RevolverRob
06-10-2020, 01:31 PM
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/us/fredericksburg-slave-auction-block-removal-trnd/index.html
The city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has removed an auction block marking the spot where African Americans were once displayed and sold as slaves.
I understand the symbols of this past bring pain to many. I disagree with the removal of the stone. It stood, in stark contrast, to the advancement around it, as a representative of a time past. And frankly should have served as a reminder to those who saw it - that evil occurred there and that no place can be entirely free from understanding its past. And that we are inheritors of that past and should endeavor to make the present and future a better place. This was not a monument revering the Confederacy or revering those who championed slave rights. It was a marker that demonstrated, "Here people once sold other people as property." And to remove it from its original context - denies the symbol of the power of that context.
They removed the block and will put it on display in the local history museum:
The Fredericksburg Memorials Advisory Commission is developing a plan to commemorate the site with historical context. The slave auction block itself is on loan to the Fredericksburg Area Museum for the next 20 years. Sara Poore, president and CEO, said the museum aims to work with the community to tell the most accurate interpretation of the slave auction block. She was in favor of the slave auction block's removal, saying that the site has been "a source of pain and suffering for so long."
I find this solution not amenable. While I know many of us visit museums regularly, as someone who works regularly within one of the largest and most famous museums globally, in a city of 5-million people with millions of annual visitors to the city, the museum's annual visitor rate flags at about 1.5 million people. As a result scores more people wander around the city and are free to ignore the past that is housed within our building. Out of sight - out of mind - is precisely what happens when we remove these things. Removing this auction block and placing it in a museum serves only to turn the block and what it represents into a stamp, a foot note, in the past. It does not allow an organic interaction that evokes the emotion and logical thoughts that should surround these objects.
In short - these efforts to appease few - are to the detriment of many - in a disturbing reversal of what that auction block was originally used for...The cognitive dissonance surrounding these types of efforts really blows my mind.
I get not wanting statutes, statutes erected in the very recent past, dedicated to people who should not be particularly honored. But removing an actual, factual, piece of history, further denigrates those who were subjugated, by hiding the material representations, and reminders, of the horrors that took place.
The city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has removed an auction block marking the spot where African Americans were once displayed and sold as slaves.
I understand the symbols of this past bring pain to many. I disagree with the removal of the stone. It stood, in stark contrast, to the advancement around it, as a representative of a time past. And frankly should have served as a reminder to those who saw it - that evil occurred there and that no place can be entirely free from understanding its past. And that we are inheritors of that past and should endeavor to make the present and future a better place. This was not a monument revering the Confederacy or revering those who championed slave rights. It was a marker that demonstrated, "Here people once sold other people as property." And to remove it from its original context - denies the symbol of the power of that context.
They removed the block and will put it on display in the local history museum:
The Fredericksburg Memorials Advisory Commission is developing a plan to commemorate the site with historical context. The slave auction block itself is on loan to the Fredericksburg Area Museum for the next 20 years. Sara Poore, president and CEO, said the museum aims to work with the community to tell the most accurate interpretation of the slave auction block. She was in favor of the slave auction block's removal, saying that the site has been "a source of pain and suffering for so long."
I find this solution not amenable. While I know many of us visit museums regularly, as someone who works regularly within one of the largest and most famous museums globally, in a city of 5-million people with millions of annual visitors to the city, the museum's annual visitor rate flags at about 1.5 million people. As a result scores more people wander around the city and are free to ignore the past that is housed within our building. Out of sight - out of mind - is precisely what happens when we remove these things. Removing this auction block and placing it in a museum serves only to turn the block and what it represents into a stamp, a foot note, in the past. It does not allow an organic interaction that evokes the emotion and logical thoughts that should surround these objects.
In short - these efforts to appease few - are to the detriment of many - in a disturbing reversal of what that auction block was originally used for...The cognitive dissonance surrounding these types of efforts really blows my mind.
I get not wanting statutes, statutes erected in the very recent past, dedicated to people who should not be particularly honored. But removing an actual, factual, piece of history, further denigrates those who were subjugated, by hiding the material representations, and reminders, of the horrors that took place.