Letter to the editor: Our statues document our history, the good parts and the bad

Not glorifying

I am deeply saddened watching our national monuments destroyed. These historical statues are symbols my parents and grandparents took me to see, using the monuments as tools to teach me the good and bad of our country’s history. (June 23, 7A, “Blunt, Hawley wrong about honors for Confederate traitors”)

A friend of mine this week argued that I do not understand that many people believe these statues memorialize and glorify slavery. In some cases (Gen. Ulysses S. Grant for instance), I think that’s ridiculous.

In all cases, I agree that our history, good and bad, is indeed memorialized by our monuments. They are essential to our national tradition and identity, the glory and the faults.

I don’t agree that people today see these monuments as glorifying slavery, unless it is some sick, hopefully very rare, racist who already was lost in the darkness of ignorance.

Statues aren’t erected in honor of “perfect” entities, and no human is free of flaws and weaknesses. Statues are erected to honor greatness, which certainly can exist in flawed humans, and to offer opportunities to educate young Americans on both the good, which we emulate, and the bad, which we learn to correct.

You learn nothing from a history erased. We are the product of all of our history.

- Ronald E. Rhodes, Smithville