Let’s Replace Shrines to White Supremacy With the True History of Our Great Nation

多米尼克DiPrima

The past few days along with joyous celebrations of Juneteenth and Fathers Day, a fourth weekend of protests shook the nation and the globe. Among these was the continued toppling of are monuments to white supremacy – Confederate statues and eventually statues of others who were slaveholders or deemed racist in their word and deed. 在洛杉矶, mostly Latino protesters tore down a sculpture of Father Junipero Serra, who although canonized by the pope in 2017, is a symbol of the brutality of colonialism towards Native Americans for Chicano and Indigenous activists and conscious people everywhere. New York will take down a likeness of Theodore Roosevelt because it depicts a Black man and an American Indian in servile positions by his side. The confederate flag will fly no more at Nascar events and in the halls of congress tributes to the traitorous confederate leaders, even those who served at the highest levels of government are being removed.

And now some pundits are clutching their pearls asking where will it end? Since many of our founding fathers held slaves, will we abolish the Washington Monument or the countless schools and roads named after Thomas Jefferson? Some even go so far as to claim that this movement to rid our nation of the vestiges of it’s horrific past will wipe out our history altogether, the history of a great and diverse democracy with all it’s warts and wonders. 这, my friends is highly unlikely. These statues and fetishes have a place in a museum or a private collection to be studied as relics of hateful and primitive past, not erased but relegated to a more appropriate venue so that the people and concepts that we choose to elevate are in alignment with the best of what America is and can be. It’s also worth noting that the full history of these United States is yet to be told on a widespread basis. The true story of enslaved Africans in America, Asian indentured servants, Indigenous peoples, Latinos and poor and working class white Americans has yet to be told. Rather than erasing our history, maybe the removal of shrines to our racist past will allow room for the full color, nuance and beauty that is our great nation.