16-01-2002 01:13									#91
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Mornington Crescent

	16-01-2002 01:16									#92
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Exactly.

	16-01-2002 07:39									#93
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quote: Originally posted by Chris 62 First, a little correction:As MTG pointed out, this is incorrect, but he didn't go far enough. Nisei also acted as interpreters in the Phillipinnes and on Okinawa. Every US Navy warship had Blacks aboard as mess boys, full crew members part of the USN, and if the ship was in combat, THEY were in combat.

Yeah, I guess the people who thought blacks did not serve in the Pacific never saw the movie Pearl Harbour... and are they ever lucky.

	16-01-2002 07:47									#94
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quote: Originally posted by The Mad Monk Okay, everyone knows that the statue is based on the photo--right down to the folds in the flag and the looks on the mens' faces. Everyone knows who those men are. Now, imagine years from now, when these men take their grandchildren to see the statue: "There it is" "That statue is of you, Grandpa?" "Yep, the three of us" (long pause) "Grandpa, are you the black one, or the hispanic one?"

So lets say they make the statue look exactly like the photograph.

Now, imagine years from now, a grandchild of one of the black firefighters is shown the statue.

"This is a statute that honours the men, like your grandfather, who died.

"So grandfather was white?"

"Of course not, he was black."

"But everyone in the statue looks white."

Bystander: "That's because all the firefighters who died were white."

Grandchild: "That's not true cause my grandfather was a fireman who died in the attack and he was black."

Bystander: "Look kid, if there were black firefighters who died they would have put up a statue showing black firefighters. They didn't so that proves all the firefighters were white."

	16-01-2002 12:41									#95
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quote: So lets say they make the statue look exactly like the photograph. Now, imagine years from now, a grandchild of one of the black firefighters is shown the statue.

"This is a statute that honours the men, like your grandfather, who died."

"So grandfather was a firefighter?"

"Yes".

"Why are the three men white?"

"Because the statue was based on a photograph of 3 firefighters raising the flag, the men were white".

"I see".

	16-01-2002 13:13									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker "This is a statute that honours the men, like your grandfather, who died." "So grandfather was a firefighter?" "Yes". "Why are the three men white?" "Because the statue was based on a photograph of 3 firefighters raising the flag, the men were white". "I see".

"This is a statute that honours the firefighters, like your grandfather, and it is based on a picture of your grandfather putting up the American flag."

"Is granddad the white guy, the black guy or the hispanic guy?"

"Neither. This statue honours all firefighters, instead of just your granddad and his two friends."

"Why didn't they show just granddad and his friends. They were the ones who put up the flag? It should just be granddad."

"That's a bit selfish. This isn't a statue just for your granddad. It's for all the firefighters who died that day. It is for all the firefighters who risked their lives digging through the rubble. This statue also tells us how we can pick ourselves up and do the work that needs done even after our hearts have been broken. That's what your grandfather did when he put up the flag. Your grandfather was a brave man and so were the other firefighters. They all deserve credit for what they did."

"I see."

	16-01-2002 16:54									#97
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quote: Originally posted by Tingkai "This is a statute that honours the firefighters, like your grandfather, and it is based on a picture of your grandfather putting up the American flag." "Is granddad the white guy, the black guy or the hispanic guy?" "Neither. This statue honours all firefighters, instead of just your granddad and his two friends." "Why didn't they show just granddad and his friends. They were the ones who put up the flag? It should just be granddad." "That's a bit selfish. This isn't a statue just for your granddad. It's for all the firefighters who died that day. It is for all the firefighters who risked their lives digging through the rubble. This statue also tells us how we can pick ourselves up and do the work that needs done even after our hearts have been broken. That's what your grandfather did when he put up the flag. Your grandfather was a brave man and so were the other firefighters. They all deserve credit for what they did." "I see."

A kid from and Indian FF.

Dad didn't weren't you there on 9-11?

Yes.

Why didn't they put your people on the statue?

Well they did I am the thrid one.

No he is Hispanic.

Ah well...

Well there were only three places available on the photo so I couldn't fit in. *shrugs*

The point: what you are saying is nice and good - but if the message is : "we did it together" than this is a poor way to show it. And it doesn't only show what you are saying, it shows as well what I said before in the thread. In other words this statement is poor and will leave many with sour taste when they see the statue.

	16-01-2002 18:08									#98
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I agree with the sentiment that the more we pay attention to race, the more we retain our racist culture. If they are making a statue which is supposed to reflect an historical moment, then it should be accurate. If they want to make a political statement, then they should have made a statue of several firefighters / police officers who died in the attack, and made it as racially diverse as possible so that no whiners of any major racial group would have a good reason to complain.

	16-01-2002 18:49									#99
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Tingkai -

quote: "That's a bit selfish"

"Selfish"? Perhaps, but who raised the flag? Who was photographed raising the flag? Who complained because the men who did, and were depicted raising the flag in a statue didn't have the right skin color? Many within the PC crowd who preach about the virtues of a color blind society?

	16-01-2002 23:49									#100
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quote: Originally posted by Tingkai Yeah, I guess the people who thought blacks did not serve in the Pacific never saw the movie Pearl Harbour... and are they ever lucky.

Let me guess, you don't know much about the Pacific war either, do you?

I never bothered with this movie, but I understand they built up Dorris Miller, the Black mess boy that grabs a gun and start's blazing away.

For the record, his shipmates felt his heart was in the right place, but he was more of a menace to them then the Japs! (A good source of eyewitnesses to this is Walter Lord's "Day of Infamy", written in the 50s from first hand accounts of the attack.

The PC crowd of that era (much like you now, Tinky) wanted to change history, as the movie makers did, and make it seem he did more, like shooting down several Jap planes, and so, he was awarded a valour medal. (Dorris Miller was fleet boxing champ in the 1930s, and didn't survive WWII ).

The real conversation, for your PC statue, is
"Why did they change the statue from the picture to three different races?"
"Because people back then were so silly, that they felt they had to distort the truth, or minorities wouldn't be happy"
"But isn't that lying?"
"Yes, it is, but to them, anything for the cause, truth means nothing"
"why didn't they just make a statue of three men of different races just standing there, instead of lying about a historical fact?"
"You would have to ask PC people like Tinky, only they could explain their irrational attitude that anyone who doesn't agree with them is automatically racist"
"But that is just plain stupid"
"Yes it is, and they are"

	17-01-2002 00:06									#101
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Tingkai: If you aren't the biggest fool here this side of Giancarlo, I don't know who is!

	17-01-2002 00:31									#102
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"There it is."

"What?"

"The statue. That statue. That statue over there was built to honor the firefighters who died in 9/11 attack."

"What attack?"

"Terrorist attack. Bunch of Arabic terrorists kidnapped some planes and crashed them on World Trade Center. Don't they teach history in edutainment center these days?"

"So... it's a statue. Great. Why am I here, when I could be in home safely connected to virtual reality already?"

"You kids. You kids. You don't care about anything anymore. Just listening to that weird music of yours and being on virtual reality. No spirit. No guts. When I was your age, we didn't have any virtual reality, I tell you. We just had a bunch of personal computers and we were happy with those! These days..."

"Here we go again. *dozes off*"

"...and back then the youth behaved, food was cheaper and everything made sense! The things people do these days! Why, I saw ol' Jack and Kevin Henderson yesterday, and they told me their son was going to marry one of them artificial intelligence tarnations! In my day, that would have been unthinkable! It's hell in a handbasket, son, hell in a handbasket..."

	17-01-2002 02:34									#103
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I'm not offended by the statue, although if I were one of the firefighters who raised the flag, I might be. It seems to me that the message sent by changing their ethnicities is "we like you and we like what you did, but we'd like you better if you looked more like us." And I don't think that's a message we should be sending to anyone. I think the best suggestion was made by the letter writer to the New York Times who asked why the men's ethnicities need be made apparent in the statue.

	17-01-2002 04:04									#104
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It's unfortunate that actual faces were used (and mis-represented) for a symbolic statue.

quote: As for Columbus, he was a man of his time, and the people killed were no better then the Spanish you attempt to villify, the Carib indians were CANNIBALS (yes, they ate human flesh), and many Meso-American cultures rountinly practiced human sacrifice, and many other vile things.

That's quite a claim.

The people Columbus mass-murdered were no better than him? I was not aware of the Arawaks in Hispaniola committing genocide at the time (in the most literal sense - complete eradication) or anything morally comparable to such an act.

	17-01-2002 05:42									#105
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Ya know what they should have done?

Keep the 3 white guys with their faces, and then add the black, the hispanic, the asian, etc. That way you can have your symbolic deal and keep some of the historicalness of the moment.

	17-01-2002 08:10									#106
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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
Let me guess, you don't know much about the Pacific war either, do you?

I never bothered with this movie, but I understand they built up Dorris Miller, the Black mess boy that grabs a gun and start's blazing away.

For the record, his shipmates felt his heart was in the right place, but he was more of a menace to them then the Japs! (A good source of eyewitnesses to this is Walter Lord's "Day of Infamy", written in the 50s from first hand accounts of the attack.

The PC crowd of that era (much like you now, Tinky) wanted to change history, as the movie makers did, and make it seem he did more, like shooting down several Jap planes, and so, he was awarded a valour medal. (Dorris Miller was fleet boxing champ in the 1930s, and didn't survive WWII ).
[QUOTE]



Uh, Chirs62. My previous message was a lighthearted statement. You know something that is supposed to make you chuckle, not ROTFL, but not serious either.

I'll help you out. The movie Pearl Harbour ranks as one of the worse movies ever made. So anyone who didn't see it should consider themselves lucky. Get6 it? Probably not.

Miller was not awarded the medal for shooting down "several Jap planes" as you claim. He was awarded the medal "distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety" which he displayed by manning a machine gun. The movie tried to make him bigger by showing him shooting down aircraft.

Did the US gov't make a hero out of someone who was not? Maybe. The US needed any hero it could find to boost morale. If a hero was manufactured, it was not for "PC" reason. I mean come on. This is 1941 when segregation is alive and well. The politically correct thing at that time was to lynch blacks.

	17-01-2002 08:15									#107
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Tingkai: If you aren't the biggest fool here this side of Giancarlo, I don't know who is!

An improbable tale:
A sudden wave of realization hits Imran. "I shouldn't have written that message. The biggest fool here this side of Giancarlo is not Tingkai. I can see the fool clearly now," Imran says to himself as he stares into the bathroom mirror.

Improbable because it would require self-awareness.

	17-01-2002 08:22									#108
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Oh, and news for ya... to stare into the bathroom mirror, I couldn't read the computer screen. Moron.

And it is Improbable because I'm not a fool, yet by your statements on this thread (and others), you most certainly are.

	17-01-2002 08:56									#109
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Oh, and news for ya... to stare into the bathroom mirror, I couldn't read the computer screen. Moron.

Very good Imran. Thanks for pointing out the useful fact that you can't look at a computer screen if you are staring at a bathroom mirror. But, uh, what does that have to do with my story about you. Did I say you were using a computer. No.

	17-01-2002 09:51									#110
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo The people Columbus mass-murdered were no better than him? I was not aware of the Arawaks in Hispaniola committing genocide at the time (in the most literal sense - complete eradication) or anything morally comparable to such an act.

You know Ramo, since your in smart-ass mode, perhaps you would like to describe these so called mass-murders.

Good luck, cause that only exists in your imagination.

Tinky, read what I said more carefully, and don't try to play that you know history better, we already danced that dance, remember?

	17-01-2002 09:56									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Chris 62 Tinky, read what I said more carefully, and don't try to play that you know history better, we already danced that dance, remember?

Is that the time when you kept tripping and ended up with your foot in your mouth?

	17-01-2002 10:25									#112
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quote: Originally posted by Tingkai Is that the time when you kept tripping and ended up with your foot in your mouth?

No, that was in your imagination.

I referring to your being embarrised, made a fool of, and proven wrong by myself and several other posters, go back and look if you have forgotten so soon.

	17-01-2002 11:09									#113
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Natan] -

quote: It seems to me that the message sent by changing their ethnicities is "we like you and we like what you did, but we'd like you better if you looked more like us." And I don't think that's a message we should be sending to anyone.

Another valid point.

	18-01-2002 07:06									#114
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quote: You know Ramo, since your in smart-ass mode, perhaps you would like to describe these so called mass-murders. Good luck, cause that only exists in your imagination.

Are you not aware of the Spanish tribute system? In the words of Fernando Columbus (the son of Christopher):

"[The Amerindians] all promised to pay tribute to the Catholic Sovereigns every three months as follows: In Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of 14 years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were to pay 25 pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he made his payment. Any indian found without such a token was to be punished [the punishment was to chop off the person's hands, and leave him to bleed to death]."

This atrocious system turned out to be too impractical eventually, in terms of limiting El Capitain's profits, so he instituted de-facto slavery ("economidia," IIRC) in its place, which caught in the other Spanish colonies.

According to Bartolome de las Casas:

Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of the blades."

Also:

"The husbands and wives were together only every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides [...] they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early becaus their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Som mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. [...] In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk [...] and in short time this land which was so great so powerful and fertile [...] was depopulated. My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I trembel as I write."

This is at level of what you expect to hear about Auschwitz, about atrocities by the SS. It's the very definition of mass-murder! Thanks to Columbus and his successors, the entire island of Hispaniola was depopulated of its native inhabitants by 1650 from a population between 3*10^5 and 3*10^6 (although disease probably decimated, more or less, the population without Colombus' help).

	18-01-2002 23:10									#115
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quote: Originally posted by Tingkai Imran . . . stares into the bathroom mirror. Improbable because it would require self-awareness.

No, improbably because he's having a staring match with me!

	19-01-2002 00:14									#116
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That's very interesting, Ramo, but how does that make Columbus a mass murderer and not a man of his times?

Why did the Spanish treat the natives this way?

Could it have something to do with the fact that after peaceful contact, the natives murdered all the men he left behind when he returned to Spain, showing them what they were like?

Ask yourself these questions before you climb that high horse.

Columbus day celebrates the day Spain found a new world and opened it for Europe, a monumental turning point in human history, that should never be belittled or forgotten.

Show me one European colonial power or native tribe with clean hands and I'll change my opinion, not before.

	19-01-2002 03:54									#117
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara No, improbably because he's having a staring match with me!

Hey! No fair... you can't wear sunglasses!

	19-01-2002 08:45									#118
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quote: That's very interesting, Ramo, but how does that make Columbus a mass murderer and not a man of his times?

Frankly, Columbus astonishes me in terms of his duplicity, praising the Arawaks one moment, slaughtering them the next. He wasn't simply a man of his times.

But the SS of the Third Reich were men of their times, right? They weren't murderers, just a little misguided. Their morality was different from ours, therefore, their actions should be trivialized.

quote: Could it have something to do with the fact that after peaceful contact, the natives murdered all the men he left behind when he returned to Spain, showing them what they were like?

Only after his men roamed the island looking for gold, women to rape, and slaves, were they slaughtered in battle! You call theft, rape, and enslaving "peaceful" behavior?!

quote: Columbus day celebrates the day Spain found a new world and opened it for Europe, a monumental turning point in human history, that should never be belittled or forgotten.

Whatever. Columbus' atrocities, sure as hell, shouldn't be belittled or forgotten.

quote: Show me one European colonial power

Colonialism implies subjagation. Trying to find clean hands among colonial powers is an exercise in futility.

quote: or native tribe with clean hands and I'll change my opinion, not before.

AFAIK, most Arawak tribes had relatively clean hands, for instance.

Most hunter-gatherer groups had clean hands.

But you certainly won't find many American cultures that were as atrocious as the the colonial powers.

	19-01-2002 09:51									#119
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Here is why it was a bad idea to alter it: had they not done so, nobody would have been upset. Blacks and Hispanics (and other firefighters from non-white backgrounds) would not have been offended because it would simply be a portrayal of the most striking photo from September 11. To keep it authentic would in no way imply that non-white people were not killed. Who exactly does the artist need to convince of this? The purpose, it seems, is not to honor firefighters but to do a little bit of social engineering. This ulterior motive is what made this so controversal. If form is to follow function, then the artist should have left it as the picture showed it. Either that or choose another photograph. I admit that I am white, and I don't think that this was the proper venue to debate race relations. There are proper venues for the debate, and it is a real issue, but it was inappropriate to inject the race debate into a sculpture honoring firefighters.

	19-01-2002 17:27									#120
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If they put up a completely realistic statue of the three white guys then the wrong message would be sent. The statue would be seen as honoring the three guys raising a flag rather then all firefigthers - those who died, those who tried to dig through the rubble to save people and the three men.

Even worse, a completely realistic statue would be completely boring and few people would noticed it once it is made. Even with the change of race, the statue is pretty bad from an aesthetic point of view.

The current design has generated controversy that will at least make many people think every time they see and that's a good thing. Art should make us think. It should make us remember. Mind you, I prefer to see a memorial that does that in a positive way (Think of the power of the Vietnam monument in Washington) rather than negative. The artist took the easy way out on this one.

Anyone have an alternative suggestion for a statue that will honour the NYFD?