Monuments Should Reflect Today's Thinking

Document Type

Letter to the Editor

Journal Title

The Baltimore Sun

Publication Date

1-20-2016

Abstract

With the recommendations of the task force created to consider what to do about Confederate-era monuments in Baltimore now before Mayor Stephanie Rawlings–Blake, we are embroiled once again in the issues surrounding the display of symbols representing people, institutions or ideas that most people no longer accept.

Whether the subject is a building, such as the recently renamed Byrd Stadium at the University of Maryland College Park; a monument; a plaque or a flag, the opposition to removing these negative symbols relies on two basic arguments. Those arguments are reasonable and worth exploring. At the end of the day, however, they are either inapplicable or can be accommodated. Accordingly, society can develop a principled method for removing objects that convey messages that we reject.

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