omowale

Peace!
I'm Omowale from Richmond, VA.

Richmond's Shockoe Bottom was the largest slave trading district in the U.S. There were dozens of jails, holding pens, hotels, clothing stores for the slave sellers to buy for their slaves, auction houses, etc. down there.
Yet our Mayor (Jones) is pushing hard to build a minor league baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom which will cover this historical area. We already have a baseball stadium in another section of Richmond.
Our suggestion to him was to make this area (Shockoe Bottom) a cultural, historical outdoor museum/ theme park creating businesses by teaching and educating like they've done in Colonial Williamsburg Va.
Thus, grassroots people and groups have been protesting against the mayor and his big corporate sponsors who wish to build this stadium down in Shockoe Bottom.
What do you think of that?
If you want to know what you can do to help us, contact me, Omowale at my email: omowale0681@gmail.com
Thanx

rumitoid

Bury the past and pave it over with apple pie America? Sounds right. No revisionist history there: we sell hot dogs, fer cryin' out loud! Slavery? Get over it and play ball.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Two times in one day. Yes, slavery needs to be put to bed. High time to move forward and stop living in the past.

Brian Devon

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Omowale,
I definitely think that monuments to atrocities should be honored. It is a dis-service to those who were brutalized by slavery to remove the evidence of the crimes. As a secular Jew, I am in favor of keeping the memories of the holocaust by preserving Dachau, Auschwitz, and the other death camps. Let them serve as warnings as to the dangers of allowing anyone to label others as sub-human.

Surely Richmond can find some other place to build its new minor league stadium. It would be good for Richmond to acknowledge the crimes committed against Black people instead of just being known as the Capitol of the old confederacy.

rumitoid

All my life I agreed with what you are saying; no longer. No memorial assuages or inhibits genocide. Such memorials merely have the effect of plastering people to the past, stuck in their anger and victim-hood. We all suffer. Do I want the apartment I grew up to be deemed an historical site for the unprecedented harm I received? Silly.

Brian Devon

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Silly??? Hardly an apt word for memorials to those who perished from slavery and the holocaust. No one can force you to visit those landmarks just as no one can force you to honor the dead at a cemetery. However many people do not agree with your approproach which is why we have memorials. Believe it or not, Memorial Day itself was not established just to watch cars drive in circles in Indianapolis.

rumitoid

elf-cneter

Go back and read all I said. You want a cause so bad you do not stop to see. I am usually tickled by your outrageous post, a lure as I have seen it. Being stuck in the past, drawing up all the hatred and fear and impotence with a visit to whatever memorial is not healthy. We repeat the past because that is what we do as self-centered, narcissistic, self-indulgent creatures. No one could dissuade us from this pursuit, especially some history book

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

$150,000 in unmarked bills should do it.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

It isn't about being stuck in the past, it's about remembering it, as an aid to continue the good things and avoid the bad. You are right though, the days of shame and endless apology are over, however, by not being reminded, we can slide down those slippery slopes again.

It's too bad that there aren't monuments to remind people to vote, or the Gov. not to snoop, but then, there ARE monuments about the horrors of war - and that hasn't slowed us down any.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

I do not think that white Americans will ever be allowed to put the past behind. Slavery and what happened so many years ago is consistently put under the nose and the face pushed into it; over and over and over. It is different in Germany and with Jews in general. We know what happened, we can go visit those places where it happened, but most Jews do not. Many Germans go, but it is not a daily topic or even an occasional topic. History is acknowledged and along with that a desire to move forward. It is different with most blacks in the US. They do not seem to want to move forward. Each step they take, they stop and pack the old baggage and carry it like a weight that slows their progress. While they pack that baggage, they leave little or no room for progress. They do not seem to want to move past slavery. It seems to be the center of their existence.

Brian Devon

Honoring the past is not being a slave to the past.


Exhibit A: Israel has had diplomatic relations with Germany since the 1960s. On its streets you will find many finely built German cars. There is no boycott of Germany.

Exhibit B: Yad Vashem, an incredibly moving and poignant memorial to the 6 million who perished during the holocaust. It is a must see exhibit when one goes to Israel, every bit as important as visiting the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second temple, Judaism's holiest site.

Moving on and remembering the past are not mutually exclusive.

omowale

Thanks to all of you who responded regardless of your perspective. History is a compass to help guide one as he/she journeys into the future. One scholar advised that if we don't study history, we are doomed to repeat it. History also gives one a sense of who he/she is and how one arrived to his current point in time in relation to those who fought and died for self-respect, honor and liberation.
I'm not stuck in the past; I just don't think that unique historical events should be covered and disregarded. United States and some European countries have become the economic, political and military powers they are via this embryonic springboard of slave labor. Ancient Egypt spearheaded a great deal of disciplines which civilized the world and spawned human progress. Every people have their culture and history and it's fascinating and mind-expanding to view and study the journey of human progress. The more you learn, the more you realize how much it is you don't know.
One other thing, go and try to build anything on top of Arlington Cemetery and see what happens.
I just thought it odd for our Richmond mayor to sell out to big business ventures when he himself is of African heritage.
Again, thanx for the responses.
Omowale