Monday, June 15, 2020

Tennessee Celebrates Slave Owner and KKK Grand Wizard


Oh Tennessee legislature, with all that’s going on this country right now, why are you insisting on allowing blatant hate to be protected?


Last week protesters descended on the Tennessee state Capitol after lawmakers voted to keep a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader on full display. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first grand wizard of the KKK, amassed a fortune as a plantation owner and slave trader prior to serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.


That’s cause for a place of honor in the capitol?


People have been trying to remove the bronze bust of Forrest since it was first erected in 1978. Many protesters feel that by keeping symbols of racism and white supremacy on public display they are hurting this and future generations of black Americans, but GOP lawmakers say removing the bust isn’t the solution and that it could open the door to other controversial monuments being torn down.


And that’s a bad thing?


And the Tennessee GOP thinks that deserves a place of honor. Especially Republican … because, of course … Representative Jerry Sexton, who voted against the bust’s removal, and seemed to excuse Tennessee’s long history of racism:

“It was not against the law to own slaves back then. Who knows, maybe some of us will be slaves one of these days. Laws change. But what about the people that I represent, that it will offend them if we move this? They’ll be offended. They won’t like it. But it doesn’t seem to matter.”
Some of us might be slaves one day? What is Sexton suggesting that perhaps slavery wasn’t so bad. And if you represent a group of people who support and admire a racist slave-owning Confederate general, perhaps, after you educate yourself, you educate them. Yes, people owned slaves—white people owned black people—back in the day, and yes it was legal, and yes, it’s historical, but when you know better, you do better.


Sexton just doesn’t know better.


To celebrate Nathan Bedford Forrest is to support slavery and racism. It’s that simple.

Sidenote #1: in Germany it is illegal to fly the Nazi flag, so white supremacists and neo-Nazis fly the Confederate flag.


That speaks volumes about that.


Sidenote#2: Governor Bill Lee will no longer have to proclaim Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee now that both chambers of the legislature have passed a bill releasing him from the requirement.


However, the day still exists, which means it’s still celebrated, but the governor doesn’t have to acknowledge it.

11 comments:

  1. Sometimes I wish Texas and the deep south would just leave. The last thing we need now is a resugerance of the Plan in a big way.

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  2. It will come down one day, they have won nothing.

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  3. Not good. Not good at all.
    take care, stay safe. xoxo :-)

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  4. It was bad enough that the Victorians put up a statue in Bristol to a slave trader 170 years after his death. But to put up a bust of a slave owner and KKK white Inquisition style outfit wearer in 1978 when anyone ought to have known better, that is just pig-ignorant (although I understand that pigs are intelligent, definitely clearly more so than Tennessee politicians). And it demeans those who in this day and age are still slaves, invisible to most of us. No-one should own another person; it is morally and legally wrong and slave ownership should not be glorified.

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  5. I think these "people" are just too proud of their "time honored traditions" and just don't want to be told no. Of course, they're probably just a bunch of time honored racist bastards also. Are there any statues out there honoring Benedict Arnold?

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  6. Anonymous12:31 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. The whataboutism and straw man arguments come easy for these people.
    It’s the Lost Cause what they want to keep alive. a reminder of what they miss so much: open racism.

    XoXo

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  8. Anonymous2:02 PM

    Bob as you may have uncovered in your research, many of the statues erected in honor of Confederate folks were after the war was lost...It was a way of trolling...To remind folks that yea you are free BUT we just want to let you know who is in charge here...Putting something up in 1978 is just a loud bitch slap...Someone needs to sneak in a break it...Really, just take it down...We don't need any more dog whistles...We are not new here...We know what is going on...

    PS-I lived in VA for years off of Jefferson Davis Highway-Glebe Road-and never bothered to investigate the name...Davis was the president of the Confederate States from 1861-1865...Now you know...

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  9. @MM
    I just wish those who feel like this might educate themselves a little.
    Knowledge is power.

    @Steven
    Fingers crossed, because it's Tennessee.

    @Helen
    It's not SO much that he was a slave-owner because that's what people did back then--though he shouldn't be treated as an icon--but the fact that he was a Grand Wizard in the KKK.

    @Deedles
    I don't know what's honorable about OWNING people or being in the KKK. And I don't think there's a BA statue because, well, it's the North.

    @Six
    And when they call it their heritage? Based on racism and slavery?

    @VRC
    We have a Jefferson Davis highway here, though not a single Confederate statue. thank goodness.

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  10. the ignorance is astounding. sherman should have finished the job. FUCK DA SOUTH!

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  11. I went on a tirade. I deleted my tirade. I'm preaching to the choir.

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Say anything, but keep it civil .......