I say tear them all down.
No one can live up to a monument.
No one deserves to be put on a pedestal.
What are we to do with someone like Mark Twain?
Mark Twain wrote what I believe to be the most beautiful and powerful book on racism in American that any white man has ever written. If you follow the friendship of Huckleberry Finn and Jim and you get to the end where Huck decides if being Jim’s friend means he is going to hell - “All right then. I’ll go to hell.” If that does not move you then you have ice in your blood.
This same man also hated Native Americans. He once said,” Knowledge of Indians and humanity are seldom found in the same individual.”
Martin Luther King was consistently unfaithful to his wife and there is great evidence to support the claim that he plagiarized his doctoral dissertation at Boston University.
What are we to do with him?
If it was not for Winston Churchill we would be living under the flag of the Third Reich., He also repeatedly expressed that he believed white people to be the superior race.
What are we to do with Mr. Churchill?
In some ways Thomas Jefferson was brilliant. In other ways he was disgusting.
The Lincoln Memorial is an impressive thing to witness but even Lincoln can not live up to it. No one can.
The problem is monuments to individuals over-simplify history. And that never leads to the truth. The truth in history comes from embracing all its contradictions and complexities,
And that each of us can relate to.
Admit it. Most of us ignore historical monuments in parks. How often have you have taken the time to look at them or even bothered to look at who it was? That is because we cannot relate to them. They are inhuman.
And that is the important thing to remember about great historical figures. They were human.
Not made of marble.
And therefore as relatable as they are memorable.
I say take them all down.