Build the ramp

Regarding “Court: Statues of 2 rebel generals in Virginia can go,” (A11, April 2) Part of the problem with Confederate monuments is that you have to look up at them. Immediately, your innate fight or flight instinct kicks in and that thing is way bigger than you. Rather than tear them down thus forgetting history, build a tower around them with an interior ADA compliant spiral ramp that has a viewing platform at the top so that the statue is only visible by walking up and looking down on it. Don’t look so big now, buster! Top it with a clear plexiglass roof to prevent people throwing trash down into the pit or you-know-what onto the statue.

Line the interior walls of the rampway with info giving a complete context to the character pictured and the provenance of its installation. Black Lives Matter mural on the outer wall? Now who owns the message? It’s too late to save the dashing, or dastardly, depending on your point of view on Dick Dowling. But although Sam Houston helped found Texas, befriended the Native Americans and respected Tejanos, he owned slaves. Progressives will undoubtedly be coming for him eventually. Houston City Council should get cracking to preserve General Sam’s monument in Hermann Park. Build the ramp!

Larry E. Vecera, Houston