Judy Smith recently posted some photos of a drive down Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. These photos are heartbreaking. The one thought that echoes in my mind when looking at images like these is: How could people possibly think that this is a good thing?
Where there once were beautiful statues, there is now nothingness. Where there once was a celebration of history, there is now meaninglessness, purposelessness, and emptiness. Where people who are different from the norm were once accepted, now we are shamed, condemned, attacked, viciously hurt, excluded. Where life was once worth living, now it is not.
“We hate you,” the city of Richmond says to me, as well as to all people who are different.
The city of Richmond, like so many other cities across the United States, was completely ruined. Deliberately. On purpose. People actually thought that this was a good thing to do. How? How could they think this? It is completely incomprehensible to me.
These images depict the sickening result of the statue genocide. Statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, and Matthew Fontaine Maury are supposed to stand on this street, where now there are only vacant expanses of dirt. I will feel rage and grief at what happened to these statues for the rest of my life. I will never fully heal, as long as these hideous wounds remain in the landscape of our country. What happened to these statues was wrong. These statues, these historical figures, and the fact that what happened to them was wrong, must never be forgotten.