Should Alabama's Jefferson Davis holiday be abolished?

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I’m not from the South. I don’t know why there is a Jefferson Davis holiday.

However, I know that he’s a more complicated person than history often portrays him.

Before the his death in 1889, he spent at least 10 years encouraging the South to be faithful the Union.

HOWEVER, that said, he was still a racist until he died.

Ultimately, it should be up to the people of Alabama to determine whether they want to keep that holiday. There are plenty of African Americans in Alabama. If they want the holiday gone, then I’m sure the rest of America will gladly support them. But any grassroots movement to eliminate the holiday should start with the people of Alabama, not outsiders.
 
Nicene said:
But implicitly you just argued, given my post, that in fact it doesn’t actually matter what black people want or think.
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Other than describing my current location as Pacific Northwest, i don’t tend to share personal information on CAF. I wonder if you might be making an assumption or two concerning my ethnic background?
 
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I’ll share with you a short story: in the 1980’s there was a guy my wife and I worked with. He later died of AIDS. In our office is a plaque honoring this guy. The same guy who called my wife a monkey and my kids half breeds to my face. This racist died of AIDS and during his career did absolutely nothing worth honoring. Yet I have to go to work each day and see this memorial.

As to where you live, it has absolutely nothing to do with attitude toward another race. Mine took place in San Francisco. Do you honestly believe that this person who called my wife and thought her people as monkeys should somehow be southern?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Nicene said:
As to where you live, it has absolutely nothing to do with attitude toward another race.
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Another race? I wonder if you are making assumptions about my ethnicity? As noted above: Other than describing my current location as Pacific Northwest, I don’t tend to share personal information on CAF.
 
He was gay, his plaque honors him only because of being gay and dying of AIDS. Back then people were portrayed as some sort of hero’s just for dying of AIDS. Guess you had to be there, most of the people I work with are gay. And back then no much was known of the disease other than it had it primarily affected the gay community

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Nicene said:
He was gay, his plaque honors him only because of being gay and dying of AIDS. Back then people were portrayed as some sort of hero’s just for dying of AIDS. Guess you had to be there, most of the people I work with are gay. And back then no much was known of the disease other than it had it primarily affected the gay community
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To be honest with you I find it a bit offensive you had to bring up what he died from as a coded way of saying he was gay. Like, “he was a jerk and he was gay!” Like AIDS was somehow a marker of what a truly terrible person he was.
 
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You seem to be making it of mine, this is just a straw man argument. So in that straw man vein, care to guess my race?

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
No thank you.

I, like you,
am a child of God,
Made in his image
and by sin flawed.

May God bless you and your wife and child and all who have been referenced or who visit our thread.
Amen.
 
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Actually I find it offensive that you would rather be politically correct instead of accurate. Gays are portrayed as loving everyone, And tolerant.? I. E. Rainbow. From experience, hardly the truth, it’s just PC to say or think such.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Nicene said:
Actually I find it offensive that you would rather be politically correct instead of accurate. Gays are portrayed as loving everyone, And tolerant.? I. E. Rainbow. From experience, hardly the truth, it’s just PC to say or think such.
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It’s politically correct to say it’s not significant he had AIDS or was a rabidly horrible person because he was gay? Are you familiar with what the Catechism teaches regarding the respect due to those with homosexual attractions?
 
Actually it is very relevant, he got a memorial due to being Gay, having AIDS and dying of it, regardless if was a racist. His racism was and is seen as irrelevant. And you are making my point.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Nicene said:
Actually it is very relevant, he got a memorial due to being Gay, having AIDS and dying of it, regardless if was a racist. His racism was and is seen as irrelevant. And you are making my point.
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As are you with my point. Your language is homophobic.
 
Of course, unequivocally and without any doubt it should be abolished. There is no part of Jefferson Davis that is heroic. He was a congressman. He was a losing, ineffectual president of a temporary country who failed in his only job, keeping the country independent. He was a prisoner who lost his citizenship. What in the world did he do worthy of remembrance?

And he was a racist slaver who inflicted misery on countless human beings. I do not feel this way about all Confederate leaders, but this guy is right up there tied with Nathan Bedford Ford as the worst of the lot.

It is high time for the South to drop this whole “Lost Cause” mystique.

One more thing, if his statue is to be kept for historical value, then change it to make it more historically accurate. Add statues of black slaves being ground to death in the institution of slavery under his feet. Show his supposed heroism for the cruelty it was.
 
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The deep South has its history, just as we have ours. Let’s respect history, not try to eradicate it. History teaches us valuable lessons. If we try to erase it and pretend it never happened, how can future generations learn from it? History is history, good, bad and ugly. Why are we trying to dictate such matters? Would we want to be dictated to regarding OUR history? Live and let live.
 
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Holidays are for celebration. We celebrate D-Day, not Hitler’s birthday. The history of the south is still available for all to read about. If we want to be radical, we could even teach history in school and not rely on offensive holidays or statues to teach what should have been learned from books. Of all the people to have a holiday? I had never heard of this holiday, yet my knowledge of history of that error has not suffered for lack of celebration.

Like I said, leave a statue of him up and surround it by an artist rendering of the misery and death around him laying at his feet. That way there could actually be something taught.
 
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They also don’t tear down the concentration camps. They are there as a reminder.
 
No one is trying to eradicate history, just the opposite, we are trying to teach the true history. Rather than having statues and holidays celebrating the Confederacy and making those people look like heroes, and rather than flying the flag of a nation that fought a bloody war against the United States of America, we seek to teach the actual history. The real story, not the souped up “The Nobel South will rise again!” version.

Those statues were not erected right after the war to honor those people, they were put up later to make a statement. They are both racist and treasonous and have no business being in a place of honor. Send them to museums, either historic or art if appropriate, but leaving them in public squares and sometimes on government buildings and grounds is a disgrace to our Nation.
 
Calliope said:
…rather than flying the flag of a nation that fought a bloody war against the United States of America, we seek to teach the actual history… They are both racist and treasonous and have no business being in a place of honor.
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Can we stop the talk of treason? Holding human beings as property is a far worse crime than ‘treason’ against a particular country. Look at the San Patricios for a case of ‘treason’.
 
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