History is Already Airbrushed:

I understand your perspective, Svetlana — and especially appreciate your last paragraph: “…I believe in preserving monuments even if they are monuments to monsters like Lenin or Stalin, because I want them to stand where they were erected as a dark warning from history to future generations of kids who walk past them everyday.” Yet you present this belief as though it’s a reality when it is not. What is a reality is that many of the monuments that do stand today — from Columbus to Robert E. Lee — are not presented in a manner that offers any lesson other than continued herofication. To my mind, this is a more insidious kind of “airbrushing.” While there is the kind of airbrushing you seem genuinely concerned about — censorship — there is also the de facto airbrushing that has taken place throughout history. We have only to look at how few monuments have been made to women or people from underrepresented groups to see the kind of “airbrushing” that has taken place. When monuments to figures who enacted dehumanization through slavery and/or genocide are presented to the public as heroes, that, too, is a kind of airbrushing. So, yes, if statues are to remain on the landscape— and if they are to fulfill the intent of your last paragraph — then more context would be a good and necessary thing.

You ask whose “values” get to determine our storied landscape. This is a great question, thought it implies that values were not there before. Values have long been determining forces for public monuments; someone’s values determined both what figures were commissioned and how much they were funded. In invoking “the values we hold dear” in my earlier response, I was suggesting we look at America’s own first principles: equality and the rule of law. While America has in many cases failed to meet those standards, there have been those figures who sought to enact those principles. MLK was one of them. So, too, were many Quakers and suffragettes. You ask (rhetorically) whether MLK should be taken down because he was a homophobe. While I don’t know whether MLK was a homophobe or not, I don’t believe he killed gays or lesbians. Lots of people have thoughts and perspectives, but not everyone actively dehumanizes others based on those thoughts the way that many confederate soldiers did.

You also raise good questions with regard to who gets to decide what monuments come down and which ones stay. My only imperfect answer to that at this time is “the public.” Public monuments do, after all, belong to the public. There are those who don’t necessarily hold historical figures or structures as sacrosanct. One could argue that over time many buildings and statues have come down; neighborhoods have been destroyed and remade to reflect new ideas and relationships to space; cities have been redesigned. Change has been a constant. What is currently changing is that many people are now looking at historical “heroes” through a new lens. More people are now demanding that the American landscape be a true and just reflection of peoples, contributions, and narratives. Some people may opt for more context surrounding historical figures so they serve as warnings to future generations (as you have suggested); others will opt for removal of monuments. And there are those like my husband who will focus on creating new monuments. I don’t profess to know the right course of action, Svetlana, but I’m glad we’re all engaging in dialogue about it.