Granite monuments are the least of our worries

As the two pandemics, COVID-19 and racism, rage throughout the country, it is not COVID-19 that has brought America to its current inflection point. Rather, it is the immortal plague of the latter, namely the not-soavuncular Uncle Jim Crow. Racism is enshrined on everything from parks to our currency. It is past time we reevaluate the historical figures we honor on our bills and coins as a sign of our dedication to racial justice.

Recent and gratuitous police violence, alt-right jingoism and Jim Crow — the wide variety of anti-Black and brown policies, practices and symbols intended to terrorize if not impose secondclass status on its victims — have pulled at America’s heartstrings with such a force we are now in the wake of a social revolt.

This current upheaval, unlike Ferguson and Baltimore, is increasingly a multiracial and multiclass collection of “woke” citizenry whose understanding of American racism is markedly astute. These protesters declare to make Rayshawn Brooks, Atatiana Jefferson, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon “Sean” Reed, Tony McDade and Heather Heyer systemic racism’s last body count.

Their receipts include the removal of approximately 2,000 Jim Crow emblems — from statues to mascots, commodity brands and the Confederate flag. In addition, they are speedily revoking buildings, roads, parks and military installations all named in tribute to white supremacy.

Some have condemned such actions as radical and detrimental to our country’s well-being. “We cannot erase our history!” some cry. The president himself has asked: “This week it’s Robert E.

Lee, I noticed Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week. Thomas Jefferson the week after?” The logic goes, if protesters realize the retrospective reach and effort necessary to rid America of racist patrimony, they will surrender their campaign.

It is true that we cannot change the actions and beliefs that shaped this country’s past. However, we can change the way we commemorate that past. To memorialize historical anti-Black and brown figures through installment or circulation is a conscious and political act.

As early as 1867, the United Daughters of the Confederate States and their sympathizers placed memorials in public sites across the country. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, most of these monuments were erected long after the Civil War in rebuke of African-American progress during the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras.

To honor anti-Black and brown people with a statue, a building or their portrait on American currency is offensive. This is just as true of the Founding Fathers as it is of Andrew Jackson. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison all enslaved several hundred African Americans combined. The institution of American slavery was marred by murder, rape and violence against Black bodies. In Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” we find the invitation to the pseudoscience of race and rudiments of the south’s Lost Cause. In 1838, Andrew Jackson marched the Cherokee nation on the “Trail of Tears,” during which 4,000 Cherokee died. These are as much their legacies as anything else they accomplished.

The faces on our currency should reflect our core values. American currency as a form of patrimony is far more portable than ponderous granite memorials. As banknotes and coins, it bestows upon historical figures the highest honor and respect of our republic.

It is time to consider removing Washington, Madison, Franklin, Jackson and Jefferson from American currency. To be certain, it will not erase the alternative ways defenders of systemic racism traumatize Black and Indigenous peoples in the name of heritage and pride. But it demonstratively declares our allegiance to make these citizens whole with juridical rights and valued humanity. We must end the trafficking of racism through American currency.