Discussion: VA Official Takes Down KKK Leader's Portrait, Claims Ignorance Of History

Nothing like having a picture of a traitor hanging in you office esp. since you work for another one.

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He knew Forrest only “as a southern general during the Civil War,” he said

lying through his teeth.

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Racists are having a field day, aren’t they? With McConnell stacking the courts with fascists, reactionaries and racists, they’ll get away with it too.

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The portrait is called “No Surrender,” and shows a Forrest sitting on a horse in the snow in 1862.

“It was just a beautiful print that I had purchased, and I thought it was very nice,” Thomas told the Post. He knew Forrest only “as a southern general during the Civil War,” he said.

He promptly replaced it with a beautiful framed painting of MBS atop an Arabian horse in the desert. He only knows MBS as a connoisseur of fine yachts.

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Indeed…

My wife told me I shouldn’t put this picture up, but I said I don’t care; I like it.

Privilege strikes again.

The portrait is called “No Surrender,”

Must not have been about Thomas since he ran to get the print down after a reporter mentions concerns about it…

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I can probably buy the ignorance of history, but he knew what Forrest did.

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The better half has read a lot of Civil War history and has told me about Forrest including his role in establishing the KKK at the end of the war. How a Southerner could not know about him means only he’s lying.

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“‘My wife told me I shouldn’t put this picture up, but I said I don’t care; I like it.’”

so he knew, ok then

Short answer: I really, really want to ‘thank’ guys like him and ‘45’, because while it’s clear that Forrest was an outstanding officer, he was also a) a slave trader and b) one of the founders of an American terrorist organisation.

While all three aspects could be discussed, they likely won’t be, because these guys are immersed in warrior lust, as opposed to understanding what this love actually means.

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“The portrait is called “No Surrender,” ” and it conveniently ignores the surrender that soon followed

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Forrest didn’t really surrender. He turned into a dead-ender terrorist, organizing a huge bunch of other terrorists who outlived him.

This is like a police officer having an approving portrait of Al Capone in his office.

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How was the guy to know? Just because Forest is wearing his white hood in the picture?

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Of all the people that were ever generals in US history, he chooses this one…

But he had no idea!

“Soon” after a couple more years of war, terrible bloodshed, and a few hundred thousand deaths. With so much distance (and so little history taught in schools…) it’s easy to forget how truly devastating the Civil War was.

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Has he taken down this general’s portrait yet?

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He also presided over a heinous war crime, the massacre of surrendering Union soldiers – and especially the black Union soldiers – at Fort Pillow.

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I had a couple of grad classes with a guy who pointed out in the university newspaper that the Office of Minority Outreach was in a building named after a Grand Wizard of the KKK. Admin was less than grateful.

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White people gonna white.

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For a change, not a Trump appointee. But soon he likely will be.

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It appears that a few commenters on the WaPo thread regarding the article aren’t buying David Thomas’ excuses:

Cmon son! It’s 2018. You can perform a simple Google search.

Due diligence needed for anything on public display in a government agency or public space.

Not meaning to sound like a snowflake, but finding out the picture he
thought was one subject turned into something so ugly for everyone else
who knew. Lousy mistake.

Um…It is titled “No Surrender” and depicts the [confederate] general fleeing a snowy
Tennessee battlefield in 1862."

I can understand not knowing the full history of the subject, but for any
govt official to display anything lauding the Confederacy is an
extraordinarily stupid thing to do.

I just thought it was a very nice print of a traitor astride a horse.’ Mr. Thomas should no better. Very poor judgement.

Would it be weird if a VA employee had a portrait of Erwin Rommel hanging in his office

It just looked like a nice picture, a military guy in the desert.

These paintings come with the artist’s description of the scene - where, when, who, and where this image fits in the history of the war being depicted.

Typically there is a master painting along with a hundred or so numbered prints.
If that is a painting and not a print, then he would have had to buy it
from a gallery or directly from the painter. They are regarded
as collectibles by history and military buffs - you don’t find these
paintings in yard sales. And the idea it was bought just as a pretty
picture with no knowledge of the subject is laughable.

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