Sharing a video of the building while still aflame, Brad Gordon wrote: “If you don’t understand why Black Americans are celebrating the symbolic dismantling of this monument to bondage and generational oppression — well, today, we simply don’t care.”
This is one story where I can definitely understand the mixed feelings.
It is rightly satisfying watching a house of horrors go up in flames, particularly so when you’re descended from the people who were tortured and brutalized there.
At the same time, it’s easier to teach history to people when they can interact with it using their own senses, and absent that, it’s much much easier to forget it ever happened in the first place.
While your sentiment is a good one, from experience of living around such historical sites, most I have seen are operated by people like United Daughters of the Confederacy. The street really goes both ways with historical sites and while they can be used as grand gestures to show a horrible past in physical form to some who may see it, it can also be used as a propaganda tool of “lost glory” as the dsughters put it.
There is a town not too far from where I live that has a long history that has tons of white washed messages by the Daughters. Its frankly gross, but many people in that town don’t bat an eye because those same historical buildings are used to re-enforce their view of the world not change their perspective.
I understand that.
I’ve already addressed your point in this thread.
Yeah I’m sure the racist assholes booking a weeding reception at that plantation were going there to reflect on its sad history
Things change over time.
There are many sites in the South that were once used for profit and are now used to teach. That can’t happen now with this one, and it’s a loss to history whether you care to acknowledge it or not.
It certainly can happen still with this. And the destruction removes a lot of the monetary incentive for use as an event venue for racists. There are many historical sites in ruins that are used for education
Before you go defending places as lost chances at teaching history, maybe you should check into the place and see what kind of things it was used for. The website doesn’t seem to suggest it was used to teach history, just a glorified white people wedding venue.
Please read the entire thread. Thank you.
I did, and while you give a meek might be used to teach history using a physical example at an arbitrary time in the future, you seem to miss my rebuttal that those are few and far between and it is just as easy for its use to swing the other way in the future. Stop trying to get people to care about a plantation burning down. Even with your more “altruistic” take it comes off very distastful. I’ll leave with a quote from an article about it
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that the history is lost. This artifact is lost, but the history is still there,” Duggan said.
“If you’re mourning the loss of Nottoway, I would encourage you to learn more about it. Learn more about other plantation houses. You can still learn from that history.”
The slave quarters and other structures remain unburned, actually, so in fact the historical landmark/lesson is still there and the site is still usable for museum purposes :)
Need the same to happen to those plantations that were converted to prisons. Without casualties of course because the last thing the world needs need is more needless deaths of poor black and brown people
It was a resort, good riddance. If it was a museum/memorial it would be sad, but nah, it’s still just a place for rich white people. Those southern resorts always gave me major ick.
Something something will rise again 😂
This one is still around.
Personally, I think we should preserve history, good and bad.
I think buildings shouldn’t all become museums, but rather repurposed depending on the needs of the living population. For example there’s an old slaughterhouse in Toulouse, France, that was renovated into a modern art hall. Bordeaux, France has an old submarine base that became an immersive exhibition center.
In my opinion buildings aren’t monoliths and should be used by the living, the dead who occupied them have no say in what they become
The submarine base thing is amazing, I’ve been to most of their shows for the past couple years, and my son loves them.
Basically it’s a pair of rectangular warehouses, with a rectangular basin in each. You’re in the dark with 360 projection on the walls, which reflects very nicely in the water of the basins, and some background music. There was one on space exploration, one on ancient Egypt etc…
Once when our son was on vacation we went to see the Klimt one after smoking fat joints it was fucking bomb.
But… Museums do serve a purpose for the living population. If they didn’t invite visitors, then it would be a storehouse.
They do, but again, not all buildings should be a museum
You can recreate a miniature version of this kind of architecture and exhibit it somewhere else, and use the available land for something else
I like that idea.
Thanks haha
However, in this case, a resort for rich, presumably predominantly white , people, probably doesn’t meet your criteria for “needs of the living population.” It certainly doesn’t meet mine.
What I mean is the population that’s living in wherever region of the world this is, get to decide whatever they want to do with this, we shouldn’t keep or preserve an old building "as is"just because it has history, history is for books, buildings are for the material needs of the people in the present
Edit: I think I wrote this comment poorly so here’s a better explanation to how I feel - I dont care about a building history, if this one burns and is replaced by a playground, it’s a much better use than maintaining this old house just because its a testament of the past, especially considering its context. People hung up on the past can take a picture of it, or make a small sized replica to have in a museum.
Yea I like preserving history too. I don’t like people trying to re-write history and glorify slave holders. Unfortunately, the south can’t seem to manage one without the other, so this is a good thing. I say that as someone with a deep appreciation for American architecture.
I agree. A small part of me was sad to hear of the loss of the architecture but I’m also happy for the people who see this as a celebration. There are things in this world that should not last forever.
If only the corrupt power, hate, and treason it represents could be burnt down as easily.
Oh shit, Nottoway burned down? That fucking rules! Yeah it was just a resort and popular wedding destination for
racistswhite people.Don’t worry y’all there’s another largest remaining antebellum plantation that can burn down now
Even as a preservationist, I will say that this building won’t be missed and good fucking riddance. They way it was being used was horribly disrespectful and disgusting.
Let’s keep it going, Sherman didn’t burn far enough
Nothing of value was lost here.
Maybe now the ruins can be a museum actually dedicated to teaching and remembering the history of slavery in the US, rather than… weddings
I am all for saving history no matter how good or bad it is or how uncomfortable it makes you.
That said this was just a place for rich fucks to get married in the bygone South. Fuck it let it burn, this monument to hate. I might feel different if it was used to teach people about how mankind can be so cruel as to profit off the blood and lives of others but it wasn’t so good riddance.
So this wasn‘t some museum which educated people about this cruel part of american history? Because of this es the case, then this is a loss.
FYI in Germany, we don‘t burn down the monuments of our past, because this is the only shit which let‘s us remember how cruel people can be and that this doesn‘t repeat itself.
nah it was a destination wedding location. it was not used to disseminate information about the horror of slavery, it was used to promote disinformation about the lost cause of the south myth.
deleted by creator
No, this is like if the nazi party rally grounds in Nürnberg were used as a venue for music festivals
This is an objective good. The only historical value was as a crime scene, not a goddamn wedding venue. How would we feel if skin-heads partied at Auschwitz, or the Saudi Royals threw shindigs at Ground Zero?
The heritage is hate.
the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
