Should Statues Come Down?

I passed the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia literally hundreds of times, often admiring the handsome appearance of a general who was proud in defeat, leaving the battlefield with honor intact. The bronze Lee sits ramrod straight in the saddle of his warhorse Traveller, hat clutched in his right hand, atop a sturdy gray stone pillar. In all seasons, whether sprinkled with snow or glowing in a fall sunset, it seldom occurred to me—whose ancestors wore blue and gray—that this statue was a symbol of white supremacy. That’s not because the message was hidden. It was because I was unaware of my own white privilege, which permitted me to view it in terms other than as a potent symbol of white over Black.