Confederates Aren't The Only Ones With Monuments

  The story of what African-Americans have had to endure is horrifying. Taken from their homeland in crowded ships in which many died of disease, they emerged as slaves who were separated from their families, beaten, whipped, muzzled, and publicly sold like cattle. The few who were free were often the subject of harassment and kidnapping with false claims that they were escaped slaves, and they weren't allowed to speak in court on their own behalf. After slavery was abolished, most lived in sharecropping, a form of debt slavery, and discriminatory laws prevented them from voting and going to school, while the practice of lynching was common until 1980, and, as demonstrated by the death of Ahmaud Arbery, is still far from impossible. Discrimination in police-involved shootings, prison sentencing, and election reforms continues.

The indigenous peoples of this country have gone through an equally-horrifying experience. When the Spanish conquistadors first came to this nation, they wiped out 50-90% of the population with disease. The increasing tide of colonists drove them west, and those who resisted were raped and murdered. With the Indian Removal Act, the famous Trail of Tears began. With boarding houses, their culture was erased deliberately, and, while some tribes have recovered, many still face opposition to their casino businesses by selfish white people, racial ignorance as to their past, and cultural appropriation in any media that covers them.

Much like the treacherous Confederate leaders, we immortalize these perpetrators of genocide in the form of conquistador statues. For a nation that seems to deem hating foreigners a political circus, we do take pride in posting statues of Confederate traitors and Spanish bastards who are reported to have fed mestizo babies to their dogs and played games by deciding how far to let a man run before shooting him in the back. There are plenty of true American heroes who have made an impact worthy of a statue.

An activist of the Latino community has tried to claim that, much like conservatives claim with regards to black issues, that teaching this history is intended to make Spanish people feel guilty. How often are the people who call others "snowflakes" and the actual snowflakes the same people? Anyone who is able to use common sense, put petty nationalistic notions of heritage aside, and think with some historical perspective sees that, while what our ancestors did is not anything we can change, how we think of them is, and, much like the Confederates, the conquistadors do not deserve to be painted in a more positive light than they already have been.