Robert E Lee was a slave owner himself. His own great, great grandson has an opinion. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/robert-e-lee-is-my-ancestor-take-down-his-statue-let-his-cause-be-lost/
Nathan Bedford Forrest’s bust in the Tennessee state capitol is the subject of controversy:
Tennessee also has a Nathan Bedford Forrest Day:
Now the Sierra Club wants to throw John Muir down the memory hole.
Because he was a racist, and much of his environmental ethic had a deep racist background. In fact, much of the early environmentalism movement was deeply racist, and much of its ideology was based on racist ideology.
The environmental movement, and environmental sciences are extremely white, and that is in no small part due to the underlying racism that still pops up in many of the attitudes.
This is not some new issue, it has been discussed for the last couple of decades within the different environmental groups, as well and in the environmental sciences. However, until now, it was internal within the environmental community.
So no, it’s not “Now”, it’s a process which has been going on for decades.
Establishing the national parks and protecting wild lands is not racist. John Muir did make some racist statements about native people but those views changed over the years and he recognized their love of the land.
He was no saint. No one is. But he saved Yosemite. He tried to save Hetch Hetchy. If we require heroes to be perfect then there are no heroes.
Have you actually read the statement they posted on their website. I don’t read it as “throwing him down the hall” as much as it as recognizing his flaws and apologizing for the harm that caused by the organization
Again, this is part of a conversation which has been going on for a long time, and of which you have not been part. You are, essentially, 'splaining what Muir did or didn’t do to people who have dedicated their entire lives to conservation.
It is because of the racism that was inherent in the Environmental movement that the racism of people like Muir as though it was a minor flaw which can be easily overlooked. Because Muir’s environmental philosophy had deep racist roots, even his most positive accomplishments have a troubling background.
Too many famous White people have gotten passes on their racism and racist activities because they were famous, and the White people in charge dismissed this racism as “well, they weren’t perfect”.
The fact that the removal of a famous White man from the pantheon of America’s popular heroes bothers people so much more than the fact that so many of these heroes were deeply racist is, to me, an indication of the racism that still permeates this country, even in people who do not think of themselves as racist.
You really should read up on the racist background of the environmental movement well into the 1960s. It is one of the reasons that most of the largest environmental organizations are close to 90% white, and the leadership is even worse. It is why so little has been done to actually address this issue, despite so many years of lip service to diversity. The same thing is going on in the science world, with Ecology, Wildlife Biology, Conservation Biology, and Environmental Science all having issues of diversity, and this directly relates to the racist background and history of the environmental movement.
You’ll have to be specific. I don’t see how saving national park land from becoming ruined by development or industry and remaining wild for all to enjoy is in any way racist. That is what Muir stands for in my mind.
Presumably, you mean https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club ?
Just read the whole thing. I wasn’t aware of the racism in the history of the Sierra Club and its founders (to be fair, it would probably be hard to find an organization from that time that wasn’t discriminatory). It’s a well-written article and quite educational.
I appreciate the perspective it brings on Muir and the Sierra Club. It’s certainly possible (for me, anyway) to add nuance and complexity to my view of a historical figure.
For a more inclusive perspective, read up on environmental justice. There is so much good work going on in that field, and it’s really opening up what had been yes, I tone-deaf and often racist movement.
Good works are good. But they don’t negate racist attitudes that were not necessary to do the good work.
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Some statues are works of art as well. They also tell a history. Some good. Much bad.
Julius Cesar. Pyramids. Ancient buildings of Asia. The collesium. Should these be erased as well.
I don’t think so personally. If we reframe what a statue painting or image of a historical figure means. If we educate at the point of sale. Maybe easy to read placards near these with a short wiki of their varied positive and incredibly dark mixture of behaviors.
Let’s be educated. Not willfully putting them into closets like they didn’t exist. It’s a good way to show how wrong someone can stray from a path. Even despite the era in which they lived accepted tbd behavior, be an independent thinker.
I don’t like book burnings either. Even incredibly useless literature but historically relevant material.
The works and paintings of the masters that capture images of people with behavior that’s clearly abhorrent today. We aren’t going to burn those I would hope.
Maybe it’s an American thing. Our history is recent and perhaps too near to see the longer term view.
My only caveat is war memorials to confederate figures. Create a large national park. Fallen heroes or traitors row. Put them all there. Visit for the history lesson.
Others more nuanced need some more leeway. Columbus etc. a
@privatebanker I will disagree with you on Columbus. The idea to start enslaving the indigenous people was his, and he proceeded to do so against the wishes of the King and queen. I mean, the man was even more inhumane than Ferdinand and Isabel, the evil duo who were responsible for the expulsion of the Jews of Spain, and the multiple persecutions by the Inquisition of those Jews who actually did convert to Catholicism.
He went over to establish trade routes, but instead, on his own initiative, he established routes by which to invade and steal goods and raw materials, by which to send these back to Spain, and later to establish Spanish colonies which he ran on slave labor.
He not only owned and traded in slaves, he enslaved free people, and worked them to death.
Everything good that happened because of the European colonization of the Americas is incidental to Columbus. He had no intention of doing any good for anybody, except his own pockets.
He is not a person who has a mixed bag of good and bad actions. His bag is almost entirely bad.
@MWolf Hi m. I don’t disagree with you on that perspective. However he means more than that to many immigrants of Italian heritage that has morphed this aspect of his explorations in hindsight. He’s a symbol of something else for them. He also was a man of his time. And made comprises as many do.
There are pretty much any human who has walked the earth that has big flaws in the prism of time.
In the end I have no deep affection for Columbus. I do have a deep respect for people to decide as a group, to have other voices heard. Unless the individuals involved are simply and uniquely defined by their behavior then and now as being unworthy. Civil war totems to the slavers for one.
Seems like @MWolf 's point is that his acts were rather unsavory even by the standards of his time (even the rulers of Spain who did the Spanish Inquisition thought that he was too brutal/abusive).