You don’t have to drink alone.
In a conciliatory effort towards protesters, cities in the United States are removing, or pledging to remove, Confederate monuments. I’m sure we all agree that’s a good thing. But, there are over 700 statues and monuments to the Rebs, with over half of those in Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and Texas. That’s a lot of empty pedestals. 7,900 people would like to see the Richmond, VA Robert E Lee statue replaced by former Virginia resident Oderus Urungus, AKA Dave Brockie, the late lead singer of GWAR.
Which got me thinking, who would the deadsplinters like to see gracing the public spaces of their towns? There are 24 Confederate monuments in my state. I can think of more than a few native sons and daughters more worthy of a memorial than the people currently honored: Stephen Bishop, Harriet Arnow Simpson, Helen Thomas, Hunter S Thompson, Foster Brooks, Tod Browning, Lionel Hampton, Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, Henry Faulkner, Jim Varney. And beloved Lexington drag queen, James Herndon, Sweet Evening Breeze. If I included the living I could easily replace each one. Who’s on your list?
Seattle has NO confederate statues that I am aware of and is pretty good about statues of people of color. We have Hendrix, Bruce Lee, Michael Anderson (a black astronaut and my sister’s next door neighbor who died in the space shuttle disaster) & Chief Sealth (also called Chief Seattle). If we ever get our NBA team back, I would love to see a Gary Payton statue. Boeing should really have a Belle Alexander statue.
https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/alexander.htm
A Belle Alexander statue would be wonderful. Maybe if things ever get back to normal you could get city council to think about it.
im in the netherlands…and yesterday our prime minister said we shouldnt be defacing or throwing the statues in the lake…he understands the reasons why one might want to…but its history and should be respected
considering a good chunk of our statues are bigwigs from the east india company i’d say that statements gonna bite him in the ass
anyhoo…. i think every city should have a manneken pis
https://www.google.com/search?q=manneken+pis&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi92JyAj_7pAhVPNOwKHRUPAhEQ_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=a6-O_F27IDGZ2M
Un-fucking-believable. My state actually had a monument up until a few years ago. We fought on the side of the UNION against those traitorous motherfuckers. Why the hell did we have a confederate monument?! At least it’s gone.
Also, have a hard time understanding why my former home state of NM has four markers. NM was not part of the confederacy and was under the control of Union forces after some smaller battles. Christ, how stupid.
I’m sure there are already plenty of statues of people worthy of a monument in my current state, but I strongly suggest that the Jefferson-fucking-Davis Memorial Highway in NM be renamed the Lost Souls Highway after all of the immigrants who died in the desert trying to make their lives here. The other monument is standing at Ft. Craig–a UNION fort that was never even attacked by confederate forces, but the Daughters of the Confederacy plopped down a fucking monument there anyway in 1936. Replace that bullshit with a monument to Colonel Canby who was smart enough to make the fort look more formidable than it actually was, which is why the confederates never attacked it.
As for all those statues in the South, every single one of them needs to be replaced with either a slave/former slave, a proponent of immigrant rights, memorials to the native tribes who were driven out, and/or gay rights activists. Let those fuckers look at real heroes, rather than traitors.
Kentucky fought for the Union too,it’s amazing that we’d have monuments to the Confederacy. We have a street named Oliver Lewis Way after the jockey who won the first Kentucky Derby. He, like 13 of the 15 jockeys, was an enslaved man. Let’s give this guy a statue! Stephen Bishop was a slave who did most of the exploration that opened up Mammoth Cave National Park. If that doesn’t deserve a statue I don’t know what does. But at least Kentucky is culturally South. Why the hell do New Mexico and California have any?
Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy and the first state to leave. But you can bet your ass that the rednecks there are super hardcore about their “heritage”. Methinks they are trying to compensate for the fact that their ancestors weren’t really committed to The Cause. I’m sure the insecurity among KY rednecks is probably worse.
Good point! Same would go for West Virginia, gotta prove their warped idea of Southern Pride.
My city has a statue of Hannah Duston, murderer of indian women and children. Why not Bob Montana or Rob Zombie. Yeah, a statue of Rob Zombie, that would be cool.
Rob Zombie is much more deserving of a monument than that Durston woman! In Kentucky I think it would be funny to replace one with a Larry Flynt statue.
Mr. McGee sat next to Rob Zombie on a flight once and said he was awesome. He invited the Mr. to party with him in DC, but he didn’t go for some reason.
Mr McGee was probably smart. George Thorogood invited me to party after a show one night. I almost went but my better judgement won out, lol.
I saw a thing on twitter that said replace every Confederate statue with a statue of Dolly Parton.
I can get behind that. Or in front. Either way.
Absolutely! Dolly has done more for our country than any of them. Jolene alone is worth all the Tennessee statues.
She’s a gotdam American hero. I made my whole entire family (like 22 people) go to Dollywood for our family reunion. It was AWESOME.