Look out George---you could be next!

[Dave Grubb]

Throwing the baby out with the bath water?

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For 74 years, the City of Charlottesville marked Thomas Jefferson’s April 13 birthday with an official city holiday. That ended this week after Charlottesville City Council voted to create a new city holiday — Liberation and Freedom Day.

“While there are many things we appreciate about Jefferson’s contributions to the United States and our community, today the City is being much more intentional about telling a more complete history of our community,” City Council wrote in a statement following the vote. “On March 3, 1865, United States Army forces under the command of Major General Philip H. Sheridan arrived in Charlottesville and remained in the area until March 6, 1865. From March 3 to March 6, 1865, area African-Americans emancipated themselves from enslavement. Council’s action has shifted the focus from a slave-owners birthday to Liberation and Freedom Day, a day in 1865 when blacks were the majority race in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area and there were over 14,000 enslaved people at the time of emancipation. That history deserves greater attention today.”

The new official city holiday will be observed March 3.

[wacojoe]

Right, you are. A mural depicting George Washington, which was painted 83 years ago in a San Francisco area school by a renowned painter is being covered over at a cost of $600,000 because little snowflakes were triggered by depictions of slaves and native Americans.

https://apnews.com/9f3037c7ec9d48a286059ac8f9975afe

[Mike]

All of this revisionist history crap is no different than the destruction of historical sites by ISIS in the Middle East. I am sick of it there and I am sick of it here. Pulling down statues, painting over murals, revising text books, etc. It is time it stops!

UNESCO considers the intentional destruction of cultural heritage a war crime, but ISIS has been known to ostentatiously do just that. The group considers representational art idolatrous, and as a result, works of art at museums, mosques, and churches have become targets of its hammers, axes, bulldozers, and bombs. The group also continues to destroy and loot archaeological sites, selling the objects on the black market to fund their activities—although researches have struggled to determine just how much money these sales generate.

I think I am going to start reporting every like travesty here to UNESCO. Maybe they will send some blue pots to protect our heritage.

[Dave Grubb]

We sell each other short when we pass up an opportunity to teach living history in the context of the time and think that removing them from sight is a suitable replacement.

I am a long time "student" of Jefferson's and of all his short comings the one that remains a conundrum is his treatment of Sally Heming. I can only get close to understanding that when I put it in the context of his time. Better to "struggle" with understanding than to remove any opportunity of learning tolerance and acceptance.