Thoughts on our statues

[Dave Grubb]

I support the current focus on our historically important statues---I do not support the current process of purging (and/or destroying) those statues.

I hope that we can mature and learn from this focus rather than continue to divide.

To do that, we first have to acknowledge that what most of us were taught about our historical heroes was, in many cases, historical bull chit. Case in point, Custer. Custer was some kind of hero in my schooling---he gave up his life to protect the good guys from those blood thirsty Indians. It wasn't until I visited Wounded Knee, many years latter, that I began to see Custer in a more realistic light. The more I studied the more I realized that Custer was not a tragic hero but a despicable, arrogant, self promoting fool. I find nothing to honor in Custer.

The larger problem is that few of these heroes are as clear cut as Custer, rather, they are human beings with human failings as well as admiral aspects. That thought immediately brings Thomas Jefferson to mind.
Jefferson has long been of great historical interest to me and I have studied him intensely. He also has posed a conundrum to me, for which I have no answer. Jefferson was obviously very bright, unquestionably well schooled and read as well as a visionary. But---he had a sad lack of any compassion toward slaves and a deep acceptance of one of man's most damning practices. I will go no further than his treatment of Sally Hemings, his sister-in-law, nanny to his two oldest children, mother to his six younger children---and his slave. I do not propose that relationship was overtly abusive---but till the time of his death Jefferson denied the ongoing relationship and at no time did he acknowledge Sally Hemings as an equal (and free) human being. I see it as an explainable flaw in the character of a great man who was in so many ways one of the founders of our nation.

That said, does this flaw justify purging Jefferson from pedestals? I think not. I do believe that we can best honor our historical heroes by learning in a more holistic way who they were, what they accomplished and realizing that they too were human--with all the warts and frailties we all share.

By purging them, we loose any sense of the value their lives offered and lessons that can be learned.