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26 Apr 18 - 03:35 PM (#3920193) Subject: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: beardedbruce PITTSBURGH (AP) — A 118-year-old statue of the "Oh! Susanna" songwriter was removed from a Pittsburgh park Thursday after criticism that the work is demeaning because it includes a slave sitting at his feet, plucking a banjo. In October, the Pittsburgh Art Commission voted to take the Stephen Foster sculpture out of Schenley Plaza and find it a new home. For now, it will remain in a storage lot, out of the public view. On Thursday, workers used straps and construction equipment to lift the 10-foot-bronze statue off its base. It was strapped to a flatbed truck and taken away. The Giuseppe Moretti statue was completed in 1900 and thousands attended its dedication. The shoeless banjo player is based on "Uncle Ned," a fictional slave and subject of a song by the same name. Critics have long decried the statue as racist. "It's the single most offensive display of public art in Pittsburgh, hands down," Paradise Gray, a hip-hop activist, musician and writer, told the Post-Gazette in August . "It permanently depicts the black man at the white man's feet." Others say it highlights that Foster was inspired by black spirituals. Some historians contend the 1848 song is actually an early, subtle anti-slavery song. A statue honoring an African-American woman will be put up in its place. Residents can submit nominations. Foster, a Pittsburgh native, is often called the father of American music and was known for enduring tunes from the 1800s. His songs include "Camptown Races," 'My Old Kentucky Home," 'Beautiful Dreamer" and "Old Folks at Home" (Swanee Song). |
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26 Apr 18 - 03:42 PM (#3920195) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself Yeah, well - that's what a history of slavery and racism does, doesn't it? Maybe when all that is long forgotten, they'll put the statue back. |
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26 Apr 18 - 08:57 PM (#3920232) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: keberoxu That old a statue! Back in the day, completely different songs would have been popular. I've seen the sheet music for Old Ned, which is a dirge: "he's gone where the good darkies go." Squirm. There are surely ways to recall Foster without the minstrel aspect. Marilyn Horne was not ashamed to use "Beautiful Dreamer" as an encore. There is actually a different lyric/tune titled "Thou Art the Queen of my Song" which is very effective, if characterized by the sentimentality popular in his time. If not a better statue, at least a better image, would be appropriate. |
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26 Apr 18 - 09:14 PM (#3920234) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: olddude Just put up a better statue how about just foster that would be the right thing to do |
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26 Apr 18 - 09:19 PM (#3920236) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Joe Offer Gee, that's a tough one we have lots of Stephen Foster Songs here, and many of them are terrific songs. "Uncle Ned" is a good song, but I can't imagine singing it. I sing "Old Black Joe," "Old Dog Tray," and "Hard Times Come Again No More." I occasionally get challenges about "Joe," but not the others. The Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park* is on Interstate 75 at the crossing of the Suwanee River north of Gainesville, Florida. The park visitors' center is a replica of a plantation house, and it's full of miniature dioramas depicting Foster's best-known songs. I'm sure it was cute in the 1950s, but now it seems grossly inappropriate. It's too bad that such a wonderful composer wrote songs so imbued with the racist culture of his time. He had contemporaries like Henry Clay Work who were able to keep away from that, but Foster is an embarrassment. -Joe- *I swear it used to be called the Stephen Collins Foster Memorial State Park - this "folk culture" part of the name is new to me. It's the home of the annual Florida Folk Festival, which I really enjoyed the one time I attended with Harpgirl. |
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26 Apr 18 - 11:25 PM (#3920246) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Stilly River Sage It wasn't intentional, but as I was listening to various audiobooks last fall, two I heard in sequence were Margot Shetterly's Hidden Figures, with an exemplary history of how African Americans were treated after slavery in mostly Southern states, and then Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning Underground Railroad. It was a serendipitous, but remarkable, passing of one text over another, resulting in an appreciation of the topic that touches on the disposition of these statues. Try it yourself. I dare you. |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:04 AM (#3920258) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Joe Offer In many ways, it's a very nice statue, but IS a representation of a black man who is in an obviously subservient position. Here are photos: (click) |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:40 AM (#3920265) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Mr Red a statue to a guy who died in the Bowery having collapsed in an alcoholic haze having squandered a fortune and his talent? Stuff of folk hero worship in some quarters. Let the songs live, tweak them maybe, but make them live. but re-write history so mankind (oooooh person-kind) forget reality and the dangers thereof. Why not. The truth is too painful to deal with. What a nation needs is a monument to the truth. But then they interpret, how it suits best their evangelism. That's art for you, it's not what the artists say it is! |
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27 Apr 18 - 08:27 AM (#3920330) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Tiger Maybe, for a while, we can stop looking for racists behind every tree, and just listen to the music. I sing "Uncle Ned" and find it a very moving and respectful song. Of course, the lyrics I learned from the 1950 Burl Ives recording started out with "There was an old brother ..." which raises the acceptability index considerably. Try it that way, and see if you agree. Foster should be appreciated for his huge contributions and influence and not be denigrated for his use of the vernacular. If that's your gripe, go after hip-hop. |
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27 Apr 18 - 09:54 AM (#3920366) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: John Moulden The application of modern attitudes to the actions of people who lived in a completely different cultural climate, is to my mind, dangerous - it airbrushes history instead of using it to understand how it and the present should always be questioned - is it fair, is it just, is it well argued - but to put it into storage is to beg every question that can and should be asked. |
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27 Apr 18 - 10:49 AM (#3920381) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker It might just be my own peculiarity, but I think statues erected to memorialise the 'great and good' are a stupid waste of money... A really crap one was plonked in the middle of my home town.. A very costly vanity project for a local councillor with a bee in her bonnet... The statue was bad art - nothing of any value - the 'artist' probably gave the lowest tender for the job...??? The great individual being raised on a pedestal barely had any remotest connection to our town.. They might just as well have picked Winston Churchill if he had spent an hour or 2 in a broken down train in a local railway siding... |
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27 Apr 18 - 11:59 AM (#3920403) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: keberoxu Mr. Red's opening sentence threw me off, actually, in his post, because I thought of Edgar Allan Poe. |
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27 Apr 18 - 12:31 PM (#3920421) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Looking at the photo Joe posted, the banjo players position doesn’t look in any way "subservient" to me He's sitting while he plays, but what does that mean? Pretty well any banjo players I've run into sits while they are playing. If he didn't have "black" features (of course the actual colour of both figures is exactly similar) would anyone really see that pose as "subservient"? (Is it really that possible to be subservient while playing a banjo? It's about the most in-your-face instrument that exists.) Not so much about this statue, but about a wider point. Is there a danger that when awakened awareness of a history of racism leads to getting rid of evidence and reminders of how blatantly open it was, that is not so much because of shame, but rather because of mere embarrassment? Reminders can serve a real purpose. |
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27 Apr 18 - 01:03 PM (#3920432) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: mg I would split statues in two. Put them in different areas. Both are nice. |
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27 Apr 18 - 01:26 PM (#3920437) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Looking at the pictures, it's Stephen Foster who looks awkward, perched in an uncomfortable position, looking as if he is liable to fall off any minute. The banjo player is sitting comfortably and at ease. If the face was Pete Seeger's, say, would any think that the man was seated subserviently? And it’s a good head on that statue, it wa made with respect for the sitter, and implicitly for the music he's making. Stephen Foster looks a bit of an afterthought. |
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27 Apr 18 - 01:48 PM (#3920447) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself I agree that it is a fine statue. However, if the local Black citizens in general are hurt and offended by it, then take it away. Bring it back when the pain of racism is a distant memory. |
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27 Apr 18 - 02:03 PM (#3920454) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Bonzo3legs Pathetic, small minded idiots. |
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27 Apr 18 - 02:33 PM (#3920457) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Joe Offer Considered on its own, I see nothing wrong with the statue. But taken in the context of the nationwide campaign by the Ku Klux Klan and others to whitewash the history of slavery and the Confederacy, the statue becomes objectionable. This campaign to glorify the South ran from about 1875-1940. To my mind, the Foster statue is an ancillary casualty in the current campaign to remove vestiges of the earlier Ku Klux Klan whitewash campaign. Seen in that context, I think it makes sense to remove the statues. -Joe- |
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27 Apr 18 - 02:45 PM (#3920463) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker I'd suggest a national park gallery of withdrawn contentious statues, with a multi media educative program spotlighting each statue in it's historic and cultural context... Also, online and in person outreach work tied in with schools, colleges, and universities. Free entry would be cool.. but I'm sure a reasonable ticket price would be acceptable.. |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:13 PM (#3920477) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself You know - commemorative statues, no matter how contentious, are just not all that exciting. Take the school kids to the zoo. |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:22 PM (#3920486) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker Why can't we have gigantic national monument statues of Penguins... |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:24 PM (#3920488) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: beardedbruce Too formal? |
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27 Apr 18 - 03:26 PM (#3920493) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Big Al Whittle just recently they've put a statue of the late Queen Mother in Dorchester. its jet black. |
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27 Apr 18 - 09:06 PM (#3920537) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Joe Offer Meself says: You know - commemorative statues, no matter how contentious, are just not all that exciting. You've got a point there. Before people got all hot-and-bothered about Confederate statues, the only ones who seemed to care were the pigeons. I always found some justice in finding pigeon crap on all the statues of our racist, manifest destiny heroes. We Americans don't really have many heroes. They're all tainted by racism and manifest destiny, and pigeon shit. -Joe- |
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27 Apr 18 - 09:10 PM (#3920538) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Rapparee . A statue where I used to work. It's made from melted and recast firearms. |
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28 Apr 18 - 04:42 AM (#3920600) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow I think there's a lot to be said for keeping statues life sized, and at ground level. Like this one of Paddington Bear, Or this one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, both from Paddington Station in London. |
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28 Apr 18 - 05:42 AM (#3920610) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: The Sandman Could we have a park of commemorative statues to White Elkephants? |
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28 Apr 18 - 11:36 AM (#3920667) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker These would be more appropriate statues to be erected close to Parliament... more |
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28 Apr 18 - 01:34 PM (#3920702) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Joe Offer On my cross-country trip in the fall of 2016, I spent the night in Rapid City, South Dakota, between the Black Hills and the Badlands. The downtown district has a statue on every corner, all these bronze people waiting for the traffic light to change. They have statues of most or all of the U.S. Presidents on their street corners, and other figures, too. It's kinda cool. Springfield, Illinois, capitalizes on Abraham Lincoln, and there are statues of Honest Abe all over the place. I sat down next to Abe on a park bench in downtown Springfield. Oh, and there are great statues of Lincoln and Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois, the site of their first debate. -Joe- |
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28 Apr 18 - 02:24 PM (#3920716) Subject: ARE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Here's a great statue you can sit next to any time you're in my family town of Cahir in Tipperary. Maybe they could move that banjo player over to Ireland and sit him down there and they could have a session. |
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28 Apr 18 - 02:49 PM (#3920725) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself You can help this fellow finish of his chess game in downtown Calgary .... |
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28 Apr 18 - 02:50 PM (#3920726) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself Whoops! Didn't come out exactly the way I wanted - but scroll down a bit and you'll see him. |
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30 Apr 18 - 08:25 PM (#3921247) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Anyway, I hope that statue with Stephen Foster and the banjo player gets put in a decent place where people can see it. This is as good a portrayal of a music maker as I've ever seen. Wouldn't you love to run into him in a session? |
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30 Apr 18 - 09:28 PM (#3921252) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: meself I agree - and I suspect the artist was much more excited about doing that part of the monument than about doing Foster, which(who) is bland and work-a-day by comparison. |
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30 Apr 18 - 09:54 PM (#3921256) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor Perhaps you'd have to live in the U.S. and have some sense of our difficult racial history to be able to appreciate how offensive that statue must be to most African-Americans and many non-blacks. It certainly shouldn't be displayed in public. |
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01 May 18 - 02:32 AM (#3921267) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Allan Conn Best statue I've been to was the Connemara Giant in Ireland. Not because it is a wonderful statue. It isn't - but it was a laugh. We drove about 20 miles into the middle of nowhere just to see this bloody thing and when we got there this was this statue of a giant with the plaque reading something like the following - though sorry I can't remember the actual date is uses "on this spot in the year ???? absolutely nothing happened". We had quite an amusing time just watching tourists trying to work out what it was all about |
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01 May 18 - 06:18 AM (#3921301) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Look at that face of the banjo player, gillymor, and find something offensive in it. |
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01 May 18 - 07:00 AM (#3921309) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Donuel In this cultural revolution we won't be sent to re education camps however it does work on some Klan and Nazi sympathizers. Do you know where your little Red Book is? |
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01 May 18 - 07:15 AM (#3921314) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor Mac, "that smiling face" on that happy "darkie" serves to perpetuate a myth, still extant in some quarters, mostly the American south, that blacks are base ignorant animals and were better off as slaves. Reading antebellum slave journals should dissuade anyone from that notion. |
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01 May 18 - 08:27 AM (#3921324) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow He looks like most banjo players I've met, gillymor. I'd be reluctant to say that they look like base ignorant animals. I'm not criticising the decision to shift that statue from its existent site, that's their business and they've given fair reasons. But I think that it's a pretty good statue, especially so far as the banjo player is concerned, and deserves to be treated respectfully. Maybe some researcher could hunt down who was the model for that figure. He looks like a very real person whose name might be tracked down. |
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01 May 18 - 08:55 AM (#3921337) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor Once again, maybe you have to live in this country and actually know some American blacks to be aware that anything that glorifies, wether it's intentional or not, the long, brutal, bloody plantation era in this country is highly offensive to them and hopefully anyone else who is aware of this dark time in our history. Statues are not nuanced historical essays they are stark symbols designed for visual impact and don't come with instruction manuals. The last I time I checked the city of Pittsburgh can't even give this thing away. |
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01 May 18 - 10:04 AM (#3921357) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker My wife is mortified that her elderly aunty in Wales still has plaster cast figures of jolly stereotype black people outside her front door.. Are UK garden centres still selling these gollyesque little statues on the same shelves as more traditional garden gnomes...??? |
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01 May 18 - 12:59 PM (#3921420) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow One odd thing is, there's no suggestion whatsoever in Stephen Foster's song that "Uncle Ben" played the banjo. I gather that opposite the former site of the statue there is a sizeable Stephen Foster Memorisl arts centre and museum, part of the University of Pittsburgh. Is this under threat? |
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01 May 18 - 12:59 PM (#3921421) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow One odd thing is, there's no suggestion whatsoever in Stephen Foster's song that "Uncle Ben" played the banjo. I gather that opposite the former site of the statue there is a sizeable Stephen Foster Memorisl arts centre and museum, part of the University of Pittsburgh. Is this under threat? |
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01 May 18 - 02:37 PM (#3921445) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: keberoxu A group of statues have recently been erected in the Deep South, here in the U. S.; they are part of a memorial museum/historical society exhibit. These are African-American figures who represent the families torn apart by lynching. So one sees husbands and wives, parents and children, in the most vivid emotional expression. I'm nowhere near this event, but the news media did stories on it. |
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01 May 18 - 02:47 PM (#3921451) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Donuel https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/legacy-museum-opens-montgomery-alabama-highlight-slavery-lynchings-n869686 first statues up in defiance of the Confederacy. It took some time. |
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02 May 18 - 04:47 AM (#3921538) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Hrothgar Why did they not just remove the black man? |
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02 May 18 - 05:44 AM (#3921545) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Big Al Whittle (I wonder if we will ever get like that in England. God knows Victorian factories with their long hours, brutal overseers, non existent safety regulations and murderous effects on life expectacy must have been quite as bad as plantation work. I suppose the people weren't slaves - but it was certainly one fuck of a life for most people. And yet we tend to honour these industrialists. We restore their hell hole factories to look like cathedrals.In living memory our politicians have received standing ovations asking for a return to Victorian values. |
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02 May 18 - 08:30 AM (#3921578) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker At least up North they have statues to real heroes... Billy Fury and Eric Morecambe... |
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02 May 18 - 08:31 AM (#3921580) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: beardedbruce What, those English factories that bought the Southern cotton, to turn the blood and sweat of American slaves into British trade goods? Be careful- there are those here that would treat you less than kindly. |
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02 May 18 - 08:42 AM (#3921583) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Donuel bbruce It sounds like you have been watching my cousin Gene Hackman, the Captain in Crimson Tide. Remember how they were both right and both wrong? A demonstrator at a statue relocation of Robt.E Lee was killed and others injured yesterday. Crazy. |
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02 May 18 - 08:56 AM (#3921586) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: beardedbruce Donual, How so? I noted that the Victorian factories ( mentioned as almost as bad as slavery) were based on the cotton from the American South, produced by slaves. Without US slavery, those mills would have been dependent on other sources- Like Egypt and India... Not that the English would mistreat their plantation workers, now would they? And the wealth of the pre-Civil War North (US) was based on industry selling to the South, and until outlawed, on the slave trade. But sure,let's let Pittsburg, PA be a symbol of the evils of the Deep South. "Foster, a Pittsburgh native, is often called the father of American music and was known for enduring tunes from the 1800s." |
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02 May 18 - 09:26 AM (#3921599) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Somehow I'm reminded of the story of the small boy taken to see a statue of General Gordon seated on a camel. He greatly admires it, and then asks "why have they got that man in a uniform sitting on General Gordon?" I'd have favoured maybe detaching Stephen Foster, and moving him across the road to his Memorial, and keeping the man playing the banjo. And bringing him down to ground level perhaps. |
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02 May 18 - 09:37 AM (#3921604) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: beardedbruce McGrath, Not a bad idea, at all. Perhaps you can forward it to Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh Art Commission http://pittsburghpa.gov/dcp/art-commission/index.html The Art Commission works to improve the aesthetic quality of the City's public spaces. The Commission is comprised of seven members appointed by the Mayor, and each member represents a various discipline in the arts or design field. The Art Commission is mandated to review the urban design, architectural, and landscape features of structures which are erected on or above land owned by the City. These are structures or landscapes which are within the public realm and under its control and in which City funds are invested; including parks and bridges. The Art Commission administers the review process, which includes preliminary and final approvals. The Art Commission is also mandated to review all works of art owned by the City of Pittsburgh and also art works proposed to be acquired by the City. For more information about the Art Commission, email Yesica Guerra, the Public Art & Civic Design Manager, at yesica.guerra@pittsburghpa.gov. Commissioners Rob Indovina, Acting Chair Mark Baskinger Sarika Goulatia Kathryn Heidemann Kilolo Luckett Kary Arimoto-Mercer Andrew Moss Ex-Officio Members Mike Gable Karina Ricks For more information about the art commission, please see the Art Commission FAQ tab above. Art Commission Hearings are open to the public. Community members are welcome to provide in person or written statements about items on the Art Commission agenda each month. To send written statements, write to Art Commission, c/o The Department of City Planning, 200 Ross Street, 4th Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 or email comment@pittsburghpa.gov |
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02 May 18 - 09:37 AM (#3921605) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Nigel Parsons Remembering the Santayana quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.", removing statues that 'glorify' slavery (whether they do or not) without replacing them with something equally memorable seems to risk coming to a state where slavery is not a past memory, but something which has never been considered. Leaving the statues in place at least allows them to be discussed. |
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02 May 18 - 07:36 PM (#3921717) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow A real danger, Nigel. A new survey shows that 41% of Americans and two-thirds of 18-34 year olds don't know about Auschwitz. People need reminding of the terrible things their ancestors did, or went along with. |
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03 May 18 - 06:48 AM (#3921780) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor People will be reminded of the most shameful aspect of American history but thankfully not by some stupid uncle tom statue that sanitizes and glorifies it. Here's another link to the Legacy Museun in Montgomery, Alabama., that Donuel linked below, in case anyone missed it. |
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03 May 18 - 08:28 AM (#3921793) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow Maybe so. But I strongly suspect that the emphasis is far more likely to be about sanitising reminders rather than ensuring that they are effective. This article from Atlantic Monthly in 2016 reports the establishment of what is evidently the first museum in America specifically about the slavery history of America. It states that there are some " 35,000 museums that memorialise our culture and history". Too often in these kind of matters the watchword "Move On" is too readily applied. You need to clean a wound properly before you close it up. |
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03 May 18 - 08:55 AM (#3921797) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor I can't see how leaving a statue in place that has been deemed too offensive for public display will, in your words, "clean a wound properly". That type of racist monument, and many others like it that are going down, has caused that wound to continue to fester for 150 years. |
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03 May 18 - 09:16 AM (#3921806) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: punkfolkrocker gillymor - I agree leaving them in place is too problematic for many reasons.. But I can't accept willful destruction either... earlier in this thread I commented: "I'd suggest a national park gallery of withdrawn contentious statues, with a multi media educative program spotlighting each statue in it's historic and cultural context... Also, online and in person outreach work tied in with schools, colleges, and universities." As an ex art gallery education outreach worker [a very long time ago...] that to me at least, seems like a reasonable and positively constructive compromise proposal..??? |
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03 May 18 - 01:11 PM (#3921890) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow As I have said, removing this statue from its position is a reasonable thing to have been done in the circumstances. If black people in Pittsburgh see that the presence of the black banjo player in his seated position as implying subservience, or as carrying some message favourable to slevery, and hence as being offensive, that has to be accepted, and the statue had to be removed. However I think it should not be seen in the same light as triumphalist statues elsewhere of generals who waged war to defend slavery. It shouldn't end up in a park of shame alongside them. |
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03 May 18 - 04:11 PM (#3921928) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: gillymor pfr- I'm not advocating the destruction of these monuments, if some one wants to display them on private property, without the use of public funds, that's their business. As for museums, I prefer the approach of the Legacy Museum mentioned above. Noted, McGrath, but I disagree, I think monuments that commemorate the Minstrel Era, when blacks were depicted as lazy,sub-human, buffoons fit only for use as entertainers or as beasts of burden (an attitude that is still pervasive in some areas of this country) are just as pernicious as the statues that were erected to perpetuate the myth of the glorious lost cause and to demonstrate white supremacy. That Minstrel stuff went on right up into the 1930's to some degree and as a one time member of a large extended black family I can tell you it was not appreciated, to say the least. BTW, I'm not sure if you were implying it but it's not just black Americans that find these racist monuments offensive. Now I've said all I have to say on this subject. I think we covered it pretty thoroughly on the Confederate Monuments thread not so long ago. |
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06 May 18 - 11:28 AM (#3922513) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Big Al Whittle the black and white minstrel show was doing good business right up to the 1970's in England. in fact i can remember people saying it was harmless fun, and those who found it offensive were rotten killjoys. |
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06 May 18 - 02:41 PM (#3922554) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow But of course the banjo player in the statue is not a costumed Blackface Minstrel. He's just a black man playing the banjo. (And in the time the statue was made it would have been quite probable that Giuseppe Moretti might have portrayed him as a Minstrel, and he didn't.) |
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06 May 18 - 06:44 PM (#3922589) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: robomatic I recall a statue in downtown Boston of Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation. I think it also displayed a black slave in broken manacles. Gonna try to research this. . . and if there have been suggestions that it be taken down. |
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06 May 18 - 06:53 PM (#3922591) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: robomatic Ayuh! It is the Emancipation Memorial. Apparently it dates back to Reconstruction Era, and was paid for by African Americans, but is controversial. I ran into it purely by walking around. |
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06 May 18 - 09:08 PM (#3922599) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Elmore Frederick Douglass isn't crazy about the memorial, and as 45 noted, we've been hearing a lot of good things about Douglass lately. |
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06 May 18 - 09:13 PM (#3922602) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: robomatic I sure hope you meant to use the past tense, because in that very Wikipedia article I linked it says: "Frederick Douglass spoke as the keynote speaker at the dedication service on April 14, 1876, with President Ulysses S. Grant in attendance.[13] John Cromwell, a Howard University historian, who was in the audience, reported that Douglass said the statue "showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom."" |
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06 May 18 - 09:21 PM (#3922605) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: robomatic I need to clarify both for myself and the rest of you that the link refers to the original statue in Washington D.C. but a copy of that statue was donated to Boston and this is the statue I actually visited. |
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07 May 18 - 10:45 PM (#3922811) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: Ebbie A National Park or a museum(s) seems appropriate to me. Reminders of what we were- and perhaps still are- are important. We have to remind ourselves that the offender does not get to decide what is offensive; that perception belongs to those offended. |
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08 May 18 - 04:49 PM (#3923009) Subject: RE: BS: Another statue down - Stephen Foster! From: McGrath of Harlow In principle that's right. In practice all too often the decisions get made as a kind of 'virtue signalling" on behalf of supposed targets. So there have been cases where Christmas Crib display have been challenged or even removed as offensive to Muslims, This can even serve to stir up resentment against Muslims. And yet in fact there may have been no indication that such offence is felt, and indeed Muslims may have said they weren't in the least offended. That's a general point - I'm not implying that in Pittsburgh the removal of the statue would not have reflected the wishes of the local black community. |
