Throughout life, we often record things that are special to us in ways that help us to remember them. Most commonly with a picture or a postcard. Something visual that we can look at and instantly remember the moment, the time and exactly where we were.  What we felt, usually the joy and excitement of that very moment. Even at a funeral, we take pictures to remember a time when we all came together as family and friends, to celebrate or even morn the life of someone we were fond of.  Our desire to memorialize moments are even shown in the artistic expression of making statues and images of our heroes. Those we choose to remember and recognize for great feats and accomplishments not performed by the average man! Feats that we believe warranted a type of recognition for everyone to see and remember for generations.

We are at a time and place in this country where we are at a crossroad in regards to our heroes and how they have been recognized. We are divided in the very thought of what makes up a hero. Are we to celebrate a person by memorializing them with a statue even when the feeling is anything but joy and excitement to all that see it? When the emotions caused are so painful to one group but celebrated by another, who wins. The recent controversy over the removal of the statues in Louisiana and hopefully future removals in other states, is our time at the crossroad. It’s a time when the question must be asked, does the pain outweigh the celebration? Does the future of this country mean more than its past, no matter how painful it may be to some.

Are we going to punish one group by reminding them of a time of torture, murder and injustice in our country, by celebrating those who led the charge.  I think what is missing is that we are attempting to cover up the pain by choosing to be sympathetic to those who served. We have monuments at the site of the World Trade Center to memorialize a moment in history when people lost their lives, but there is no memorial for those who committed those crimes. That is by design. But around the southern parts of our country, we recognize the feats of those who committed the same crimes against Americans, by continuing to celebrate them with statues. We recognize the pain caused by the representation of the Hitler influenced Swastika to the Jewish people of the world. Why is it so different in the south in America. The statues erected to represent the “Old South” have the same influence of a hate driven mentality.

It’s time for change. It’s time for the future to become more important than our past. It’s time to remove these fixtures of a painful past, and become the nation that we claim to be. A nation for all people to live and operate with the same rights and dignity.  Lets make history, by removing the representation of our painful past.