Take Them All Down. A Metaphor.
I keep thinking about a video of a group of anti-racism protestors who took down a statue in the town of Bristol in the U.K. After toppling the statue, the group of people dragged it down the street and dropped it into the harbor.
The statue was of a 17th-century slave trader named, Edward Colston. You can view the video here.
The statue was erected in 1895.
The statue was torn down in 2020.
For 125 years, this statue paid tribute to an individual, who according to some biographers, was a philanthropist, but who was involved in the transportation of some 84,000 enslaved African women, men, and children from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas.
In one interview I saw, people talked about the statue being an assault against Black people, a “kick in the face,” that it represents years of hurt and emotion, is a reminder of a painful history, and a glorification of a person that represents an outright evil reality; one in which Black people were traded and forced into slavery.
Now, I’m not going to comment here on whether such acts are vandalism or ways we can honor indiviudals from history. I simply think tearing down such statues is an apt metaphor for us.
I wish we, as white people, were known for being the ones who tear down such statues. I’ve come to believe that this is a metaphor for our work in dismantling white supremacy, white privilege, racism, and systemic injustice. We need to tear it down, drag ig across town, and throw it in the harbor.
There continue to be systems in our world, thoughts in our minds, biases in which we hold, actions that we will commit, that all stem from slavery. These systems continue to wound our Black neighbors. These systems continue to glorify the past evil of slavery.
And I think it’s time white people dismantle it. I think it’s time we, as white people, tear it all down.
Anything that honors that legacy…we need to tear it down.