Bad Statue!!

Statues, and the plaques that accompany them are important. We should probably stop and read them all when we come across them. They often tell a story of a place, event or person, and, truth be told, it’s often only one perspective. So, Robert E Lee, or Nathan Bedford Forrest, have statues and plaques that point out their strong leadership qualities, and ideals that were shared by large portions of our population. These are not ideals that most of us share today, we have evolved past much of the pre-civil war attitudes. Public opinion of late would have us tear down or warehouse these statues. These men from a different time were just part of our history – Abolitionists (opposed to slavery) were a very small fringe part of our population at one time … like white supremacists, Westboro Baptists, or proponents of “essential oils” today, maybe. Pulling down statues, renaming buildings or mountains, doesn’t change the fact that our forefathers were real people, motivated by different events, and important, whether we agree with them or not. So many good things today have a sordid past: most of the US founding fathers, the Christian church, The United States of America, the Scoopers of Sturgis, Georgetown University come to mind, you probably have a few embarrassing things in your personal past as well. Let’s move into the future different and better than we were in the past. Remembering that we can espouse the Declaration of independence even though it’s writer probably raped his slave, Spread the Good News of Jesus Christ even though the Christian crusades were barbaric, and cheer for the Scoopers even if the first scoopers were probably prostitutes servicing the soldiers of Ft. Meade. (Ok, Scoopers as a nickname was ALWAYS a bad idea.