talks with sky

J'Kwesi Menter, an expert on Confederate culture and monuments, discusses the Confederate stained glass window collection at the University of Alabama. The window glorifies the Confederacy and includes rhetoric about the south rising again. The collection was designed by Tiffany & Co. and created by a group of women called the Tiffany Girls. J'Kwesi connects the window collection to Marxism and discusses how Tiffany & Co. transitioned from stained glass to jewelry. The brand's recent partnership with Beyonce is seen as ironic and rooted in racism. J'Kwesi believes it's important to remember the atrocities associated with these relics rather than destroy them. Welcome everyone to Talks With Skye, today is a very special episode, we have a very special guest today, J'Kwesi Menter, who is honestly, basically an expert on the confederate culture around UA and confederate monuments that are still here, so J'Kwesi, I'll let you introduce yourself. Hello, my name is J'Kwesi Menter, yes, I am an alumni from the University of Alabama, while I was there I studied confederate memorabilia on campus and I'm excited to speak about some of it today. Alright, so let's jump right in, so the first thing I want to talk about is, since you did so many studies on the different monuments, what do you think is the most interesting? I think one of the most interesting monuments on the University of Alabama's campus would be the confederate stained glass window collection that's housed there. It was something truly awesome to explore and it really opened up my eyes to the different types of mediums that the confederacy can exist in today. So where is this stained glass window? So the stained glass window is housed in the whole special collections, it's a primary sources library at the University of Alabama that is honestly pretty cool. It's right behind, I'm trying to think of that hall, is it Russell Hall, I cannot remember where Chick-fil-A is. Lloyd. Lloyd, I don't know where Russell came from. It's the back side of Lloyd Hall and it is a heavily guarded window that represents and glorifies the confederacy. So is there any rhetoric within the window? Oh my goodness, there's so much rhetoric within the window. I mean to start, it's kind of a symbol that acts as the beautification of atrocity. So when you go in and you walk through the elevators, you see this tall, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed white man that is obviously a confederate soldier, but he's painted in chain mail with a sword and shield that's meant to represent the great crusades. And so when you take something that is horrific, thinking the confederate soldier, and then when you take something that can be considered as beautiful as art, aka the crusades, and blend them together, you kind of have a living and breathing piece of rhetoric. So I know we talked about this before. Does it, on the window, it says something about the south rising? Yes. So it's in, I can never remember because I don't really study languages that much, but it's in another type of language, probably Hebrew, because Hebrew does connect to the crusade in the Bible. And it talks about the south will rise again, which is very kind of chilling to have something on an institution that has a history of being very racist and confederate. So to have the confederate mantra be ingrained on a window in one of the buildings on the campus, it speaks volume. So would you say that you would think that this relates to Marxism? Oh, for sure. Now, real briefly, can you remind me of what Marxism is? Isn't that the one that talks about, like, materialistic things are more important and often comes at the expense of the people? Yes. Okay. Yeah. No. When it comes to that, I think you can see how Marxism plays a role in the Tiffany St. Louis window collection, simply because back then, Tiffany & Co., which, yes, the company that makes jewelries now, came up with this idea that because art was the penicill of society at the time, what if they created windows and made profit off of that? Well, people weren't just buying, you know, windows that were just like pictures with the sun and animals and things of that nature. So they needed to tell a story. And with Tiffany & Co., in this case, it was the story of the Antebellum South, the Confederacy and so forth, but not in a way that we hold them accountable, the Confederate soldiers, but in a way that we kind of glorified them. And so Marxism can be seen in the Tiffany St. Louis window collection because the expense of those of my ancestors and their stories was often, you know, very used and valued So it's kind of like the cultural hegemony aspect of Marxism, where it talks about like groups or institutions and how they create like a dominant belief system. And that is considered natural or common. So like that, basically, these windows became like the cultural standpoint in people's No, I mean, it became a community because there are windows all across the South. There are windows in churches. There are windows in people's homes. This wasn't just a collection that was donated to the University of Alabama. It was a collection that was donated to the Antebellum South as a whole. Wow. So we talked about the history behind these windows. Can we talk a little bit about how the design came to be and like who crafted this and then how it was culture now? Yes. So it was actually Tiffany & Co. that designed the windows, but it was a group of women who, to this day, we still do not know their specific names, called the Tiffany Girls. Yes, they were named after Mr. Tiffany, which I find so sexist, which, honestly, if you're familiar with feminist theory, you could connect, you know, the basis and background of feminist theory and all of its principles about gender inequality to the simple name and adaptation of these women being the Tiffany Girls. And I think with the Tiffany Girls being the women that worked and put these actual windows together, it kind of showcases that regardless of whether or not you're a woman or whether or not you decide by choice, when the man is in a position of power, you're made to do whatever they ask. And I think with feminist theory being in mind, with the Tiffany Girls being in mind, putting those together and knowing what we know now about gender and the way we view it, I think the culture that was created back then... Oh, go ahead. So, like, with him, like, even naming them after himself and not using their name, it kind of reminds me of, like, Chanel No. 1, Chanel No. 2, but it's kind of like he saw them as property. Yes, no, that is. Yes, he economized their bodies wholeheartedly. And so, we know Tiffany & Co. as this jewelry company, so how did they leave from these elaborate stained glass windows to jewelry? And who was creating the jewelry? Honestly, in my opinion, based on my research, it's because as we shifted and became more industrialized over time, our respect and our love for art dwindled. This was kind of popular during a time where industrialization was just on the rise. And so, people were into artwork. They were into stained glass. They were into lamps and all those things that Tiffany & Co. created. And so, as we shifted through industrialization, we went from, you know, finding comfort and peace and value in the artistic and simple things to, honestly, finding art and value in materialistic things. And I think Tiffany & Co., Mr. Tiffany, he was smart. Every businessman knows how to keep up with the trends. They know how to do what they need to do in order to make profit. So, once he realized this industrialization's effect on society and the business industry, he was quick to act and make a decision to switch from stained glass windows to the jewelry company we know and love today. And we see that it worked because Tiffany & Co. has now become one of the most influential jewelry companies in the world. Every girl wants a little blue box for Christmas. And even we see a lot of our leader, or a lot of cultural icons, a part of this is Beyonce. How do you see that? Beyonce is a black woman. You know, she just actually signed a major deal with Tiffany & Co. I mean, the Renaissance Tour was one of the most grossing and revenue-building tours that we've known in, honestly, the history of concerts. And so, for Tiffany & Co. to build its brand off of the backs of enslaved individuals back when it was founded, to now transcend and transform and elongate that brand off the backs of black icons, I think there's this, like, creepy and eerie irony there and, honestly, a good arena for the rhetorical canon to be shot. Right. It kind of reminds me of, like, culture-centric criticism and, like, talking about how, with, like, what you said, it's really ironic how it started off as praising the South for enslaving black people to now, you want a black woman to support and to give you and give you exposure for your business. Yep, it's almost, they went from, not even really did they went from, it's like they went from needing us and using us without our permission to needing us again and signing us on to their deals. It's just all sinister and it's all unfortunate. But, like most things in our country, just about everything's rhetoric that we, like, live off of is rooted in racism. Right. So, I would say, out of all the things that you studied and what you learned, what is one thing you would want to leave the people with for why this type of work and this research is important? I think oftentimes, the one thing that I want to leave people with is, I think oftentimes people feel as if when we're having these conversations, we often want to destroy these things. We want to get rid of them. And to my knowledge, there are some people that do. Some people would argue that we need to break these windows, that we need to tear down these Confederate statues and so forth. But I'm a firm believer that we have to kind of keep them. And I know that sounds odd, coming from someone like me who's very vocal about, you know, racism and rhetoric. But anytime we read, you know, pieces of public memory of the things that once lived there, we often forget about the atrocities that happened to certain groups of people. Example, Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was burned to the ground. Not many people know about it because a water park was built over it. Auschwitz as well. You know, now that there are things being built over concentration camps, and we're starting to forget the wrongdoings of our people. And so I think it's important that we not, you know, glorify these relics of Confederacy, but almost kind of mourn them and keep them in places like museums and certain areas that acknowledge them, but don't honor them. And I think that's something that I would send away with some people. I like that. I like how you're saying there's not giving them a place of honor because I've been talked about with UA, with how much of a Confederate culture we have, like Honor's Day with the mound and how slaves slept there, but it is literally called Honor's Day and we hold Honor's Day there and they dress back like they were in the Antebellum South to do that or how this window, I believe you talked about it, was that it could not be covered or wasn't supposed to be covered unless someone asked for it, but who's going to ask for it? No, you're right. Oh my gosh, you're amazing. I could talk to you for hours about these things and I love every time we get together and get to talk about these things. Thank you so much for joining us and come back anytime and tune in next week to hear more about what's going on in Europe. Thank you, bye-bye.