Huh? Are you comparing 1960's civil rights to what is happening now?
You raise an interesting comparison. It seems a strange question to be arguing over publicly financed tributes to enemies of the United States of America, but then we might stop and think about the reasons why we have such discussions in the first place. That is to say,
why is the question of giving public sacred space over for homage to enemies of our society even available for the discourse? Specifically, why put statues paying tribute to our enemies on public land, at public expense, in the first place?
In that consideration, you provide a powerful bridge to the Civil Rights Movement in American history: When American governments pine for treason, we have a problem.
So, you know, romanticism and a bizarre assertion of free speech are what they are, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and these Confederate-Nazi romantics betray the Constitution and the United States of America it empowers. In the end, it is a very persuasive assertion of values: Holding people of color in bondage and hatred is justification, in this traitorous logic, for betraying their country. Wasting your soul is the in thing to do.
The Civil Rights legacy is painfully aware that it has been put on notice: A significant and influential portion of American society believe there is room for discussion in defense of the public trust giving aid and comfort to identifying, declared enemies of the United States of America, as long as it means preserving white supremacism.
But it is generally familiar; in youth, during and right after the Cold War the former traditional guard would admonish against harsh critiques denouncing the racism and sexism of American society. Watching people struggle with the concept of rape culture is a similar experience; traditionalism very badly wants outcomes described with metaphors that sound perverse simply by their application—
e.g., best of both worlds, have their cake and eat it too—as many perceive benefits they might wish to retain within the structure and processes they deny. That is to say, the advice, which was wrong for suggesting such influences were small, scattered, disorganized, and generally powerless, also appears an issue of vested interest for traditionalism, which sought to protect its levers of supremacy; the traditional paradigm found utility in deception.
It would seem the Civil Rights dispute of former decades and generations is still going on. Who knew, right? No, really: Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, right? Because how could anyone possibly have known? You know, beause there's a bunch of white supremacists over there telling us it's still on, but respectable traditionalist mythos informs that we don't attend them because they are few and that's not how America really is; there are a whole lot of people of color telling us every day it's not over, but respectable traditionalist mythos informs that we don't attend them because they are radicals who hate America, and you can't be allowed to define America according to those few bad seeds we don't attend because they are few and that's not how America really is.
And that's pretty much the way it's gone, for decades, in towers of white privilege that kept telling everyone else, whenever it came up, that racism had no power in these United States, and those black radicals need to stop hating America.
This is one of the things that is ending.
Again, the censorship wars of the Eighties come to mind: We didn't listen to the critique about sexual liberation objectifying and exploiting women; we did, however, hold a societal freak-out about the idea that women were not intended to be sexually obedient dolls for their husbands. And so what we arrived at was we damn well do have the right to sing about raping and killing and eating women, or telling them to lick our unkempt assholes, or gangbanging her ass. And, you know, yeah, we do. Isn't that great? And we made our point by calling the women leading the PMRC whores and cunts. And we had a blast doing so. I mean, think about what we won; it was part of what started in '62, and what women got out of that was men's support to be rebellious in order to be good women unto their men even if they weren't married. There is a reason why future generations will not specifically thank us; indeed, the perverse irony is that it is actually possible to argue, with a straight face, that the best way for women to regard the exploitation of their Reevolution is to describe the period as an inevitable phase, and just move on with life. The psychoanalytic meaning of this history is clear.
And what is striking about much of the conservative hardline these days is how much of it actually sounds like the censorship wars. I wouldn't discount similar rhetoric on this occasaion pertaining to other aspects of feminism, such as women in the workplace, married women in the workplace, and the right of a woman to refuse sexual intercourse, except the reason for attending the fluff about heavy metal and then rap is the same market reality describing why we had that fight then instead of another.
While liberals in general, and feminists in particular, have their sometimes complicated, oft-formulaic reasons why or why not, there is a certain insistent simplicity about the conservative response that amounts to dismissing the outcome, "Because you say so." It really is a hard relationship to document because at some point the conservative counterpoint started relying on its own version of, "Because
I say so." Mat Staver is a famous example. "Governor Ultrasound", Bob McDonnell (R-VA) is another. Christian conservatives actually run law schools toward this end, such as Regents University. Conservative health care professionals banded together in groups like NARTH, arguing contrary assertions of medical advice pretty much because they say so; there is also another lesson in there, but lifting luggage is a discussion best reserved for whenever we absolutely must. We should also note that the would-be mainstream #NeverTrump movement selected David French, who ran an organization dedicated to harassing educational institutions on behalf of religios and political theses seeking classroom audiences on the pretense that a school refusing to hire a teacher to present an insupportable thesis as proper academic study is somehow a violation of First Amendment rights; this "because they say so" thing is pretty much mainline among conservatives and their "moderate" and "independent" sympathizers; it has become stock Republican trade.
We're watching the emergence of that long-rumored silent majority; whether or not it actually achieves a proper majority is its own question, and depends on a fundamental #trumpswindle question about who is a mark or in on the grift. Generally speaking, people are still gambling it's not actually a majority, but it's easy to see the proportions they estimate are enough in and of themselves to rattle confidence.
But as the white supremacist silent sympathy roars anew, watch for the familiar manipulations and machinations, the proposition that because they say so, and without regard to function. And in that determined ignorance of and apathy toward function, there will always remain some question about who was really confused and who was going out of their way to confuse them. And when one's freedom and equality require another's lack thereof, such questions become important.
And on
your sarastic point↑ about statues: It was a slow and piecemeal thing that came up here and there in local discourse; a right-wing freakout brought it into focus, and the results of that conservative panic
dramatically accelerated the slow process. Some cities reached out and settled the question overnight.
We should, then, also note that right-wing freakouts do occasionally motivate progress. It took a quarter-century, sure, but all told, that was pretty quick for a societal revolution. But, yeah, marriage equality in 2015 would not have happened without conservatives freaking out sometime around 1989, and not letting up until ... er ... ah ... right, they still haven't.
It's just there's a lot of fucking damage every time conservatives do the right thing by pitching infantile tantrums in order to force everyone to do it for them. And we get that they want to smart afterward, sulking on how we went and did it anyway. It's always a weird thing when one proposes a liberalish complaint that what we ought to do is give aid and comfort to injustice. And, you know, I say liberal
ish because there really isn't any point in muttering this and that about how conservative the Farm and Labor of DFL can be when it comes to anything other than who is giving them money, as your right-wing narrative defies even the worst prejudicial aspects about trying to balance the needs of farm country as Northstar shone its light toward equality. Even then, when DFL was pleading the needs of farm country slowing down their support for marriage equality, they could still talk a proper Democratic game, and even range into liberalism proper. Your apparent ignorance of history, inability to comprehend basic liberal and Democratic discourses—speak nothing of leftist—combined with your insistence on right-wing presupposition to madlib the blanks is a bit like throwing darts with a blindfold mixed into bowling with Marge; every once in a while, you'll hit
a target, even if it's two lanes over.
And, yes, you are correct to explicitly connect the Civil Rights Movement to what is happening now. The Movement is validated, as are the decades of reminding that our work as Americans remains unfinished.
