ANALYSIS - Confederate Statues In US Should Be Placed In Museums, Not Vandalized

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th July, 2020) ASHINGTON, July 7 (Sputnik), Barrington M. Salmon - Statues of Confederate leaders should be legally removed from public land in the United States and placed in museums or other private spaces, curators and historians told Sputnik.

In Richmond, Virginia last week, bowing to public sentiment, protests and protesters pulling down and defacing statues they say represents white supremacy, Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the removal of the statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.

Stoney's action, in the former capital of the Confederacy, comes at a time when Americans are deeply divided over the issue. The May 25 murder of George Floyd, a 46-year old Black man, in Minneapolis triggered nationwide protests and what is being described as a national reckoning around racial justice, including questions about the appropriateness of Confederate monuments in public spaces.

Washington, DC Historian Dr. Shantella Sherman said such statues should be fitted into museums and historical societies, and should be welcomed along with appropriate narratives deconstructing the racial ideologies and theories of racial inferiority, advancement of social inequality, and scientifically-based racism that fostered their erection.

"The Confederacy had its heroes and their great-grandchildren have a right to privately celebrate their bravery, said Sherman, an author and journalist who specializes in Women's Studies and Popular Culture. "As a historian who teaches race, bias, and eugenics, I often use Whites Only signs and racist ephemera, as well as items of Black resistance and rebellion in lectures because they are proof positive of these histories. It is the context under which they exist today that determines their value or harm. If these monuments, signs and flags were being displayed, for instance, at the city courthouse, they insinuate that the position of that government authority aligns with the racial intolerance of the past."

However, she added, state legislators should have actively agreed to remove the monuments and have them placed on private property, "rather than having them pulled down... because it makes criminals of impassioned and well-meaning citizens."

"Having these memorials pulled down or defaced opens the very real possibility that similar and retaliatory actions could be taken against African American monuments as well," Sherman said.

Assistant division chief for historic resources with the Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation, Omar Eaton-Martinez, said the demand for statues and monuments to be taken down could allow space for the public and children to learn a history no longer centered on Europeans.

"Ideally, museums would be a place for the statues to be displayed with the intention of interpreting in a more holistic way," he said. "They can be interrogated and spark dialogue based on scholarship. However, the maintenance of those objects is very expensive and to place them in a museum where they may not have space for it or the budget to conserve the object would be irresponsible."

Eaton-Martinez said he agrees with protesters taking down Confederate and other monuments and paraphrased a quote from Eric Carpio, Director of Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center, and Deputy Community Museum Officer at History Colorado Alamosa, who said "taking down confederate monuments is not erasure, putting them up was erasure."

"We must remember that these statues were put up after Reconstruction. They are large in-your-face objects of white supremacy," said Eaton-Martinez. "To me, this is interesting. I love the idea of contextualizing this. We don't need to spend money to remove the statues to put them in another space. There's limited spaces for objects of that size. I have some ideas but where are you going to put them?"

Eaton-Martinez said he doesn't know where or how far this effort will go, but said it's necessary so as to reorder the way African Americans are treated by white America, while bringing long overdue racial justice, equity, accessibility and fairness to every facet of life in America.

Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, captured the thinking of those who support pulling down these structures down, defunding police and forcing substantive change in business, government, education and other areas of American life.

"What's been the message of Confederate monuments and flags? It depends on who you are," said Wallis, well-known for his advocacy on issues of peace and social justice. "If you're a Black teenager in the South, each day passing a memorial to someone who committed treason in order to keep your ancestors enslaved, how might that make you feel? If you're a white American who still points to the 'heritage' of the 'lost cause,' it might further ingrain your denial of the brutality of slavery and how racism continues today."

A nation that still honors Confederate signs in public places signals its belief that Black people are less important than white people, that Black people's trauma can be disregarded, he said.

"Confederate flags signal to the public that it's okay to keep ignoring the worst and ugliest sins of our past, while trying to create an impenetrable barrier to a different and better future," Wallis said.

Dr. Frank Smith, founder and curator of the African-American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC, also strongly supports the removal of statues, monuments and other structures.

"What is on the landscape matters. There are so many of them out here. Obviously statues of Jefferson Davis, Mary Surratt and Robert E. Lee should be taken down," said Smith, a veteran Civil Rights activist, speaker and retired politician. "And I don't think the soldiers who serve their country, risk their lives and sometimes die, should be at bases with the Names of traitors. For those who say this is erasure, I think the argument is the opposite. We're the only country in the world where we put up monuments to people who lost a war against the US government."

Smith said the young people marching on the street in the tradition of Civil Rights will ascend and work in the Federal government and make changes.

"I'm very happy that young people are stirred up. I'm a grandfather of college-aged kids. I spent my life in Civil Rights movement. I'm a granddaddy but I marched with them. I have one more good march in me," Smith concluded.