Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans build CSA memorial on MLK jr. Drive.

[Syt]

Well ... yeah.

http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/06/texas-built-a-confederate-memorial-on-a-street-named-for-martin-luther-king-jr/396344/?utm_source=atlanticFB

Texas Built a Confederate Memorial on a Street Named for Martin Luther King Jr.

Building new Confederate memorials is the business of Confederate heritage groups—and business is good.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans might chuckle to hear the revived debate over the Confederate battle flag that flies over the South Carolina State House. One-hundred fifty years after the surrender of the Confederacy to the Union, the symbols of that vanquished pretend-state aren't disappearing. They're proliferating.

In Orange, Texas, the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans just built a large Confederate memorial park, complete with a classical-ish monument featuring 13 columns—one for each of the states in the short-lived, and utterly defeated, Confederate States of America. Now, drivers who cross the state line from Louisiana into Texas will not be able to avoid the sight of 32 different Confederate regimental flags.

This being East Texas, the Sons of Confederate Veterans parked the memorial as close to Interstate 10 as possible, so that "over 55,000 cars per day see Confederate Flags flying proudly in the Texas breeze." (No one else would see it, otherwise.) And this being Confederate sympathizers, they did not hesitate to build the memorial where the highway meets Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

The Beaumont chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opposed the memorial, according to The Beaumont Enterprise, as did residents of Beaumont and Orange. In fact, no residents spoke up in favor of the monument during an Orange City Council meeting about the monument in February 2013, where many residents turned up to oppose it.

But Granvel Block, head of the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, nevertheless prevailed. (Block was also a plaintiff in the Supreme Court case over Confederate license plates. He lost in that arena.) In fact, divisions of the Sons of Confederate Veterans have succeeded all across the country in recent years—in Georgetown, Delaware, for example, in 2007, despite the fact that Delaware did not secede. Arizona, a state that didn't even exist during the Civil War, put up a Confederate memorial in Sierra Vista in 2010.

In fact, it wasn't that long ago that a prominent Confederate base was a feature on the social circuit in the nation's capital. Confederate Memorial Hall—a home and gathering place for Confederate veterans in Washington, D.C., and later, a social hall for white politicians from the South—stood for all but 11 years of the 20th century. This living social-and-political memorial to the Confederacy, located just off Logan Circle, only closed in 1997.

"This was all from the early 20th-century period of reconciliation, let bygones be bygones," said Gary Scott, a National Park Service historian, in an interview with The Washington Post about Confederate Memorial Hall. "Left out were African Americans. It was a reconciliation of the white South and the white North."

The same could be said about the Confederate flag wherever it flies: in Texas, in South Carolina, in Arizona, it is always and only a marker of pride for whites. It sends a different message to black people, as my colleague Brentin Mock explains for The New York Times.

In 2010, activists in Charleston were able to successfully block the state division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from building a monument to secession. A century and a half after the defeat of the South, it is one of the few symbolic battles that the Union has been able to win.

I will suggest the erection of a Waffen SS memorial on Theodor Herzl Platz here in Vienna, so that Austrians can be proud of their ancestors and heritage.

[Martinus]

I love the idea of reconciliation excluding the victims. It's like a reconciliation between Germans and Russians over Holocaust.

[Norgy]

Are you sure Texas was "reconstructed", and if so, what material did they use? 

[Valmy]

I love the idea of reconciliation excluding the victims. It's like a reconciliation between Germans and Russians over Holocaust.

Victims? The reconciliation, in this case, was not over slavery it was over the Civil War.

It was like everybody got together and pretended it was just a big misunderstanding and we should all just admit we were both right and move on. Without addressing the issues really. But it was necessary just to get on with the business of being a country not some huge cathartic outpouring or whatever.

[Valmy]

Are you sure Texas was "reconstructed", and if so, what material did they use? 

It might interest you to know what reconstruction was a total failure and everybody gave up after 10 years.

[MadBurgerMaker]

On I-10?  In Orange?  So...no one will even know it's there because they're busy driving over the intersection bridge at 80+ and no one stops in Orange.  Retards should have put it next to one of the gas stations just before Beaumont, although that would mean they couldn't be dicks about MLK Drive.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Are you sure Texas was "reconstructed", and if so, what material did they use? 

It might interest you to know what reconstruction was a total failure and everybody gave up after 10 years.

US nation-building: only works in Germany and Japan it seems.

[Martinus]

I love the idea of reconciliation excluding the victims. It's like a reconciliation between Germans and Russians over Holocaust.

Victims? The reconciliation, in this case, was not over slavery it was over the Civil War.

It was like everybody got together and pretended it was just a big misunderstanding and we should all just admit we were both right and move on. Without addressing the issues really. But it was necessary just to get on with the business of being a country not some huge cathartic outpouring or whatever.

Sorry, I may have used the word "victim" in a misleading sense. I meant blacks/descendants of slaves. I guess they were not war victims/casualties in the strict sense, in a similar way Jews were not victims of World War 2 in the strict sense - but each were the group victimised as a background to the respective war.

[Martinus]

Are you sure Texas was "reconstructed", and if so, what material did they use? 

It might interest you to know what reconstruction was a total failure and everybody gave up after 10 years.

US nation-building: only works in Germany and Japan it seems.

It is debatable if it worked in Japan.

[Valmy]

Sorry, I may have used the word "victim" in a misleading sense. I meant blacks/descendants of slaves. I guess they were not war victims/casualties in the strict sense, in a similar way Jews were not victims of World War 2 in the strict sense - but each were the group victimised as a background to the respective war.

Yes. The reconciliation between North and South was all about ignoring the blacks as much as possible. That subject was ignored because of the need for reconciliation. That is why it took 100 years for people to start addressing the civil rights stuff seriously.

[dps]

If your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, they were traitors, and you shouldn't be proud of them.  And you maybe shouldn't even be here, because a lot of them should have been hanged for their treason.

[Caliga]

I think it's weird to be 'proud' of your ancestors anyway unless you actually knew them (i.e. your parents, grandparents, and maybe great-grandparents).

I am interested in my family history but I'm not proud of people who I never met and never knew I would exist one day.

[Admiral Yi]

If your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, they were traitors, and you shouldn't be proud of them.  And you maybe shouldn't even be here, because a lot of them should have been hanged for their treason.

Does the same apply to ancestors who fought in the American Revolution?

[Valmy]

I think it's weird to be 'proud' of your ancestors anyway unless you actually knew them (i.e. your parents, grandparents, and maybe great-grandparents).

I am interested in my family history but I'm not proud of people who I never met and never knew I would exist one day.

'Pride' is not the right word. I am fond of my ancestors, they are my people. But yeah I don't get pride. But lots of people are proud of their heritage so whatchagunna do?

[Valmy]

If your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, they were traitors, and you shouldn't be proud of them.  And you maybe shouldn't even be here, because a lot of them should have been hanged for their treason.

Um you do realize it was illegal for Confederate white men between the ages of 18 and 35 to NOT be in military service? Unless you know a lot about their lives you might want to learn a bit more before you condemn them just for that.