This speech reminds about the progress and evolution that thinking people should aspire to everyday. Not just in areas of systemic bias like racism and sexism, but also in areas like new energy, transportation and food systems that better serve life on earth. The status quo must be continually opened for review. When the will is weak, we should imagine how we can explain to children today and in the future, why we personally, chose not to help.
The city of New Orleans has elected to pull down Confederate monuments from its public spaces. With the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee this week, that task is complete. The proposal brought near endless debate, and vitriolic outcry from the monuments’ defenders. But in a remarkable speech shortly before Lee’s statue was removed, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu declared with astonishing moral and historical clarity that these were not monuments to some bygone way of southern life implied by believers in the Lost Cause. They were symbols of white supremacy, and of the systemic oppression of human beings. See: New Orelans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s remarkable speech about removing confederate monuments.
Here is a direct video link.
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