Posted on 02/13/2017 7:57:20 AM PST by C19fan
eeing Yale finally alter the name of its Calhoun College, students at Clemson University are reinvigorating the debate over its Tillman Hall, named after founding trustee — and slave-owning white supremacist — Benjamin Tillman.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecollegefix.com ...
In the case at Vanderbilt the university refunded the current value of the $50,000 gift that had funded the building of “Confederate Hall” which was determined to be $1.2 million, today.
I wonder if in the case at Clemson there would be Tillman descendants would would insist upon that treatment if as an early trustee he provided key funding?
These situations are complicated. It’s one thing to deny history, it’s another to honor someone who - even in the time in which he lived - was exceptionally awful.
So did Margaret Sanger- but the libtards love her.
“Planned Parenthood” was given that name because “Negro Exterminators” didn’t market as well with their primary customer base.
Normally I’m not a fan of rewriting history in the name of political correctness. But this is an exception I wouldn’t lose any sleep over. Tillman was NOT a good man.
http://news.yale.edu/2017/02/11/yale-change-calhoun-college-s-name-honor-grace-murray-hopper-0
Interesting.
Yale actually made a serious effort and put serious thought into this. Surprisingly.
This is more than mere political correctness.
Clearly Hopper is a giant...no one should begrudge her being honored.
But as the article in the link above shows....Calhoun is complex. He is certainly America’s greatest statesman/political scientist. Yet, his thought is also in many ways (his analysis of class) proto-Marxist. That he didn’t really contribute anything to the life of Yale is an important point, and that his legacy was questioned (and questioned diplomatically, not hysterically) by Silliman and others in his day is also very relevant.
I think I would be completely satisfied with this switch IF there was a simultaneous effort to understand the culture of the Old South in a way which was sympathetic, and which explained the many tremendous virtues that existed there, sort of in the way “I’ll Take My Stand” authors did. Perhaps they could simultaneously fund some sort of chair of institute in the name of Robert Penn Warren (a Yale guy, not a perfect representative of Southern Agrarianism, but still, an important expositor of the South).
Southern Conservatism/Agrarianism is a legitimate and important body of thought and culture. And it is NOT just co-extensive with slavery.
This is one of the great evils in American history....to look at the South as just about slavery, and nothing else. This causes us to lose so much.
So I think we should all be very uncomfortable with shutting down Calhoun college. But, change does have to happen sometime....and I am thinking that there are good reasons to take the Yale committees thoughts on this seriously.
But:
we should oppose outright the banning of the Confederate Flag, the removal of Confederate war leaders statues from public space, and the simple identification of the South with slavery and nothing else.
And simultaneously....and for good measure....we have to embrace and explore the Founding Era abolition movements, and especially the serious abolitionism of men like Hamilton, and John Laurens......while simultaneously recognizing that the radical, secularized/socialistic abolition that sprouted in New England in the 1820s and 30s is rightly criticized as being destructive and as much a cause of the Civil War as Calhoun.
In short, only a conservative temperament can help us navigate these shark-infested waters.....(and frankly, I’m not sure that Calhoun had a conservative temperament....he is brilliant....too brilliant, really....and comes across as a revolutionary....unlike say the great Robert E. Lee and the other great Virginians, going all the way back to the Father of our Country).
give the money back to the estate
and then remove the name
The Byrd family was the biggest name in Virginia...in fact...I'd say the family owned it for many years.
So did the Planned Parenthood Princess, what’s her name?
She thought abortion was the perfect way to exterminate
the “inferior” blacks. She, too, was a nasty piece of
work.
Normally I’m not a fan of rewriting history in the name of political correctness.”
Well said....we should NEVER do that!
But....sometimes...as you note, we must, as conservatives striving to be in touch with history, revisit things and with grounded principles (enduring ones) make some determinations as to how we interact with history.
It’s important to note, as you say, that Tillman is perhaps not worth lionizing. It’s very important.
It’s also important to note that some great Southerners are very much worth lionizing.
Likewise with Yankees. I mean Northerners.
This is hard, and important work. But conservatives must do it, b/c it is important and if left to liberals only, they will eviscerate us and crap on whatever remains.
Yeah. Margaret Sanger. - The Grand Kleegle Robert Byrd is
also a nasty piece of work. In fact, POOKIE had a picture
of Byrd in his KKK outfit in her “toons” today. (an old
photo)
That's only right. But they won't. All this hate filled renaming is getting boring.
As a prank, a bunch of guys taped up letters to change the names of the women's dorms at my old alma mater. Moody Hall was changed to Nooky Hall. Can't remember the others. That was funny and no one was upset and everyone went about their business. Today, there would be candlelight protests which would turn into bonfires and broken windows.
Now that they started that revisionist slippery slope, how come they are not changing Yale’s name as well?
Apparently Yale is named after some hard core imperialist, who should be offensive to most snowflakes. I mean.. it is just discriminatory to change the name of one building but to leave Yale University’s name the same. What gives?
/s
South Carolina is not Connecticut.
The problem I see here is that if you give the Left an inch, they’ll take a yard.
George Washington, after all, owned slaves. So did Thomas Jefferson. And then there’s Madison and Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk and Taylor—all while they served as President.
And the following had owned slaves, but not while serving as president: Van Buren, W. H. Harrison, A. Johnson, and even US Grant, but he set his slave free in 1859.
Given this, can our history even go on? Are we to blot the Founding Fathers names away—at least those who owned slaves?
And seriously, how does one reconcile Jefferson, a slave owner, who, even as he owned, bought and sold slaves wrote these words?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I look at it this way: Jefferson’s words were prophetic, and laid the groundwork to the freeing of Africans in bondage in the United States. The words hold even more meaning when you think of it that way, because we as a nation actually applied them. Yes, it took many years and a bloody civil war, and 100 years of Jim Crow, but the words still echo through our Republic and bind us back to them to do the right thing.
The names should remain to let us know how far we have come.
Yale will now have to change its name. It’s namesake, Elihu Yale was a slave trader. How about Snowflake University?
All,they giving the money back? I’m sure they should demo the building or back repiaration to the buildings family.
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