With Confederate monuments being taken down, covered up or destroyed, it’s time to decide what to do with these statues. After the speech President Trump gave at his campaign rally in Phoenix, I’m surprised he didn’t redecorate the Oval Office in a General Stonewall Jackson motif.
In all seriousness, I don’t want to see these statues destroyed. Even as symbols of oppression, they are part of our nation’s history and shouldn’t be simply vanished. I’d hate to see this part of our history erased and forgotten. The main problem is one of context— how do we preserve these things and how is their story told? (Clearly a courthouse square is not the place to do that.)
Maybe the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture can display General Lee and the others right next to their displays of slave shackles? Or better yet, let’s create the museum I designed in this cartoon. Many more Confederate monuments are out there so this issue isn’t going away anytime soon, particularly if Trump keeps using it as a racist wedge to rally his base.