June 23, 2020
When protesters and cities started taking down monuments to the Confederacy and NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from all of its properties, I cheered. Finally, people were starting to understand that these were not symbols of "Southern Pride" or "Southern Heritage", but symbols of hate.
When I started hearing about people taking down the statues of Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington, however, this concerned me. This was done, because each of them had owned slaves. While slavery is one of America's greatest sins (the near-annihilation of the indigenous population being the other) you have to judge the entire resume.
With regards to Grant, "the Third Force Act, also known as the KKK or the Civil Rights Act of 1871, empowered President Ulysses S. Grant to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws and, if necessary, to suspend habeas corpus to enforce the act. Grant signed the legislation in 1871. After the act’s passage, the president for the first time had the power to suppress state disorders on his own initiative and suspend the right of habeas corpus. Grant did not hesitate to use this authority. Shortly after Congress approved the law, nine counties in South Carolina, where KKK terrorism was rampant, were placed under martial law and thousands of persons were arrested."
With regards to George Washington, he's George Freakin' Washington! Decorated general, Founding Father, and turned down another term for fear of becoming a monarch or emperor. (Take notes, Donald John.)
No one is perfect. The more important they are / were, the more research will be done, and, in turn, the more likely you are to find something untoward about them. (I, for example, have siblings that are fans of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Horrendous! Sure, not "owned slaves horrendous", but not great.) That being the case, the question becomes, "What do you do with this newfound knowledge?"
In my humble opinion, you Teach. You let people know what you found and add that to the person's story. What we're seeing, and have been seeing for some time, is not an attempt to erase history, but to correct it. People have been fed romanticized, sometimes false, narratives about this country and the people who built it. That needs to be corrected. Not just in college courses that you can choose to avoid, but starting with kindergarten. This information should be made available and taught to everyone regardless of race, socio-economic status, or region of the country. Not only will this lead to a greater understanding of historical figures, but will let people know, from an early age, that it's okay to be flawed.
Once people accept that it's okay for them or others to have flaws, you can have reasonable discussions regarding whether or not the "flaws" are forgivable and how to respond to the unforgivable ones.
Ultimately, you can only fight Ignorance with Education. #PayOurTeachers
