In the midst of the George Floyd protests, one of the recurring images is the forcible removal of statues of Confederate commemoration all across America. These statues have been slowly disappearing over the last ten years or so and recently this process has been sped up. (Good)
Allow me to suggest: African-American groups (the NAACP, for example, or perhaps a new group dedicated to this mission) should be buying these statues and preserving them. A site should be founded where all of these statues can be collected in a large open-air display where people can gather to remember what has past in American culture. Plaques could be laid noting not only the history of these mutinous awful people but of the statues themselves, a lot of which would bear the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, in whose honor they would have come to reside at this new museum.
Ending slavery is just as much a part of America's history as slavery itself. And if African-Americans control this reminiscence, it can become the cornerstone of their contribution to ending the scourge of forced labor all over the world as well as here in our homeland. Imagine annual Juneteenth and Independence Day pilgrimages to this site where African-Americans can gather and remember not only what was lost but how instrumental their community was in eradicating the evils and surviving the hardships. Let the outdoor display be a long walk up to an African-American history museum, a row of vanquished enemies before seeing the displays on Frederick Douglass and Howard Thurman and Alain Locke and Harriett Tubman.
Yes, I realize a shame museum is perhaps a negative realization, a negative actualization, but history demands shining a light on the worst of our behaviors just as much as our best (USA is perhaps the world's leader in both!). For African-Americans it would show that they were a part of this community all along, even through the centuries when they weren't allowed to participate. And it would be a reminder that this land of the free was never free and it would give embodied examples of the people who fought to keep it un-free.
And, yes, at first undoubtedly you would have protests: White Lives Matter banners would appear, perhaps even angry white hands trying to destroy these statues or lay waste to the site. I think pretty quickly that would melt away and if not, the irony of a police department forced to protect these monuments would be telling--every protest would simply reaffirm the museum's mission. Would this movement become a new strain of white supremacy in America? If so, I think it would only be the pale gasp of a pathetic and desperate few who would quickly and clearly be outed.
You could start with that statue of King Leopold II recently toppled in Belgium because that man enslaved more people than all the American presidents combined. And Christopher Columbus, who discovered a world of people and immediately enslaved them (and if it arrives headless, well headless it should stay). As a student of history I believe it is important to remember all of the past, even the bad shit--and perhaps the bad shit most of all!
I understand the urge to destroy the parts of history no one likes, but that's not how you learn from history. Don't cancel the past. If these relics inspire anger now, they will inspire pride in the future. If this sounds like a collection of failure, it will be a collection of successes to future generations.
Just a thought.
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