Statues And History

It was 2017 when the battle of statues in Charlottesville and elsewhere led to the unrest that killed Heather Heyer. Since then, the issue has receded and crested along with other aspects of how to accommodate our racist past. It has now taken center stage across the Western World.

The first thing to note is why we have statues in the first place. Almost by definition, statues are meant to honor important figures or events. They are commemorative, which usually extends to honoring the subject. It is not - as some conservatives have tried to argue - about "history," it is about honoring certain people, events or topics. Context matters. The Statue of Liberty, for instance, was given to honor America's centenary from our revolutionary ally, France. It's placement and Emma Lazarus' poem led to its context within the debate over immigration.

The second thing is why there is a statue in the first place. Why honor that person or event? When we look at the statues of Confederate generals, they were placed there to honor the Lost Cause of Treason in Defense of Slavery. Robert E. Lee had an impressive moment as a junior officer in the Mexican War, but that's not why his likeness is littered around the South. In 2020, there is no reason to honor the Confederacy. In fact, removing the statues is as considered and purposeful a move as putting them up during the Jim Crow era was. By removing them, we are acknowledging that the Civil War was about slavery and the subjugation of a race of people in brutal bondage.

Columbus is slightly more complicated. On the one hand, he was a genuinely awful human being. He was the first slave trader in the Americas and his treatment of the Taino was genocidal. However, the worst thing he did, he didn't even know he was doing - namely introducing lethal pathogens into a population that had no immunity to them. The microbial genocide was not a purposeful act by Columbus. He is also known for something else, namely his linking of the Old and New Worlds for the first time. It is completely understandable why Native Americans would hate Columbus and the veneration of him, but there isn't necessarily NO reason for having a statue.  On the other hand, he was actually a fairly shitty navigator who would've killed his crew if it wasn't for the fact that the New World was where it is. He clung to his belief that he had found Asia, which shows that maybe holding him up as a paragon of exploratory genius is misguided.

A similar problem emerges for statues of Churchill. He was, even by measures of the day, remarkably racist in his dealings with India. There certainly shouldn't be any statues of him in India or Pakistan. However, Churchill is also known for something else: his wartime leadership of Great Britain and his critical role from 1940-1941 of preserving resistance to Hitler's dream of hegemony. Churchill is complicated. 

Thomas Jefferson is incredibly complicated. His politics were a conscious appeal to white supremacy and solidarity in the face of appeals from (ironically) the Federalists to give women and freed Blacks the vote. He also articulated the very ideals that later generations would use to enfranchise everyone. Seneca Falls used his language to appeal for rights for women. Jefferson is the American Janus; the two-faced deity that looks to a racist past and a future of true equity.

Even Lincoln, apparently is on the chopping block. There is a movement among some to label Lincoln a white supremacist.  I would argue the historical record on that is dubious at best. Lincoln was certainly a realist who navigated between a majority of Americans who wanted nothing to do with African American equality, his need to win a Civil War by keeping the North united and a legitimate repulsion with slavery. Lincoln was almost fundamentally a humanist and his desire to alleviate the suffering of African Americans is difficult to question.  But there we are. The desire to label Lincoln a white supremacist (including a plaque on the bust of Lincoln that is a landmark on our campus) is different from tearing down a statue. Lincoln is famous for a great many things, including emancipation. My guess is that this would go nowhere.

There is no legitimate reason to venerate the Confederacy.  None.  Whether statues, military bases or NASCAR events, it's time to end the Civil War for good. However, we shouldn't monomaniacally judge the past by the standards of the present.  We can contextualize them to seek to understand why someone like Lincoln clearly embraced white supremacy in his rhetoric if rarely in his actions. That's exactly what history should be doing.