But Honestly, Who Really Cares About Statues?
Amidst a global pandemic that has left over 160,000 Americans dead, an economic recession that has brought Great Depression-level unemployment, and nationwide uprisings sparked by the extrajudicial police murder of George Floyd, one of the defining issues of the upcoming presidential election has become the culture war. The president of the United States has decided to stake his re-election bid on statues. Yes, the marble or cement carved to resemble historical figures has been pushed to the forefront of the national conversation despite everything else going on around the country. Ironically, this framing illustrates what statues actually represent — a propagandistic distraction.
Around the world, protesters are taking to the streets to demand racial justice. These uprisings have led to conversations about race relations and have forced certain areas to face their historical wrongdoings. City councils around the United States have begun voting to remove statues of Confederate generals and racist figures. The American Natural History Museum proposed the removal of a Theodore Roosevelt statue where he is depicted riding a horse while flanked by two figures, one of Native American descent and one of African descent, which Indigenous activists have been trying to get removed for years. A Christopher Columbus statue has been removed in Buffalo, while Andrew Jackson statues are being removed in New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi. Some Confederate statues have been removed from Richmond, Virginia but a statue of General Robert E. Lee remains standing.
So, what happens when a city council won’t face its history? Or who decides which statues are racist or not? Recently, a Ulysses S. Grant statue was taken down by protesters in San Francisco which led many to ask, Why him? Grant was a general for the Union army and fought against the Confederacy. South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn said “no one was more anti-slavery” than Grant. But a closer look at history will tell us that Grant, in fact, did own a slave.
Later during the Civil War, Grant became frustrated by the Union’s inability to hurt the Confederacy economically because of a large black market trade for cotton throughout the South. Grant scapegoated the Jews for this, highlighting the anti-semitic trope that Jews are greedy and opportunistic. In 1862, General Grant demanded their evacuation from Paducah, Kentucky, writing, “You are hereby ordered to leave the city… within twenty-four hours.”
Cesar Kraskel, a Jew who emigrated to the United States because of the religious persecution he faced in Prussia, could not believe the Union army was forcing him to leave his new home and business for the same reason he left Europe in the first place. When Lincoln found out about Grant’s anti-semitic actions, he condemned them and swiftly reversed the order. A Jewish historian called the order “the most sweeping anti-Jewish regulation in all of American history.”
This brings into question one of the main (and worst) arguments against removing statues. Statue defenders always ask how people will remember history if statues are removed. And, to that, the response is incredibly simple: there are statues right now and people still do not know their history. The argument also takes for granted that statues accurately depict history, when they do not. Indeed, statues constantly whitewash history. They often reinforce lies like the Lost Cause ideology, which paints the formation of the Confederacy as a just and noble cause rather than strictly being about the ability to own slaves. Many statues glorify the Founding Fathers despite the fact that the vast majority of them owned slaves. Confederate statues paint the generals and soldiers as war heroes rather than the racist monsters they were. History is taught using history textbooks and artifacts in museums; no one learns history from statues.
The weaponization of statues is nothing new. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Confederate monuments went up between the years 1900 and 1920, with another spike occurring during the 1960s. These statues were used to emphasize and enforce Jim Crow and to counter the Civil Rights movement. They were used to intimidate Black people as they began to organize and fight for their freedoms and rights. It was a way for white people to reassert their dominance. The largest monument to the Confederacy is called Stone Mountain, located in Georgia. This carving of Confederate soldiers was completed in 1972. Yes, 1972 — after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, after the second Civil Rights Act was signed, and over 100 years after the Civil War had ended. Activists’ calls for its removal have intensified in recent weeks with one calling the monument a reminder of white supremacy.
After seeing protesters removing statues around the country, President Trump signed an executive order that would imprison statue removers for 10 years. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2016 the only crime that had an average sentence of well over 10 years was murder, while negligent manslaughter, rape, and sexual assault were at or around 10 years. It certainly says something about his priorities that the president would require a sentence for tearing down statues to be the same length as negligent manslaughter and just two years less than the average time served by a rapist. During the July 4th weekend, Trump gave two speeches focusing on statues and railing against anarchists, rioters, looters, and agitators that were supposedly trying to “erase history.” His emphasis on statues is a completely different strategy than the one he ran during his narrow 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton. So far, this strategy has been failing as his approval rating has plummeted along with his polling numbers.
The strategy Trump is using didn’t just materialize overnight. It comes from centuries of people celebrating so-called “patriots.” The United States has never reconciled with its dark past, whether it was the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Black people, the internment of Japanese-Americans, or the horrors of American foreign policy and military intervention in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Americans are still living in the past but have yet to hold their country accountable for its crimes. Many statues glorify all the wrong parts of history and serve as a deflection whenever anyone offers criticism of United States history. People cannot move forward until past atrocities are faced head-on and their effects still felt today are addressed. The focus on statues represents the cheap, easy way out. People can act like things have changed without structurally changing the system that badly needs to be overhauled.
Every racist statue glorifying a slave owner or murderous general needs to be removed. It is unjust and inhumane to have taxpayers pay for and regularly see statues that represent their ancestors’ oppression. But that cannot be the end; statues must be the start of a long conversation. Racial injustices in the health care, education, and criminal justice systems as well as housing and the environment all need to be dealt with and corrected too. Malcolm X once said, “The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice.” This must be kept in mind, and we must maintain focus on the real issues and not get sidetracked by attempts to distract from our end goals.
