A Plaque on Both Your Houses

[executrix]

History is a record of what happened, not the (much shorter) record of GOOD things that happened. So my advice to courts and legislatures considering Confederate monument cases would be to impose a mandatory injunction keeping the monument there--with a plaque attached saying something like "NAME fought to defend the South's heritage of persecution and exploitation, a disgrace to humanity that exists to this day. NEVER FORGET. Paid for by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP."

Comments

[baranduin]

I like how you're thinking here ...

[serpentine]

This would be a good solution to those Confederate monuments on US Park land. They probably won't let us tear the ones down on the battlefields, but those monuments glorify the Confederacy and all it stands for and I always just want to spit on them when I'm near one.

[lavendertook]

Tearing down a monument is not like burning a book. We're not talking about ground breaking works of sculpture here, or erasing the recording of history or art. Monuments are spaces for commemoration and celebration where land is limited. And I believe black people don't need plaques to remind them of this history recorded in their families' struggles, and should be able to go to spaces of commemoration without having to look at Confederate war criminals, so no way should the NAACP or Black Lives Matter have to pay for anything involved in this. Though as an interim step while a court case for tearing it down is pending, a mandatory plaque as you describe is a good idea, paid for by the state in which it resides.