The Great Statue Debate: Who Deserves Recognition?
Rich Lowry made a persuasive case for the retirement of Confederate statues (“No Statues to Traitors,” PostOpinion, June 19).
I hope America can handle this issue as thoughtfully as Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. They built a park near Moscow to house monuments and statues once honoring Lenin and Stalin. Families now use it for picnicking.
Slippery-slope arguments are more difficult to counter. Once political statues are dealt with, the movement will proceed to cultural figures like Walt Disney.
Though the corporation he founded misses no opportunity to demonstrate its wokeness, his reputation for racism means he will go the way of Robert E. Lee.
Jay Taikeff
Brooklyn
There are about 100 counties in the United States named after Confederate military men.
The process of picking a new name for them should begin now, before the furor wears off.
All of the new names should be submitted by people of color and should represent the Motown era, preferably musicians and artists. Ray Hackinson
Ozone Park
Columnist Nicole Gelinas says monuments remind us of a country’s history and legacy, so “don’t erase history.” She says statues should not be destroyed. OK, but teach history correctly instead of making past leaders fake heroes.
Gelinas agrees with Gov. Cuomo that Columbus “was an imperfect man” and that the statues of him are as much a symbol of 20th-century Italian-Americans as they are of Columbus.
Wrong!
One does not celebrate the contributions of Italians with monuments honoring one of the cruelest, most sadistic men in history, responsible for the rape, torture and deaths of millions of Native Americans.
Statues should symbolize great contributions to culture and civilization, not the opposite.
The statues, schools and cities named after him ignore a sadistic explorer who discovered the “new world” by mistake. Columbus must go! Manny Martin
Manhattan
Regarding Rich Lowry’s column: Although he did have one sentence that mentioned mob action, the rest of his piece makes it sound as though there is a rational debate going on about this issue.
That is far from the truth. Mobs are vandalizing and destroying these statues. This conversation is not taking place in the realm of focused debate.
It cannot be left to lawless, often ill-informed rioters to determine which relics from our past should no longer be in our province.
By the mob’s reasoning,
if they lived in Rome, they would hasten to tear down the Colosseum, since it was built by slaves. Roger Halvorsen
Garden City
Regarding the statues of Columbus: The indigenous populations of the Americas murdered each other in intertribal conflicts for millennia.
In truth, the whole of human history on planet Earth is one of killing and conquest.
History in and of itself is not good or bad, it just
It is not owned by any one group — theirs to embrace or erase as trend or mood dictate.
History belongs to all of us; only through acknowledgment, study and discussion of it can we get it to instruct us and inspire us for the future. Eva Hughes
Bayside
We are now in the “times that try men’s souls” of which Thomas Paine wrote.
Will someone, anyone, stand against the destruction of our history by anarchists, radicals and anti-government rabble, mocking and abandoning American history?
Robert E. Lee fought for the cause of the Tenth Amendment over an allpowerful federal government that he detested.
The defacement and decapitation of Christopher Columbus, the greatest of Italian explorers, without whom we would be Europeans, is vile, childish and devoid of all perspective. They are coming for Thomas Jefferson.
It is now or never — America or chaos. Who will stand? Joel Marks
Florence, Ore.