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What’s been the message of Confederate monuments and flags? It depends on who you are. If you’re a Black teenager in the South, each day passing a memorial to someone who committed treason in order to keep your ancestors enslaved, how might that make you feel? If you’re a white American who still points to the “heritage” of the “lost cause," it might further ingrain your denial of the brutality of slavery and how racism continues today. A nation that still honors Confederate signs in public places signals its belief that Black people are less important than white people, that Black people’s trauma can be disregarded. Confederate flags signal to the public that it’s okay to keep ignoring the worst and ugliest sins of our past, while trying to create an impenetrable barrier to a different and better future.
Let’s be very clear: Tearing down symbols is not enough. Changing statues can never substitute changing policies and practices based on skin color, which still undergirds this country’s systematic racism. But symbols do send clear messages about personal and national memory — and about future possibilities.
The surging, nationwide movement in defense and support of Black lives, sparked by the killing of George Floyd, has led to a renewed debate over the symbols and signals of white supremacy that persist throughout the United States — Confederate monuments and flags, but also statues, streets, buildings, military bases, and other spaces and objects memorializing historical figures known for their treason, racism, and oppression. Confederate statues, as well as statues of Christopher Columbus and other colonizers, have been sprayed with graffiti and, in some cases, torn down by groups of protesters in recent weeks. A number of mayors and governors have announced their intention to remove these symbols of racial oppression and hate.
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