Refuting African American defenders of Confederate memorialization

New podcast is done and is online. In this case I used the letter to the editor of Maryland Lt. Gov. Rutherford defense of keeping which makes the Confederacy equal to the United States of America in the Maryland statehouse. A lot of the argumentation might apply to any defender of Confederate junk, but there are some specific items regarding African American defenders of Confederate memorialization.

http://newtknight.libsyn.com/newscast-20191017-analyzing-and-refuting-arguments-in-defense-of-confederate-memorialization-by-republican-african-americans

Baltimore Stops making excuses and has removed its Confederate statues.

Baltimore has removed it statues. Suddenly, after the death of Heather Heyer there are no more excuses and the monuments disappeared in a couple days in the middle of the night. Where previously there was a lack of money, suddenly there seems to be money.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-baltimore-improved-image-20170818-story.html

As you know I said all the talk about the lack of money was an excuse and the plan to give the monuments away was a delaying tactic. This is a previous post. Though the prior mayor was in particular full of nonsense and did the so-called contextualization, the current mayor wasn't in a hurry either regardless what the Baltimore Sun might say in the above article.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/05/baltimore-next-to-remove-confederate.html#.WZq7iCiGOiM

What this shows is that a lot of excuses are given but where there is a will there is a way. Someone had to die before Baltimore would do the right thing. Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has a place in history that perhaps she will not appreciate.

Also, when it could have made a real difference Baltimore failed. It would have been great to have Baltimore start taking down Confederate monuments, it would have keep the pace of Confederate monument removal moving along. It would have made nearby Confederate monuments less tenable. It also would have applied pressure on Richmond to get the monuments taken down.

As it was Baltimore did it after some cities and when a lot of cities have decided to take monuments down. I think people in Baltimore should ask who really runs Baltimore.

This was a contextualization plaque that was put up in Baltimore. I was in Baltimore and took photos.

I think it shows how pathetic Baltimore is. The plaque is the little white dot on the left side.

Baltimore next to remove Confederate monuments? UPDATE1 Looks like St. Louis is next

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-pugh-to-explore-removing-confederate-monuments-in-baltimore-20170527-story.html

From the above link.

Former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wasn't at a loss to find reasons to stall and not get Confederate monuments removed.

The commission appointed by Rawlings-Blake decided to remove only 3 of the 5 Confederate monuments in Baltimore coming up with excuses to keep two.

However, there wasn't really a plan to move the monuments and they sat in place. Rawlings-Blake had signs put up by the monuments to contextualize them.

The Baltimore Sun has been critical of the city administration. In this article about Baltimore comparing it to New Orleans. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-statues-20170524-story.html the editors wrote:

In January of last year, a seven-member mayoral commission recommended the removal of two of four Confederate era monuments from Baltimore's public parks. Sixteen months later, the offending statues haven't budged. While some "interpretive" signage has been added, they remain where they are and what they are — symbols of racism, fond tributes to the "Lost Cause" cult.

Last week in a city about as deep in the Deep South as possible and where there is far greater affection for the Confederacy than in Baltimore, workers removed that last of four monuments deemed just as offensive. ...

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu didn't shirk his responsibility. He didn't drag his feet or choose to let the next administration deal with the controversy. He wasn't swayed by arguments that these monuments had some transcendent artistic or historic merit that made them off-limits. Instead, he gave a speech in which he clearly and convincingly explained why removing these monuments was not a denial of a benign history but an avowal of the terrorism and white supremacy they represented and that was no longer to be tolerated.

Clearly this is a slam at former Mayor Rawlings-Blake. Also it asks questions why New Orleans removed their monuments before Baltimore. I think the reason is that there is behind the scenes politically influential groups that back the monuments and who the political leadership of Baltimore feel they must answer to.

However, it seems that the new Mayor Catherine Pugh isn't in a hurry to get ride of the Confederate monument. One of her suggestions is to auction off the monuments to pay for the cost of removal. Not really a plan to do anything at all. Not a lot of demand for Confederate monuments now days, certainly not enough to pay for a monument removal.

The cost of the monument removal is being brought up by Mayor Pugh. She estimates that each monument removal will cost $200,000 and with a city budget of $2.8 billion that money to remove these monuments somehow can't be found.

As the old cliche' goes, "Where there is a will there is a way."

I think that if the monuments aren't removed soon it will become clear who really runs Baltimore and who the political leadership of Baltimore feels they must answer to. As the Confederate monuments remain it will reveal what the political leadership of Baltimore is made of.

Of course there could be a development where political groups outside the establishment will seize on this issue to discredit the establishment in which case the monuments will be removed and Mayor Pugh will make many fine speeches about it.

I don't think the monuments in Baltimore are going anywhere soon. Hopefully I am wrong.

It will likely be some other city elsewhere which will be next to remove their Confederate monuments.

UPDATE1:

Looks like St. Louis is next. I am numbering these posts since my expectation is that there will be several cities getting rid of their Confederate monuments while Baltimore's leadership is stumbling around.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/06/looks-like-st-louis-is-going-to-follow.html#.WTkfLGgrKiM

St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis stops hosting Confederate ceremony

The following article is about St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis deciding they aren't going to host a Confederate ceremony.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/annapolis/ph-ac-cn-confederate-veterans-annapolis-0303-20170302-story.html

The church stopped hosting the event when contacted by a group called Stand Up For Racial Justice, but I think the reporter made a mistake and the group is Showing Up for Racial Justice -- Annapolis & AA Co.

The national group, Showing Up For Racial Justice, has many local chapters and I certain will make them aware of churches that host neo-Confederate.

I have been campaigning against churches hosting neo-Confederate groups.

This is my web page on asking churches to not host neo-Confederate groups.

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churches-of-the-confederacy.html

Quoted in article "In the Age of Trump White Millennials Shatter Idea That Young People Are Progressive," in the "Atlanta Black Star."

I learned a lot from the article. Things which I didn't know.

Also, there is a video about Matthew Heimbach and his White Student Union at Towson College in Maryland.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/10/15/the-age-of-trump-white-supremacist-millennials-shatter-the-idea-that-young-people-are-progressive/

I am quoted extensively and able to introduce the concept of banal white nationalism.

Maryland likely recalling Confederate license plates.

The article is at this link in the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-is-likely-to-begin-recalling-license-plates-with-confederate-flag-images/2015/10/15/296179ae-7384-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html

Yet another state recalling Confederate automobile license plates. This is important not just for the momentum it drives for other states to recall their Confederate license plates. It is important also because it makes it very unlikely that any state that hasn't a Confederate license plate to adopt one.

However, the  most important thing is that each time a Confederate symbol is removed from display by the government, it makes the remaining displays by government seem more aberrant which leads to another governmental unit dropping another Confederate symbol which then leads to other governmental units dropping a Confederate symbol and so on.

As governmental display of Confederate symbols become less frequent the remaining ones brand the governmental units that display them as being backward and raise questions about the locality.

Peoples spouses are less comfortable moving their with their children when their are displays of Confederate symbols by the local municipality. Companies usually need to recruit specialized talents to run their operations from a national labor market, and when the candidate and spouse visit, having a big old Confederate flag at the court house is off putting, especially if the engineer, or programmer, or other STEM professional is a minority member.

People don't want their children having their high school memories involving the Rebels or some other Confederate name.

Minority parents will have to wonder how their children will be treated in the local schools.

More than a few chamber of commerce groups are probably figuring out that their local Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) camp and UDC chapter are liabilities.

When a SCV camp or a UDC chapter is able to successfully defend a governmental Confederate symbol I am sure neighboring counties will take note.

Protest against Confederate ceremony in Baltimore

The Baltimore Sun had this article recently. A protest against the holding a Confederate event near Martin Luther King's birthday.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-confederates-quakers-20150117-story.html

Of course I don't think a ceremony honoring the Confederacy or Confederate leaders is good whether it is near Martin Luther King's birthday or not.

This is another report on the protest.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13020

I hope to help them out.

Speaking to two more groups

I am scheduled to give a presentation on neo-Confederates at a local university in March some time and there is a group in Baltimore which is interested in having me speak and so I am going to meet with the leadership and give them the presentation and show them some neo-Confederate publications. Some issues of Confederate Veteran and Southern Mercury should be real eye openers for them.

One speaking engagement will likely to lead to another.

Article on Neo-Confederate who won a Republican party primary in Maryland and neo-Confederate attempts to get involved with mainstream politics.

This article was published in the Huffington Post recently.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-hutson/meet-marylands-white-nati_b_5572556.html

It turns out that Michael Peroutka, a theocrat and former League of the South board member, was able to win the Republican party primary for an Anne Arundel County Council race in Maryland. and won a seat on the Republican Party Central Committee there. He runs an organization called Institute on the Constitution which is fairly openly neo-Confederate in its views.

What I found somewhat ominous is that Joseph Delimater III, who is closely tied to Peroutka, ran unopposed in the Republican primary for sheriff and could be elected in the general election.

The article is worth reading. It shows that neo-Confederates are not confined to some remote rural area or a particular region of the nation, or marginal.

Breaking News: Neo-Confederate tries to win Anne Arundel County Democratic Party Committee seat. UPDATE:

I just was informed about this web page

http://www.betsybury.com/

If you go down the page you find out that Pastor David Whitney of the neo-Confederate Institute on the Constitution (IOTC) is running against her.

The IOTC web is http://www.theamericanview.com/

The web address is somewhat laughable since it really is the Confederate View.

Pastor Whitney is running for a Democratic Central Committee seat. The reason why this is a matter of concern is that people are generally fairly unaware of this office, the turn out can be very low, and it would be possible for a small group to win if the public was not alerted to the problem.

This article in the American Review of American Studies at the Univ. of Toronto gives a good idea of the religious beliefs of the neo-Confederate movement.

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ConfederateChristianNationalism.pdf

Worked today and got back and started to look into this further.

Pastor David Whitney doesn't like the Harlem Shake in an article where some Christian leaders express opposition to Christian students doing the Harlem Shake.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/have-wild-videos-of-christians-doing-the-harlem-shake-crossed-the-line-97713/

With that in mind I offer these www.youtube.com videos of students at Christian institutions doing the Harlem Shake. Horrors! Some of these Christian students seem to be having fun! Oh the ungodliness of it all. ;-).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LvwGiNyXvQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea7seDz6H_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu6vqDLwRqQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF11jCXvkDs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmSEMz67ybk

Confirmation. Boston Avenue United Methodist Church did host the United Daughters of the Confederacy national convention in 2013

I came across this newsletter for the Maryland Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in which they mention that they had their service at the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, OK.

This is the direct link to the newsletter.
http://www.mdudc.org/Newsletters/UDC_Division_Newsletter__-_Winter_2013.pdf

This is the Internet Archive link to the newsletter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140219115149/http://www.mdudc.org/Newsletters/UDC_Division_Newsletter__-_Winter_2013.pdf

From the newsletter:

The Memorial Service on Sunday afternoon was held at the beautiful Boston Avenue United Methodist Church. The church is in downtown Tulsa, OK and has a congregation of over 8,500.

This shows how the architectural prominence off the building is used to enhance the prestige of the convention. Notice the reference to the location of the church and the size of the congregation to inform the reader that the church which allowed them this space is important.

The campaign is documented at www.templeofdemocracy.com/bostonavenue.htm.

State secession ideas ridiculed.

In earlier posts on the proposals for parts of states to secede and set up their own states, I said that there was a serious risk to the Republican Party. They would be caught between alienating secessionists which is turning out to be a part of their base, and appearing crazy to everyone else.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2013/09/secession-and-conservatives-or-we-cant.html

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2013/09/maryland-secessionists-want-western.html

Human Events had this article in which the secessionist are supposed to represent some type of oppression of rural residents.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/09/12/will-california-rural-counties-secede-from-sacramentos-control/

The ridicule of the secessionists has been quick to appear also.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/13/right_wing_nuts_hatch_batty_secession_schemes/

Joshua Holland in the Salon article points out that the secessionists are those who find they can't get their way on everything anymore and are somewhat shocked by this and are throwing tantrums. But it is also an interesting article showing what the roots of this movement are. It is an interesting read.

Some quotes:

The media have framed these stories as a symptom of a growing rural-urban divide, and that’s true. Gun safety laws enacted after the Sandy Hook shootings sparked the move in both Colorado and Maryland. Marriage equality for gays and lesbians, and differences over energy policy, immigration (over which state governments have little control) and taxes are often cited as “irreconcilable differences” by these secession advocates. 

But it’s also another sign of the difficulty that a group which dominated American politics just a generation ago – a group political scientist Alan Abramowitz narrowed down to married white people who identify as Christians – are having adapting to a country that’s becoming more diverse and embracing a different, more liberal set of cultural values. As Michael Rosenwald noted in The Washington Post, “with secessionists, the term ‘final straw’ comes up a lot.”

And:

It’s certainly true that with less than 20 percent of the population now living in rural America, the policy preferences of conservatives living in the countryside or in small towns are often overshadowed by large majorities who live in cities and their suburbs. But that’s true of a lot of Americans – liberal hipsters in Austin, Texas, don’t have much say in their state’s governance either, to cite just one example among many. But as Jason Bane of the blog ColoradoPols told a local Fox affiliate in Colorado, “in a democracy, there are lots of other people who have viewpoints, and they don’t all throw a tantrum just because a vote doesn’t go their way.”

Houston Chronicle blogger is laughing at secessionists. Check out this link:

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2013/09/rick_perry_is_a_trendsetter_ot.php

The Wonkette article has some bad language.
http://wonkette.com/528104/secession-is-the-new-orange-which-is-the-new-black-maryland-edition

I think that the Democratic Party is probably very happy to see this secession movement. If it continues to spread and have a presence in the conservative movement it has the potential to seriously damage the credibility of conservatism and cause a lot of problems for the Republican Party.