I have no reason to believe your article isn’t sincere, but much of your argumentation is exactly why we will see some statues restored and counter responses for years to come.
You were raised on a narrative that places villainy elsewhere. Your response to that is an inversion. Institutionalized slavery was (and is today still, in some places) evil and wrong, and it is difficult to support the notion of a ‘good master’ though we hope at least some were.
Much like now, the only response when you are otherwise powerless to change the system is to minimize or avoid those parts that you don’t want to examine. There were bad actors everywhere, and there were ‘avoiders’ everywhere. With hindsight, it is very easy to pass judgement without context.
Human beings want to love what they are. They don’t want to live in shame, especially for things they did not do. Soldiers on the ground in unpopular wars especially pay a price for policies they didn’t make, but ultimately they pay for with their lives. The same is true for the lowly German or Japanese soldier who was told to fight, and given no other choice to do otherwise. They were home town men someplace.
In the South, a slow but certain movement was already in place with the removal of Confederate flags and associated imagery. Yes, there’s been some push back, but not really that much. Statues become worn out with time and then, as they become eyesores, replaced with something else entirely.
But when you raise fists and pull down statues, and worse, give it the air that it somehow forced from outside, you surely create an environment for a backlash.
