The other day I was talking with an acquaintance about the ongoing trend of removing statues. They said it does not matter and that they were more worried about “the real issues” including veterans affairs, immigration, and (god forbid) nuclear war with North Korea. A response like that leads me to believe that people do not care about history because it is all in the past, but the people who say that do not realize that monuments, statues, and memorials all shape our collective memory of past events.

All too often I have heard the horrendous statement: “Slavery doesn’t matter because there is not a single living slave in America today.” Imagine if I said, “The Constitution doesn’t matter because there is not a single living author in America today.” I doubt many people would appreciate it, because the Constitution is a part of US history just like slavery. There is a reason why so many people are calling for the removal of statues of Confederate figures, and the reason is because it reminds us of the institution of race-based slavery, America’s mortal sin. Not only do they evoke a longing for slavery, they also remind us how divided America was in the nineteenth century (and in the present day). Erecting a statue of a Confederate figure glorifies division and racism during the most violent time in US history, which has lingered to the 21st century.

In August 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia experienced a tidal wave of violence all beginning with the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Members of the alt-right, many of whom were not local or Virginian, took to the city to protest its removal and they were met with an equally vehement counter protest comprising of anti-racists and anti-fascists. The violence resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, a Charlottesville paralegal, at the hands of James Alex Fields Jr., an Ohio neo-Nazi. Step back for a moment and think. An Ohio man killed a Virginia woman over a Robert E. Lee statue. Ohio was a member of the Union during the Civil War and Robert E. Lee had little to do with Ohio’s history, so historic preservation cannot be the motivation behind Fields’ vehicular attack. It only becomes clear that Fields wanted to preserve what Lee fought to defend.

With a president who has a mentality centered around winning, why should American citizens care about the losers, especially ones that defended a horrific institution like slavery? One can say the rebels were defending their state and lifestyle from an intrusive federal government, but that blatantly ignores what the Confederates were defending. This is starting to feel like a rant, but I do it on purpose because I firmly believe that history matters, that public memory matters and that statues matter. There are some things we ought to consider before erecting a statue or tearing one down.

First, we must consider why a statue should be there in the first place. Oftentimes, statues are built to inspire, to welcome, to honor, and most often to commemorate. A statue of Rocky Balboa, a fictional boxer, stands before the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania. Why put a statue of a fictional character on a public space like museum grounds? In the Rocky franchise, the statue “celebrates Philadelphia’s favorite son,” but it still stands to this day because it inspires the everyman to take on undefeatable odds just like Rocky did. This is inspiration which everyone can relate to regardless of their background.

Second, we must consider what was done to construct the statue. Putting up one structure means taking down another, be it natural or artificial. In the case of the Lee statue, Paul Goodloe McIntire, a Charlottesville-born stock broker, purchased and demolished the 1829 Southall-Venable House, “a two story brick dwelling surrounded by several smaller outbuildings and beautiful gardens containing fir, oak, and weeping willow trees.” Nearly one hundred years passed between the house’s construction and its demolition. At the hands of one philanthropist, the city destroyed a house and several other dwellings to put a statue in its place. The statue is listed as a work of art on its nomination for the National Register of Historic Places. Briefly process this for a moment. A house with several other dwellings, most of which had residential and commercial use, were demolished to expand already existing greenspace and erect a Confederate statue in the middle of it. There go homes and revenue that small businesses could have used.

Third, we must consider what we are commemorating. More often than not, city councils and public institutions construct statues to remember someone’s accomplishments rather than their character. In Anaheim, California, a statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse stands in front of the Magic Kingdom. The statue commemorates Walt Disney’s greatest creation, a magical world filled with imagination, wonder, and timeless characters. Throughout his lifetime and for many years after, many called Walt Disney’s character into question, facing accusations of anti-Semitism and racism due to his association with known anti-Semites and his film Song of the South respectively, but I have never heard any calls to remove the statue or boycott Disney. That’s because accomplishments often outshine personality.