Removal of Confederate Monuments

[Gene C]

Appreciate your response, Rob.
You have the talent of expressing your thoughts better the I do.
I am glad that we can disagree in a respectful manner. You help me to see and consider some things from a different perspective

I do disagree with you on some points.
Where else do the events of the past reside except in our memories, books, monuments etc.
While removing a monument doesn't force me to forget, it does remove an opportunity to remember.

We are fortunate to live in a country where there are many people who did things worth remembering, and also to have people who know that we also need to remember some of the bad things in our past.
I want to mention something about this statue that doesn't get much comment. A photograph of some images on the monument.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/i....JPG&w=916
What I see (and we don't all see the same thing) is an image on the statue of a father holding what is probably his most treasured possession, his young child. The second child is clinging tightly to a young black woman, possibly a slave. He is he entrusting their care at this tender age to this woman, not his wife or grandmother (who are not even pictured), but to someone of a lower position of status in his household

Another image shows the reluctance, and yet pride of a mother and father seeing their young son off to a war and knowing they might never see him again.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/arlingtonn...082441191/
Other phots of the statue suggest more and different thoughts

This from the Arlington National Cemetery web site - https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explor...e-Memorial
The Confederate Memorial offers an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the history and meanings of the Civil War, slavery, and the relationship between military service, citizenship and race in America. This memorial, along with the segregated United States Colored Troops graves in Section 27, invites us to understand how politics and culture have historically shaped how Americans have buried and commemorated the dead. Memorialization at a national cemetery became an important marker of citizenship — which, in the post-Reconstruction era, was granted to white Civil War veterans, Confederate or Union, but not to African American soldiers who had served their country. In such ways, the history of Arlington National Cemetery allows us to better understand the complex history of the United States.

As their own web site indicated, this statue offered an opportunity for visitors to reflect and understand.
Not anymore.