Bo Statue Vandalized....
November 24th, 2021 at 8:52 AM ^
Meh. That statue shouldn't still be standing in the first place.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:01 AM ^
I'm with Blaze on this one. #HailToTheVictims
November 24th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
double post my bad
November 24th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
logged in to make this exact comment. seconded (or thirded) entirely
November 24th, 2021 at 9:16 AM ^
Yeah, the material damage to an inanimate object of a dead man who enabled sexual abuse. . . the needle of my give-a-shit-o-meter didn't even twitch.
November 24th, 2021 at 11:04 AM ^
my initial thought was 'good'
November 24th, 2021 at 9:51 AM ^
Yep. Surprised it hasn’t been vandalized already. Remove the statue and raise the banners.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:54 AM ^
Change the name on the building also
November 24th, 2021 at 12:18 PM ^
Without taking a position on the Bo statue I'd like to say that the whole issue of honoring people is not as simple as some people seem to regard it.
Every human is flawed. Most of us seriously.
So honor no one?
Or can we honor a person for certain specific good that they/ve done even knowing that they are a package of good and bad?
Martin Luther King contributed enormous good and was a really good man. But even he had serious flaws. Of course, his accomplishments should be honored.
Bo contributed greatly to Michigan football. More importantly, the stories of the good he did for many people and particularly how much he helped players and even their families are legion. But he apparently failed to act to protect many athletes from despicable abuse.
Do we honor him for the good he did? I don't offer an opinion because I don't know enough of the facts to give an opinion.
But the question deserves serious discussion and thought. Not knee-jerk, emotional reaction.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
It’s a balancing act and classic utilitarianism. MLK was one of the most important civil rights leaders in the country. His failings and shortcomings on balance are outweighed by the good he did and how he changed the country for the better (unless you’re aware of something more than extramarital affairs or the plagiarism charge). Bo was a football coach. Countless young men would have gotten scholarships with or without him. Michigan had a roster to fill. He looked the other way at his players being sexually assaulted when he had a chance to stop it. On balance, it seems like he did more harm than good, ergo no veneration. Not too complex.
November 24th, 2021 at 1:33 PM ^
If you accept that the only good Bo did was give scholarships to the people needed to fill the roster of course the answer is easy.
But to do that you ignore the many stories of how Bo positively impacted the lives of others and helped players, former players, and even non-players in matters outside of football.
I made it clear I do not know enough about the entire situation to make a decision and do not oppose removing his honors. I just thought the matter deserved a full gathering of information and reasonable discussion before a decision.
Some people like easy decisions. They're not comfortable with information that doesn't support their emotional first reaction.
November 24th, 2021 at 2:29 PM ^
Cancel RAH!
November 25th, 2021 at 12:19 PM ^
Assuming everything is true, his looking the other way outweighs whatever else he did from my perspective. Maybe if you tell me he discovered the cure for cancer and didn’t have a chance to tell anyone before he died and it’s tucked away in a drawer in his old home, you could change some minds. But I also don’t think we as a society should be idolizing individuals to the extent we do. Whether that’s Bo, the founding fathers, Obama, Trump, etc.
November 24th, 2021 at 7:33 PM ^
Logged in to thank you Rah.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:02 AM ^
athletes/coaches should be the last people to have statues
November 24th, 2021 at 9:56 AM ^
Unless it's a guy like George Jewett. If they wanna keep a statue there, you can't go wrong with more tributes to that man
November 24th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
Not even him. You either recognize all or you don’t recognize anyone.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:19 AM ^
That's an extremely intellectually lazy position to hold, but I guess it makes things really simple.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:35 AM ^
Without Yost there is no Jewett. Without Bo there is no modern Michigan football.
People want to pick and choose what history they honor while not understanding that the good parts/people are inextricably linked and dependent upon the ugly parts/people.
Thoughtful people do not see the past in black and white—or least try not to.
We live in a incredibly superficial and self-righteous country. No nuance permitted. Symbolism is everything.
I suggest taking down all statues because this country isn’t intellectually mature enough to understand that in honoring a person’s contributions to society we are not condoning their personal views or conduct.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
So we can’t have statues to honor and remember good people and their hard work, simply because bad people have also existed around the same time as them? That’s a pretty weak argument. Can you explain why you’re so against a George Jewett statue?
November 24th, 2021 at 10:50 AM ^
Reread his points about seeing history in dichotomies and ignoring the complexity of the matter. Jewett would not have played at Michigan without Yost, so how can Yost be entirely evil if he gave GJ the opportunity?
November 24th, 2021 at 11:07 AM ^
I'm sure Hitler, Mao, and Stalin did some good things too in their lives. On balance, I think we can admit they were shitty and should not be venerated even if they had some qualities or did good things otherwise. The same holds true for the Confederate leaders, if we're looking for a slightly less extreme answer.
Again, the same holds true here. While Bo did a lot of good things with respect to Michigan football, on balance his looking the other way at sexual abuse by the team doctor makes him unworthy of veneration. Same holds true for Yost and his racism.
I personally teach my kids not to venerate any human beings as role models or idols. I try to teach principles and morals to live by rather than looking up to men or women. Everyone falls short.
November 24th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
It seems to me that likening Bo to Hitler, Mao, and Stalin is a bit extreme.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:21 PM ^
That wasn’t my intent. The point is it’s pretty simple to look at people at balance and make a value judgment no matter their place in history. Without Bo, there’s no modern Michigan football is the argument. Okay fine. I’d rather have a world where Anderson wasn’t allowed to sexually assault a bunch of young vulnerable men and I’m sure a lot of people would too. Bo failed and looked the other way, which in my view is made a whole lot worse given the shtick he sold (literally gave paid speeches and wrote books) about how the buck stops with the leader. On balance, I’m fine with not venerating him. Hell, I thought he was overrated long before all of this broke.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
No one being discussed here is remotely like despots or even Confederate leaders. The Civil War is an excellent source of how morally opaque history is. It involves terrible men(Sheridan, Sherman) fighting for a good and ostensibly decent men(Mosby, Longstreet) fighting for an evil. The power of sectional loyalty gets pushed aside these days, but such sentiments meant a lot then.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:58 AM ^
Amen.
November 24th, 2021 at 11:01 AM ^
A fair reply
November 24th, 2021 at 11:26 AM ^
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Your logic is that even though Jewett himself may be a person worth celebrating, the fact that his connection to the University was enabled by Yost--a man whose personal views on many subjects are deeply problematic--a Jewett statue would carry too much baggage?
Using your next example, assuming it's true there is no modern Michigan football without Bo--an assertion with which reasonable minds might certainly disagree--then we shouldn't really have a football program at all. Those not reaching your level of thoughfulness, after all, probably aren't equipped to cheer for the football team while simultaneously understanding that at times it has fallen abysmally short of the moral standards we would expect it to adhere to.
Seems to me like a Jewett statue would kill two birds. It would memorialize a man who was both an admirable person in his own right, and it would also call to mind the darker context of the society, and the University, in which he made his legacy. Sure, some people would only see the statue as something that celebrates George Jewett, a one-dimensional saint of a man who transcended a social evil that--thank heavens!--has been driven out from our blessed land for good. Most probably wouldn't even give it that much thought.
But Michigan is a University. It's purpose is to educate. Not everyone will read the assignments, many won't really understand them, and even the thoughtful may disagree what the ultimate meaning of the lesson is. That doesn't mean the pedagogical effort shouldn't be made.
Honestly, though it's wrapped up in some haughty tones of intellectual superiority, I think yours might be the Manichean worldview here, my dude.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:21 PM ^
It really isn’t. It’s pointing out that from we as a society benefits from the actions of bad people.
How much do you really know about George Jewett vis a vis Yost? Yost has been scrutinized. Jewett has not.
Turning one into a saint and the other into a monster does not move the community forward. It is simply making the same mistake in propping flawed beings up on a pedestal for the psychological reasons best explained by social psychologists.
The entire point of my post was to challenge the notions of intellectual and especially moral superiority when it comes to decisions involving controversial figures. I’m sorry that you chose to interpret my post as me extolling my superiority which definitely was not my intent.
November 24th, 2021 at 5:51 PM ^
Your points are mostly salient, but nobody but you is saying that a statue of someone automatically inherently means that they're on a pedestal. Visiting Monticello, for example, is a far cry from being pro-slave rape.
However, I'm all for erecting statues of lesser known Americans whose contributions have been lost to time and/or partisanship.
Like, for example, a statue of Smedley Butler with a blurb on how "War is a Racket," or a statue of Edward Snowden/Chelsea Manning detailing their courage in whistleblowing, or a statue of Medgar Evers, MLK, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, George Lee, Lamar Smith, Herbert Lee, Emmett Till, or MANY other civil rights leaders, detailing how and why they were assassinated by the government.
Or a statue of Eisenhower with a plaque of "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," hopefully built and funded with a bidding war between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
In short, a statue of a person existing is not necessarily putting said person on a pedestal, and must be viewed in the context of the person's life. What effect does the Bo statue still standing have on Anderson's victims? How do the victims feel about taking the statue down?
November 24th, 2021 at 12:23 PM ^
Or you could just add plaques telling the whole story.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:16 AM ^
The only statues that we should have are those of historical value(meaning they are old) and those should be in museums.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
So no more statues ever then, right?
I understand statues are meant to be permanent fixtures but if removing them ever needed for the right purposes existed, we have exhibit A on our own campus.
November 24th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
Maybe we should be honoring actions and outcomes and not people, at least not in statue form. Statues tend to deify people and as has been asserted here, human beings are imperfect and even flawed, and certainly aren't worthy of being thought of as Gods or more than human.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:09 AM ^
Take that statue down.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:57 AM ^
100%, shouldn't even be a question about it
November 24th, 2021 at 9:14 AM ^
I’m just surprised it took this long for someone to actually do something like this. figured this would’ve happened months ago.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:16 AM ^
Good.
Take it down
rename the building.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:28 AM ^
I am all for no statues (cough idles) to honor coaches and athletes but no one is afforded the right to destroy property even to honor victims. The second thing that is troubling is the piling on after Bo has died.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:35 AM ^
Agreed on statues for coaches/athletes (unless they did some serious good beyond the sport) , but sorry, you are taking the same approach as those Joe Paterno loving assholes at Penn State. They are still defending that piece of shit.
There are simply too many victim accounts of the abuse and victim accounts of going to Bo and others to alert them to the abuse for this to be BS.
I don't know why the U of M administration is dragging their heels on this. The statue should have been removed and the building renamed already.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
I mean...a lot of people who've done terrible things only have those things come to light after they die.
I'd disagree, I don't think it has much to do with the matter.
I understand he can't "defend himself," but I'm not sure that is the point or what we should be concerned with.
And yes, I am also not a statue person, but honoring people is what people do. So if it's not a statue, it would be a ring of honor, or a garden with a bunch of plaques like Yankee Stadium, or a hall of champions, etc.
Statues make for a more visible target, that's about it. But for whatever reason, we view them as the ultimate sign of honor/legacy.
But take a look into Yost's past. Look into Crisler. You're talking about white men who lived decades/generations ago, in a country that was a lot more (openly) tolerant of racism, bigotry, sexism, discrimination, misogyny, segregation, etc.
Culturally we evolve, even progress. But a statue forever lives in the era it represents, views of that era and what is/isn't acceptable are naturally going to change over time.
For that reason, I am bigger into museums and not a fan of monuments. Create an outdoor museum. Won't necessarily stop this from happening, but it'll be within the richer context of history and not about honor/legacy/representation. Because like it or not, Bo Schembechler was NEVER honored by all Michigan fans, his legacy was not positive for all Michigan fans, and he damn certain didn't represent all Michigan fans. But all Michigan fans probably deserve to know who he was, what he did, and have the opportunity to develop their own opinion as to how to recognize him and his contribution to the University.
November 24th, 2021 at 9:51 AM ^
This is a nuanced and reasonable take. No place for it in a post 2020 world.
*Thank you for sharing*
November 24th, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
This is a good take, but even museums aren't ever an accurate encapsulation of history; they're curated snapshots of what people (usually those in power) feel best represents the past. It's why the baseball hall of fame keeps out guys like Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Sammy Sosa aren't in the Hall because the overlords of baseball don't want to acknowledge their existence because it calls into question the "sanctity" of the sport. Same reason why UM has taken forever to acknowledge the Fab 5.
I find sports museums largely masturbatory edifices on their own, but if a sports wants to honor certain men and women with them so be it. But no matter how hard they try they'll always be a biased, edited version of history.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:24 AM ^
All eras of human existence saw/see the species struggle with the dark side of human nature. We today are so arrogant to believe that we are beyond the frailties of previous generations. We are as our forebears were. Grievously flawed creatures prone to iniquitous and deleterious conduct.
The past says as much about us as it does those who came before. But people first have to have the humility and self-awareness to see that.
November 24th, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
Let me translate this for people. “ I don’t give a crap what he knew or didn’t know, keep your stinking hand off BO”.
November 24th, 2021 at 5:37 PM ^
looking at your point total, i'd say it's a pretty good thing for everyone that you don't post more
November 24th, 2021 at 10:22 AM ^
Damn this comment literally has everything backwards
November 24th, 2021 at 9:31 AM ^
Just take it down. The luster wore off and it's more of a distraction. Lets replace it with a cool looking wolverine taking a swipe with one paw.