Cancel-culture would have us focus only on the fact that slave holders were slave holders. It ignores any other aspect about them. We should not honor these men? We should only know they were slave owners? THAT is cancel-culture. It will be impossible for you--or anyone--to convince me that Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, among others, should not be honored for helping to found this nation. The Coast Guard originated as part of the Treasury department, and it chose to name some of its cutters after former heads of the department (slave holders and non-holders alike.) That is the reason the ship had the name. Roger B. Taney was head of the Treasury before he became a Supreme Court Justice. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging this. In fact, doing so furthers the teaching of history. Focusing only on the slavery aspect of the subject does not properly further the teaching of history. History is diverse. Cancel-culture is shallow and narrow.
You are correct. The ship should keep the name, and have an exhibit aboard that teaches visitors about ALL aspects of the man the ship is named for. "Cutter 37" leads no one to discover the man in the first place. It cancels him. No one comes aboard "Cutter 37" wondering who Roger B. Taney was. No one learns a thing. They just tour "Cutter 37." Woohoo.
Just because it is "not their" political past gives them no right to remove his name, and reduce his historical role to "just a slave holder who made a bad court ruling." THAT is not avoiding the topic, it is distorting it, which is worse. If you're going to confront the topic in the first place, you're going to have to deal with all aspects of the man. Otherwise, you're just spouting propaganda. "The uncomfortable part of history" for the cancel-culture crowd is the fact that slave holders could also do good things as well.
The shallow, unidimentional one-sidedness approach to issues these days is so air-headed, and serves no purpose but to create stupid arguments amongst the factions. The more of this I see, the more convinced I am that we will all be blowing ourselves up nicely reasonably shortly. Until then..."Go placidly amid the noise and the haste" to quote Max Ehrmann:
https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
I think that the argument that their would be the "wish to erase uncomfortable parts of history" combined with "cancel culture" makes no sense at all.
It is usually brought forward by those, who argue closer to the political positions of those people from past like Taney. For them, this part of the history could/should be uncomfortable. It is "their" past.
In contrast, those, who think that these people (like Taney) from the past should not longer be honoured, have usually political positions, which are diametrical to these people like Taney. It is not "their" political past.
It is a big difference, if someone should not longer be honoured or if these actions are erased from history. Their actions are more erased from history, if they are still honoured - because someone, who is honoured, has done something positive. To name a ship or keep a monument does not point to their crimes, mistakes, wrongdoings. It pointing to something positive, it is whitewashing them. It would require something obvious to turn e.g. a monument into something pointing to the crime of the one depicted.
Erasing history would be e.g. to force teachers to teach that slavery had also positive aspects (as it is done by the state in Florida). That is clearly motivated by the "wish to erase uncomfortable parts of history".
In case of a museum ship, I think it should be done differently - there should be an exhibition on the ship and on the website explaining the naming of the ship and explaining what Roger B. Taney had done. That he defended the rights of slave owners, that he tried to maintain slavery. If someone want avoids to explain this that would be a kind of "wish to erase uncomfortable parts of history". But that would be no "cancel culture", but an attempt to avoid uncomfortable discussions.
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