Bret Devereaux

On the flip-side, that means statues aren't *about* the people they're *of.* The statues of the tyrannicides weren't about Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the two fellows in question), they were *about* the overthrow of the tyrants in Athens. 12/22

So don't expect historians to rush to defend the statues. We've been complaining about them being bad teaching tools for 2,400 years. The thing is, you don't pay historians to get misty-eyed over statues, you pay us to uncover, remember and explain uncomfortable truths. 13/22

So when we are asking "should this statue stay up or should it go away" the question is not about 'heritage' OR if the person in the statue lived a perfect, saintly life. The question is, "what values does this statue express?" 14/22

And I hear the hemming and hawing and "but did they really mean it" in the back. They *really* meant it. They wanted to be *very* clear: https://hgreen.people.ua.edu/transcription-carr-speech.html … (content warning on that one, the speech, dedicating a now fallen statue, is disturbingly hateful) 16/22

And that's why I'm not persuaded that there's some statue slippery-slope that will lead us towards total de-monumentalization. There are a lot of statues up of people with imperfect pasts that no one is seriously suggesting taking down... 17/22

...because statues fundamentally are not about the people they depict but about the *values* that person represents. Jefferson is safe not because he was perfect (he was *not*), but because he doesn't represent his imperfects, but rather his finest words. 18/22

So if you are thinking, "should this statue be here?" The question you want to ask is not "what history is it connected to?" but "what values does it express right now ?" Not who does it glorify, but WHY does it glorify them? And for the person saying,"well, maybe it..." 19/22