
statue there, they take it down and then a week later, like,
is your life really changed materially? Is it that big
of a deal that that's not there anymore? I don't know.
I don't know. I think this whole I think this
(43:09):
is all just innuendo, nuance, um and illusion and allegory
and nobody's really talking about where most people aren't talking
about what's really being discussed here. It's it's weird, weird time, man,
such a strange time. It's a sad time for America,
but it's also a very hopeful time too, if you
(43:29):
really think about it in the right way, it is
and you know what this uh, I know this is
gonna be a lightning round in some ways, but I
am happy we're a part of this conversation in some way.
Nice again, No death threats, please everyone, No one likes
to get those. Put yourself in our shoes. You wouldn't
like getting them. If you want to know more about
(43:52):
Confederate monuments, monuments in general, and possibly removing them, go
type those words into the search bar how stuff works.
That common will bring up the article. And since I
said that it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna
call this, um, well, this one's pretty current, so I'm
gonna call this current clearing up of accordion definition. Oh boy,
(44:16):
that's good choice, Chuck. Okay, so this is a day
or too late, guys, But I just had a chance
to listen to the Great Mary Celeste episode, and I
figured i'd be remis if I didn't heed the call
of the alluring weird Al Yankovic shout out, because everyone
loves weird Oult. So it now comes apart where I
say that I don't actually know anything about accordions, but
I think Josh pretty much nailed it the second time through.
(44:37):
According to my sources, in general, melodeon is an accordion
with buttons, and an accordion technically known as a piano
accordion is an accordion with piano keys, not unlike the
style played by both Alfred and Frankie Yankovic. No relation,
believe it or not, No way, Uh yeah. Basically all
(44:59):
melodions are accordions, but not all accordions or melodians, So that,
in a nutshell, is how melodians work. Not to be
confused with the concertina pictured here. And that is the
literal handheld thing that you like, I might think of
an old Italian man playing in the eighteen hundreds that
you just there are no there may be, but it's
(45:21):
it's a squeeze box, like the who talked about mom
has got a squeeze box. Yeah, and that is from anonymous?
Is it really? You're not gonna say who is from?
Wow that anonymous? Have no idea who it's from. It's
just some some weird, weird al fan. That's funny. No.
My My exclamation of surprise was that Alfred and Frankie
(45:45):
Yankovic have no relation to weird Al Yankovic. That's beyond bizarre. Yeah,
I not don't even know who Alfred and Frankie Ankovi
car I don't either, but surely every Yankovics related to
weird Al Yankovic. Right, Yeah, but I also have a
feeling that like they're eight percent of Yankovic's play the accordion.
All right, well, weird Al, please please, as is custom,
(46:07):
we end every episode like this, please get in touch
with us and let us know how you're doing. Okay,
if you're weird Al Yankovic and you want to get
in touch with us, you can tweet to us. I'm
at josh um Clark and you can also hit up
the official s Y s K podcast one. You can
join Chuck on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck
(46:29):
Bryant or slash stuff you Should Know either one. You
can also send us an email and Jerry too to
Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and weird
Al join us as always at our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff Works
(46:50):
dot com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!