Tag Archives: essay

Project#2: Essay

     Monuments have been around ever since 1890, which was a hundred year after the United States are founded. Some monuments are statues that were builded by our society and some are naturally formed. Monuments held a specific meaning behind each one of them which makes the monument more unique. In the past hundred years, the amount of monuments raised rapidly which occurred controversy between the communities. Every monuments has a purpose of being where it is regardless if it’s just for show or not. With that thought, there is no reason for the monument to be removed due to someone’s opinions about the monument meaning.

     Ever since monuments existed, the debates between whether it should stay or being removed gave the society a big question mark. Since each monument have an individual meaning, the thought of it being removed should be carefully determined by the government. On the other hand, if a community can not thought of a good reason for it to be take down, then it should not be process. If the government wants to build a new monument statues, the project should be view critically base on the background, area and cost to prevent conflicts. One reason why monument should be kept is because it teaches us lessons of the past. In an article call “Why we shouldn’t pull down all those confederate memorials” by Alfred L. Brophy, it states “Primarily, there’s a danger that we’ll forget the connections of past racial crimes to correct racial inequality.” If we withdraw the statues, how can we learn about the mistakes or the achievements we have in the past? Think back to Grade school, we have field trip to many different types of statues for a better understanding of the lesson we have.

     Many people are opposed at the facts that some monument statues are inappropriate for the public to be seen. They claim that some statues reminds everyone America’s dark history. It’s such a big debate because some citizen agrees with the fact that its distributing however some state that  remembering our history reminds us not to make the same mistake again. One dark history I’m really interested in is the discrimination of African American. It was a dark age for all the African Americans, they were force to bought on ship and being sold in the market. They get no educations and work for the white people. The situation change when Martin Luther King interfere telling the world everyone should be treated equal, because of his action, slavery was slowly vanishing. In honor of Martin Luther King, we builded a statues to remind the next generation who gave new lives to the African Americans, however, I’ve seen lots of comments and posts wanting the statues to be removed.

     The removal of Martin Luther King’s statues should not be process. Behind the monument, it contains meaning of the past our country went through. Other race claim that the monument is “racist” and “offensive” while the statues just placed there. I found a petition online about the reasons why we should removed the statues, the person said “we the people feel that is it honoring and supporting racial hatred towards white people.” Martin Luther King plays a major part in the history, honoring him should be allow. I understand some monument can be offensive toward a specific group of race but it should not be the main reason why a monument can be taken down because of that. There’s not a good reason that’s being given to the public for us to agree it should be removed.

     If the statues of Martin Luther King is taken down due to racism then I believe African American have the right to revolt and start a petition to take down George Washington and Thomas Jefferson’s monument. George Washington is United State’s first president but he’s also a slave owner and Thomas Jefferson is also a slave owner. In the article call Don’t Take Down Confederate Monuments. Here’s why by Sophia A. Nelson, she states “the people who hated having black classmates at their school didn’t hate us because there were states of Robert E. Lee or George Washington (our nation’s first president and a slave owner… If we start taking statues down, well, we better go for old Thomas Jefferson (master of a slave who was his mistress and mother of at least four of his children). And lets not forget President Trump’s favorite president, Old Hickory—Andrew Jackson. Another slave-holding Indian-killing president of our nation.” If Martin Luther King’s statues expresses racism towards a specific race then these president’s statues is doing the same thing. African American’s personal feelings of these statues should be the same as the others who wants to removed the MLK statues. But there’s not a reason good enough for these monuments to be removed.

     Monuments are for the next generation to remember the historical events that happened. If we choose to take some of it down because of some reasons then how should the next generation learn about our past? No matter how negative a historical event can be, we have to learn to face them, not to run away from them. We need to learn our lesson from our past to make our present wiser.