Public monuments: Government must send the right message

By Marjorie R. Esman
Guest Columnist

If the personal credit service past few weeks are any indication, the debate over public emblems like the Confederate flag and monuments to the Confederacy may be having its defining moment. While there are strong opinions on both sides, the government’s obligation is clear. Everyone has the right to feel equally welcome in government facilities. Public symbols of hatred and discrimination send the wrong message. They say that we value some people over others, that we sanctify the history of oppression over that of equality, and that we have little respect for those who are offended by a disgraced and disgraceful past.

We are now engaged in a public conversation about whether and when to take down monuments to that disgraced history, and if so how to replace them. But these are separate discussions. Monuments to when do you have to pay back a cash advance those whose lives were dedicated to harming others — to a systemic and institutionalized system that denied millions of their humanity and treated human beings as property — have no place in the 21st century. Those monuments can and should be removed as quickly as possible. What to replace them with is a separate question, and the answer may be that we don’t replace them at all. The money may be better spent on something that will have a more concrete and direct effect on eliminating racial disparities in our communities. Each community will make that decision on its own, taking account of the realities of the availability of public funds and the nature of that community.

But there is no reason to delay the removal of symbols of divisiveness. While it’s important not easy payday loan online to rewrite history, we have the choice about what aspects of our history we choose to glorify. As a society, we make choices about how we portray ourselves, and we can, and must, make those choices in favor of the legal principles of equality.

With unusual foresight, even General Robert E. Lee understood how divisive symbols and monuments could be, and opposed erecting them to the Con­fed­er­acy. He said, “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.” At his funeral, no flags were flown, the Confederate soldiers in the procession did not wear Confederate uniforms, nor was Lee buried in one. His daughter cash advance perrysburg ohio wrote that, “His Confederate uniform would be treason, perhaps.” Will removing the Confederate flag from public buildings stop people from using it as a symbol of hate? Probably not, and individuals have the right to use and display symbols of all kinds, including those that are not appropriate for government spaces. The ACLU has always, and will continue to, defend the First Amendment rights of all individuals to express any opinion whatever. But it is time for government to remove symbols of hatred that celebrate one of the worst times in American history. Public monuments that glorify divisiveness and hate must come down right away. Healing will take longer, but the process must begin now. No more excuses.

This article originally published in the July 13, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.