Editor,
I feel obliged to remark on Dan Krotz’s “Pursuit of Happiness” [ESI, Aug 23, 2017]. I’ve always thought Krotz’s writings were smart, but this time I think his intellect got in the way of his compassion.
Using the Vietnam Memorial as an example, my take is that Krotz is speaking in defense of the non-removal of monuments due to their possibly being commemorative of simply a wrong theory. This comparison of monuments can hardly be applied to monuments glorifying slavery. Do you know that one has to travel abroad to see a monument celebrating Black emancipation?
An acquaintance told me, “The monuments in my hometown celebrate the men who fought to keep those who look like me enslaved, not those who fought for freedom.” More than 700 pro-slavery, white supremacists monuments dot the United States.
“These monuments are not benign markers of Southern heritage. Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, declared the Confederacy to be founded upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” Samuel Sinyangwe
As we saw in Charlottesville, confederate monuments have become a rallying point for today’s white supremacists. Confederate statues and symbols were designed to empower a vile ideology and to disempower those oppressed by it and must be removed to museums.
Julie Freeman, Ph.D.