Statues are not wellsprings of hate. They are mute reflections of our history. Move the offending statues from positions of prominence if you must but don’t destroy them. And while I like former President Obama’s observation that we were not born with hate; it’s an acquired emotion, it’s what we do after we succumb to it that worries me.
The list of atrocities we inflict on each other day in and day out, past and present, bespeaks a special quality of our species that our religions and our community and elected leaders have not been able to abate. Purging history and the hapless statues that teach it won’t make us more tolerant and accepting. More likely, just the opposite.
Keep this in mind too: There were no statues in Rwanda that excited the black-on-black tribal slaughter of millions; or in Cambodia that propelled Pol Pot and his murderous minions to create vast killing fields on which they tortured to death millions of their countrymen; or in what was once Yugoslavia where neighbors murdered neighbors for years largely because of religious differences.
If this purification of history doesn’t stop, then there’s nothing to keep those who wish to rewrite it from removing all references and recognition to George Washington, a slave owner; to Thomas Jefferson, another slave owner or Andrew Jackson, who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of American Indians, or the American flag which was among those carried by the Charlottesville hate mongers.
Jimm Roberts
Alexandria