Evil Statues

There's been a battle going on in the southern states about whether or not statues of confederate soldiers should be removed.  For many, they represent the days of slavery and some find it wrong to glorify them.

All along I've been saying the statues should not be removed because they are part of our history and history cannot be changed by removing unpleasant reminders.  All it took to change my opinion was one question from Mary.  She asked how I'd feel about a statue of Hitler.  And right then I saw the problem through new eyes.

No, history can never be changed by removing those statues but I can now understand that the statues were put in place to honor that particular soldier and that is what causes hurt and disgust especially to people whose ancestors were slaves.  As much as I hate to see remnants of our history destroyed, I hadn't thought about the fact that we've evolved to a day where what they represented is now considered evil.  How would the family of people who lost their lives in Nazi gas chambers feel about having a statue of Hitler displayed in their town?

Germany once wanted the death camps to be demolished because they were embarrassed by them but enough people protested that they still remain as a reminder of the evil we're capable of doing.  Maybe the solution to the Confederate statues is to leave them where they are but apply a plaque explaining the evil they perpetuated against blacks.  I don't know if that would be enough, though, to make everyone happy.

The recent clash between demonstrators to demolish and the white supremacy idiots who want to keep the statues tells me we're a long way from being able to agree on anything here.  The very fact that large groups of white supremists exist proves we haven't evolved as far as we should have.

The very fact that President Trump fell far short of lashing out at the white supremists is also very telling.  That they hold Trump up as a leader screams out that the United States is in bigger trouble than we thought.