In the last few years, there has been widespread protest in removing Confederate statues to stop celebrating figures who supported not just breaking away from the U.S. but also keeping slavery. These statues are mostly located in the southern states of the U.S. and were also part of the Confederate States during the Civil War. Although I do agree that these figures should not be celebrated and statues brought down but I also believe they should not be erase from history to show people that this actually happened.
Much like today with the Christopher Columbus statues where there has been protest to be taken because it represent a racial and violent history to the treatment of indigenous people in the Americas. There are others who refused to have them taken down because the statue has been associated with culture and a sense of heritage, much like the Confederate statues. I do not think we do not see much of the civil rights leaders such as MLK, Rosa Parks to other historical figures like Harriet Tubman to celebrate their accomplishments in bringing a better change to society. Recently, a statue was taken down near Central Park of James Marion Sims. According to a BBC article, Sims was described as the “father of genecology” who performed medical experiments on enslaved black women without using any anesthetics. This statue was labelled as a symbol hate and was therefore taken down.
It was a very interesting read, especially now we are seeing more action and protest taken to remove any statue that represents the darkest history of the U.S. This history should not be celebrated but should be taught in schools to show students the whole history of the country and not “white wash” any part of history.
