Statues: Destroy history? No, learn from it

We see statues being torn down everywhere, not with any forethought, but rather out of justified anger over past deep grievances. It’s understandably calling attention to wounds of the past.

And yet that past is part of our American history, just like the Holocaust is part of Germany’s history, or Stalin’s Gulag is part of Russia’s history, or the Inquisition is part of Spain’s history, and on and on.

Most every country has these dark, terrible phases.

Rather than tear down all those statues (of which some are awful art anyway) or rename places, why not relegate the real slavery-promoting ones to a few museums and place plaques on the rest, pointing out the grievances associated with them?

Tearing down these works willy nilly will not erase our history. Rather, let us face our past, not pretend and idealize any more that we are some shining city on a hill.

We, like most other countries, have deep flaws in our past. But through learning about our mistakes, we can better ourselves as a country.