President; Obama's elegant solution to the "confederate wreath problem"

In recent days there's been some discussion about whether Obama should continue the presidential tradition of sending a wreath to honor confederate soldiers. Obama did continue that tradition today but he sent another wreath. For the first time a president has sent a wreath to honor the 200,000 African American soldiers who fought for the north.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/us/politics/26wreath.html

So smart.

why it took so long for a president to do this is what annoys me.

Extremely pathetic.

We rarely honor the services of minorities or women in this country

It's sickening.

who fought *for* the United States?


Fantastic.

pretty damning as well.

Another great perk of the Perfect Storm from President Obama.

Obama's gesture is probably smart politics.

While the Subject of my post is a bit of a snark, I really just want to remind people that history is messy, certainly that of the Civil War and even that of Memorial Day. Things like AA slave owners, slaves in the North, indentured service (sometimes from birth), free Blacks in the armies of the South, and a lot more.

And speaks to the fact that there really is something different with us today.

:thumbsup:

Not my idea of the right thing to do as we should never have started honoring confederate soldiers in the first place. So when do we end this disgusting practice?

How about never? It was over 200 years ago; get over it.

Get over that.

I suspect not.

The confederacy doesn't deserve forgiveness. They can burn in hell for all I care as do those who'd excuse them. Feel free to join them.

And you're annoyed at my disgust for the confederacy. So I'm concluding your ideology allies with them and that tells me all I need to know about further contact with you.

you made up your mind about who you think I am a long time ago. You've had a habit of doing that in your life, I suspect.

I don't know you other than what I've read. So yeah I've made my decision based on this last exchange. That's what reasonable people do.

No, that's what immature people who live by their emotions and refuse to let go of grudges do.


Your anger is justified, actually; this country's government hasn't done enough to show it's remorse for injustices done to our people. But because I merely suggested that you forgive, you've already got me pegged as a racist who agrees with the confederacy. That's what you've been TAUGHT to do. Perhaps I was a little harsh with the "get over it" line. But I stand by my sentiment. IMO it does President Obama no good to open old wounds by refusing to lay a wreath for some old racist white men who've been dead over 200 years.

And I am well aware that our country hasn't done enough to show its remorse. Frankly, there are times that when I don't think this country feels any remorse at all since it's attitude is always lets move on which is code for "we're not going to do shit. Let's pretend everything is fine." Well it's not fine. And I don't think the wound is as old as you'd like to think it is. We have neoconfederates who apparently have so much clout that the President lays a wreath at their memorial despite the documented racism of its founding group. Yet people on this board think this is a reconciliation.

What exactly are we reconciling? Because it feels like a slap in the face to have the first black president lay a wreath on a memorial put down by people who haven't repudiated their racism at all. Unless my definition of reconciliation is mistaken, which I know damn well is not.

Attacking me is not justified. You're a ticking time bomb of bitterness resentment and unforgiveness and someone needs to get in your face and tell you to tone it down.

It is true also that the wound isn't healed (your posts are proof of that). You're still hurting, very much. But the biggest responsibility we have with anger and hurt towards injustice is knowing what to do with that anger. It's obvious what you've chosen to do with yours.

I believe it was a beautiful thing President Obama did today laying that wreath at the African American Civil War Memorial. I don't see it as any sort of compromise, but rather the beginning of a wonderful tradition (granted it shouldn't have taken the first AA President for that to happen) but I'm willing to bet that future Presidents will continue what President Obama started, and that's good enough for me. I'm sorry if it's not good enough for you.

That person did nothing to you other than to express an idea, but you'd condemn them like that.

Which I consider disrespectful and is usually a tactic used by those who have very little respect for black people in general. I make it a point to avoid people with those attitudes when I can. I get enough of that shit out in the street.

Is that okay with you?

Over the top much.

Obviously, there's no discussing this issue with you.

It appears that in this country only black people get the "it's been x number of years get over it" line. These people wouldn't dare say the same to other groups. That's the point.

People who wouldn't dismiss the Holocaust dismiss black people in this country all the time. Your reaction just proves my point.

Not all who fought for the south in the war did so because they were "slavers and racist". Do you really need that history lesson?

"Chillax."

:rofl:

FFS, like today, most soldiers had no real idea what they were fighting about.
In this case they were fighting for their homes, for their families, we have come together, we need to stay together.

after the Civil War. That's the point; we didn't "get over it."

Everyone who has given their lives for America should be honored.

it doesn't cause needless grief or acrimony or pull the scab off old wounds.

That we will never do right by our history? That's not exactly the message I was looking for.

by sending a wreath to the AA soldiers who served in the Union, he sent a pointed message about which side of that conflict was the righteous side and he did it without setting off anger and hate.

There were 60 college professors who wrote Obama urging him to not put a wreath on the Confederate memorial. If he had complied with that, he would have caught hell. However, he decided to start a new tradition that was suggested by one of the professors in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. He was weighing this compromise over for the last few days leading up to Memorial Day.

I think he made a very nice gesture with the new wreath. Not all Americans understand the sacrifices made by African Americans fighting for the Union army in the Civil War.

Pat Buchanan applauded Reagan's 1985 obscene visit to the SS cemetery in Bitburg.

Text of Letter to President Obama

Scolars Ask President to Rethink Sending Wreath to Confederate Monument

May 23, 2009

Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument By Edward Sebesta and James Loewen This letter was written by Edward Sebesta and James Loewen and signed by the scholars listed below.

May 18, 2009

President Barack H. Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day.

We ask you to not send a wreath or some other commemorative token to the Arlington Confederate Monument during your administration or after.

There are several reasons as to why this monument, a product of the Nadir in American race relations, should not be honored, and we list and explain them in this letter.

The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy and glorify the Confederacy. It isn't just a remembrance of the dead. The speeches at its ground-breaking and dedication defended and held up as glorious the Confederacy and the ideas behind it and stated that the monument was to these ideals as well as the dead. It was also intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers. In its design it also tells wrong history, boasting fourteen shields with the coat of arms of fourteen states. Thus it claims that Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were part of the Confederacy. They weren't.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=7658404&page=1

it's a sign of maturity of understanding that the war is over and that reopening old wounds won't do any good, that healing wounds is better than ripping them open. it's a signal that this man understands the many strands that make up the national psyche. the historians make some good points, but Obama is making a better one.

That was never a memorial to fallen soldiers, but a monument to segregation forever.

:eyes:

It is a memorial to Confederacy and its principles.

...forever.

got it.

I feel sorry for folks revert to the old "good guys" versus "bad guys" simpleton dichotomies. With this president, they'll only be disappointed.

to the vast majority of people it is indeed simply a memorial to the confederate dead and that transformation from monument to segregation to monument to veterans-kills the power of the original intent far more completely than creating an acrimonious mess.

Just say it. You know you want too.

was not an "SS" cemetary. Two thousand war graves at Bitsburg, 47 belong to members of the Waffen SS. Hardly makes it a SS cemetary. Make as much sense to call Arlington National Cemetary a "Confederate" cemetary because amoung 300,000 graves are the graves of 470 Confederate soldiers.

Isn't that segregation?

Every memorial gets its own wreath. Except for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which gets presented by the president himself, it is usually aides or subordinates who deliver the wreaths to the various memorials at Arlington or elsewhere in the D.C. vicinity.

who died in some rich man's war.

-sigh-

it's racist to suggest that those menn don't deserve their own memorial and that they don't deserve a wreath on Memorial Day. Not to hard to figute out.

I stand corrected. Do they call it the Jim Crow Memorial?

that comment is racist and hateful and sick. These are people who deserve to honored just as the Tuskegee Airman are honored. it's hardly their fault, genius, that they were discriminated against. It's not as if there's a separate monument to AA soldiers who served in Vietnam or other wars where they weren't segregated.

Disgisting and stupid. Congrats.

:loveya:

... would favor not sending a wreath to their memorial too, since "the cause" is often cited as the reason why some here want to ignore a segment of fallen U.S. Veterans on this day, just because they were taught a misguided version of "correct" U.S. history. Like it's that cut and dried. Oh wait, we're talking about DU here. :eyes:

to a monument that extols what the Confederacy stood for.

for their discussion in this thread. Your forthrightness and honesty are appreciated, at least by me.

Buffalo Soldiers

Written by Yussuf Simmonds, (Asst. Managing Editor), on 04-23-2009
http://www.lasentinel.net/Buffalo-Soldiers.html
...>
From 1869 to the turn of the century, the army had established several all-Black units and as the country expanded west, Buffalo soldiers were an integral fighting force during the Indian Wars (1870-1891), the Spanish-American War (1898), the Philippines War (1899-1901) and General Pershing's expedition into Mexico (1916)
<>
During the Indian Wars, the Native Americans were often stunned because, to them, the Buffalo soldiers, like them, were mistreated by the White man; yet they were fighting on the White man's side against them (the Indians).
<>
The Indians admonished the Blacks that they would not fight for them since they fought one the White man's side against the Indians). It seemed tragedy to have one oppressed people killing another in the name and for the benefit of their mutual oppressor. Though the equation of a shared oppressor was never foremost in the minds of the Buffalo soldiers. As a result the relationship between Black and Native Americans had been mostly problematic and some of the Indians regarded the Buffalo soldiers as "black white men."
<...
http://www.lasentinel.net/Buffalo-Soldiers.html

No wreath for the Native 'American'?