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Theodore Roosevelt's great-grandson says: Remove the statue

Teddy Roosevelt's great-grandson says remove the statue
Teddy Roosevelt's great-grandson says remove the statue 04:21

The subjugation of other races by those of us of European origin is our nation's original sin. That sin began soon after our arrival on this continent, was written into our founding documents, and has been a tragic part of our history to this day.

Recognition of that history and its many monstrous cruelties is essential to moving our nation forward and to healing so many wounds.

If we wish to live in harmony and equality with people of other races, we should not maintain paternalistic statues that depict Native Americans and African Americans in subordinate roles. 

The statue of Theodore Roosevelt, my great-grandfather, in front of New York's Museum of Natural History, does so, and it is good that it is being taken down.

Museum Statue
A statue of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback flanked by a Native American and an African, in front of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, June 22, 2020. The statue, which was installed in 1940, will be taken down after objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination. Kathy Willens/AP

Even more clearly, we should certainly not maintain monuments that memorialize individuals who fought to keep in slavery the same people with whom we now say we wish to live in harmony and equality.

When some argue that we should not "erase our past" and that such statues can be invitations to examine and civilly discuss complex issues, that is disingenuous. That is what books and classrooms are for, not monuments. Monuments are designed to honor people, and to keep those honorees and what they stood for alive in our collective memory.

The fact that over a century-and-a-half after the Civil War was fought, our nation is still littered with monuments to soldiers who fought to maintain slavery, says a great deal about the work our country has refused to do. As was intended when they were built, these memorials represent a clear insult to Black Americans – a form of racial taunting – as does any remaining use of the flag under which these soldiers fought.

It is also disingenuous to say that the protesters demanding removal of these statues should now step back and allow for civil dialogue about these issues. We who could have fostered such dialogue have failed to do so for generations; we are now being called out on that failure, as we should be. 

Confederate statues across the country are being removed 04:44

As president of St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which also has a campus in Annapolis, Maryland, I acknowledge that we have work to do on these issues that we have long neglected.

We are, all of us in this country, bound together by the tragedy of racial subjugation and continuing violence and multiple other affronts to Black Americans and other people of color. Those of us with power and influence who say we wish to do better are diminished by our stalled, failed, and woefully insufficient attempts to actually do so. Those with power and influence who will not even acknowledge these wrongs are an embarrassment to the nation.

If we wish to allow for historical nuance – and I do – to continue to recognize Washington and Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt for their very real accomplishments, while also allowing that they (like so many of us) were complicit in our nation's original and ongoing sin, we must start by admitting that we have failed to acknowledge the depth of that sin, and immediately remove all memorials and statues honoring those who fought a Civil War or otherwise worked to perpetuate that sin. 

And then, we should get on with the desperately needed work of uprooting systemic racism wherever it is found. 

       
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Story produced by Amy Wall. Editor: Carol Ross. 

       
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