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[prytania3]

Realfrancie wrote:

Anyway, I continue to ponder the portrait display as described by the OP, its particular context and the professor's intent.

Okay, Francie. I also am pulling my hair out trying to figure out the professor's intent, and for that reason, I would like to call a truce with you--at least on this thread. Perhaps we can work together to figure out this enigma. Originally, I thought the pictures were random. but I wasn't thinking like an art history professor. It's all the pictures and flags together that give it meaning The Confederate flag is only one feature of the display. Acrimone has admitted the history prof has a reason for the display, and Acrimone knows thst reason; nonetheless, he is remaining mum.

Now, it could be the professor is making a statement about freedom of speech/expression, and I think he is; however, I think there is a more complex lesson here about the nature of freedom and the nature of history. Now Washington, Lafayette, and Jefferson are all Revolutionary figures, but Lee is the odd man out. He is the one that everyone objects to, especially wrapped in the Confederate battle flag; however, Lee served in the U.S. Army for 30 years prior to the Civil War and was offered a commission to lead the Union Army, which he did not take--not because he was a supporter of slavery, but because, for better or worse, his highest loyalty rested with the state of Virginia.

"If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But, if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, or that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow my native State with my sword, and if need be with my life."

Now when Lee said this, Virginia was still overwhelmingly Unionist but Virginia also made it clear that they would not attack other Southern states. After Fort Sumter, however, Virginia decided to secede.  Lee said:

With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.

So, in essence, Lee fought for a cause he didn't believe in, on a side to which he was opposed.

Now, what does that have to do with anything? I don't have a clue. I'm just throwing it out there to see if anyone else can add a piece to the puzzle.

[I also wonder if the OP didn't cook up this scenario just to get us going.  I always worry about that possibility here in CHE-land.  I am actually quite suspicious by nature, the perception of me as warm-hearted and cookie-scented notwithstanding

Who cares? It's interesting, and don't worry, I I don't picture you that way.

Oh, and I meant 1856 as the date all of Lee's slaves were freed, and 1865 when Grant freed his. Duhhh.....

[larryc]

Lee did free his slaves several years before the Civil War. And they proceeded to stay and live on his plantation afterward.

Dagnabbit, do I have to refute every Daughters of the Confederacy talking point in this thread?

Lee freed his wife's slaves. Part of her dowry was a group of slaves, but with the proviso that they were to be freed within a number of years.  Lee had no choice in the matter.  He did free some a few years before the required date, but that is because the slaves found out that they were to be free in a few years and became (understandably) pretty useless as slaves. In letters to friends, Lee complained bitterly about the ingratitude of these slaves and how he decided to free them as a cost-saving measure.

Lee was not against the Black vote after the war.

False. Regarding black suffrage, Lee wrote: "they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways." Though his views were expressed with more reserve, he was on the same page as Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Ku Klux Klan. The movement to disenfranchise blacks after Reconstruction drew strength from the support of Lee.

However much the habit it is to whitewash Lee in certain circles, the man betrayed his country to support white supremacy.

[larryc]

1865 when Grant freed his. Duhhh.....

Where are you getting this? Grant was raised in a sternly abolitionist family.  When he married Julia Dent, her prominent slave-owning father gave the couple one slave, William Jones, whom Grant freed in 1859, despite (or because of?) Grant's enormous debt. Jones is the only slave Grant ever owned.

[gennimom]

Funny you should mention Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest, for whom Forrest County, MS is named, distanced himself from the Klan after disagreeing with some of their actions.

"In 1869, Forrest, disagreeing with its increasingly violent tactics, ordered the Klan to disband, stating that it was "being perverted from its original honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace." Many of its groups in other parts of the country ignored the order and continued to function."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

[ablewasi]

Why has this become a debate about the character of Robert E Lee?  OP, perhaps you should ask your colleague to replace his portrait of Lee with that of a Union officer one who did not “betray his country to support white supremacy”.  May I suggest George A. Custer?  I guess historical revisionism depends on your starting point.

Aandsdean is absolutely correct when he says:

“The problem with the Confederate battle flag (that one in particular, not any of the others from the Confederacy) is that it's been so thoroughly coopted by racist organizations and crossburners that even someone with the very best and most honorable of intentions can't fly or display it in any way that will mitigate those associations.  It CANNOT be displayed without invoking those associations, and surely anyone who's a professor can understand that even if s/he doesn't like or agree with the hermeneutic process involved.”

To me, the important issue is whether we have the right to demand that another person share this sense of outrage.  Educate him, if you can. Shun him if you like. But don’t demand he share or, worse, pretend to share your beliefs.

To do irreparable injustice to Voltaire and Samuel Johnson: “I’ll defend to the death your right to say what I may disagree with, but I’m going to beat you with this leg of mutton if you actually say it.”  Since I choose not to beat people with legs of mutton, I just have to walk away.


Being an aggressive advocate of the First Amendment , I refer to the anyone who cares to the link in “Discuss Chronicle Articles”

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,29717.0.html

[prytania3]

1865 when Grant freed his. Duhhh.....

Where are you getting this? Grant was raised in a sternly abolitionist family.  When he married Julia Dent, her prominent slave-owning father gave the couple one slave, William Jones, whom Grant freed in 1859, despite (or because of?) Grant's enormous debt. Jones is the only slave Grant ever owned.

You're right. I'm confusing him with General Sherman. My bad. Btw, wasn't he against the black vote?

But look here, you're saying Lee's slaves were actually his wife's? So that means he owned no slaves? I'm confused.
I do know his father-in-law specified in his will that his slaves should be freed, but you know, those kind of things weren't strictly enforced either. Be that as it may, by 1859, Grant had one more slave than Lee, which seems to be one slave too many for an abolitionist.

But look, Larry, Lee was a man of his time, and the idea of white supremecy ruled the day in both the North and South. Lincoln said:

I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform—opposition to the spread of slavery—is most favorable to that separation.

Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one; but "when there is a will there is a way;" and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.

Hmmm, sounds like Abe wanted to send slaves back to Africa.

But the point isn't to quibble about racism back then because they were all racists, and they were all white supremicists. The point is that this professor has these four pictures up as a statement. It is easy to target the Confederate flag as a statement of racism, and most of the time it is, but what does it mean in this context?

[prytania3]

Why has this become a debate about the character of Robert E Lee?  OP, perhaps you should ask your colleague to replace his portrait of Lee with that of a Union officer one who did not “betray his country to support white supremacy”.  May I suggest George A. Custer?  I guess historical revisionism depends on your starting point.

I started it because I think the 4 pictures together have meaning. Out of the 4, Lee is the one demonized, so I was just throwing things out, which possibly may be clues.

[ablewasi]

p3 et al

Sorry, just cranky, I guess.  I need to get back to the drunks only thread.

[prytania3]

The display is about art and the First Amendment. So far on this thread the argument has gone--yes, the prof has the constitutional right to drape the flag, but he should refrain because it offends students and evidently faculty. I believe being offensive is EXACTLY his point. You have Washington, Jefferson, and Lafayette--revolutionary figures who stand for liberte, egality, and fraternite, and then you have Lee and the Confederate flag, which totally overshadows the other three. The flag is seen as a symbol of racism and Lee is viewed as a white supremicist; therefore, the argument has gone that the prof should take it down, not because he doesn't have the right to hang it there, but because it offends, and that's what the First Amendment is about: protecting speech and expression that offends. You don't need the First Amendment if you only say neutral and banal things. You can function quite well in a totalitarian state if you keep your conversation to topics like the weather.

Everyone knows the First Amendment is under attack. The right wing thinks the left wing is attacking the First Amendment with PC language. The left wing thinks the right wing is attacking the First Amendment because George Bush and Republicans are pushing through surveillance laws. The left wing is afraid of offending; the right wing wants to spy, and both sides end up chiseling down the First Amendment.

The prof's display says, "If you want freedom, if you want the principles this country was founded upon, then you have to pay the price of being offended. There is no alternative."

What's more, the Confederate flag is probably more offensive to white people than it is to black people because black people have to deal with real racism every day--not just the symbol of racism. They have to deal with getting redlined for mortgages and neighborhoods; they have to worry about their credit scores going down because they're black (and yes, FICO  can and does do that); they have to worry about the cops stopping them because they're in the wrong neighborhood; ; blacks still have to be twice as smart as whites to get to the same career place; They have to deal with insults from the right that they all got their jobs through affirmative action; they have to deal with insults from the left, who are often patronizing with passively racist.

What's more, as the OP said, the professor with the flags and pictures is Chicano a.k.a. Mexican. You think Mexicans don't know what racism is? You think Mexicans have never experienced racism? You think that black people don't know that Mexicans have also experienced racism? And you don't think a black student who visited a Chicano professor with a confederate flag draped around a picture would quickly figure out that there was more to consider about the display and not have a knee-jerk reaction?

This display is about the First Amendment, and the importance of the First Amendment, and hostile colleague is a totalitarian h--oops, got to be careful. One more slip up and I'm banished from the fora.

[larryc]

This is not a free speech issue.  Obviously, the gentleman in question has the constitutional right to love Lee, join the Klan, become a skinhead, or whatever.  But not at work.  The issue here is professional standards. A professor's office should be a place where students can come without being insulted for their race. 

For those claiming this is a matter of free speech: Would you support a professor who had a picture of Hitler, draped with a swastika, in his office?

As to the historical points raised by Pry and others, sure you can find racism in almost any 18th or 19th century figure.  But in some, you can also find a set of principles that clearly point to a more equal society.  In some, you can  see their moral growth.  Jefferson owned slaves, slept with his slave, and held his own biracial children in slavery.  He also penned the words that undercut the rationale and justifications for slavery--and was perfectly aware of what he was doing.  The Lincoln who supported colonization in the 1850s was not the Lincoln who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He had grown morally, pushed by the valiant courage of the hundreds of thousands of black Union troops.  Lincoln and Jefferson and yes Grant were men of their times, but they were also on the right side of history, leading us to greater racial equality.  Lee and Forrest were exactly the opposite.

[dr_dre]

As an aside, as a half-Mexican, I can firmly attest to the fact that, yes, Mexicans understand "racism." Many Mexican-Americans experience discrimination here in the United States. But many are also racists themselves. I heard my Mexican-American grandfather use the "n-word" when I was young, and he was not an anomaly.  "Race," ethnicity, and nationality are not the simple parallels that many like to paint.

[ablewasi]

For those claiming this is a matter of free speech: Would you support a professor who had a picture of Hitler, draped with a swastika, in his office?

larryc

I don't know what you mean by "support".  What behaviour on my part would constitute support?  What would I be supporting?

Faced with the situation you describe, what would course of action would you recommend?

[ablewasi]

Apologies for the proofreading.  One to many "woulds" in that last sentence.

[supernumerary]

Again, the display isn't racist, it is historical. 

Ok, gennimom, are you saying that because the display is historical and not racist the prof should not be concerned about students who get offended? The prof should just say, 'well, the display isn't racist, it's historical, so too bad for the students who are offended'. Is that it?

I don't actually think it matters whether it's 'racist' or not, what matters is whether it's creating a hostile environment for students. But gennimom, I would be very interested to hear whether you're saying that as long as something isn't 'racist' it can be displayed and too bad for those who take offence. Because the fact is that there are students who (rightly or wrongly) will take grievous offence. Do you just say, they're wrong and you'll display whatever you want?

[gennimom]

I'm going to repeat what I said before: We have freedom of speech. Nowhere is it guaranteed that you'll be free from offense. Also, everyone who objects to this display is assuming that students will be offended by this display. Some may, some will not. Some of those who will not will very likely be black. As someone else has said, many blacks are less offended by symbols than they are by actual racism. Why do you think Mississippi kept their flag? The only way it passed was by the votes of blacks and whites alike.
Nobody has the right to make the history professor take anything off his wall, period. You can object all you want. You can call it racism. You can say he should consider the students' feelings. You can NOT make him change how he decorates his office. It is HIS RIGHT to decorate his office anyway he pleases. The display may not be historical, I could be wrong about that. However, the reason he hung it is up to him, and nobody else.