If honoring history with statues of controversial people and scenes is so necessary and correct, why are there no statues of Hitler? The answer is because Hitler offends everyone, but in America offending non-whites has not really mattered that much.
The confederate flag is a more complex issue but it is always an affront to blacks that white America tolerated(s). When the Union won the Civil War, it had to tread lightly to regain the Confederates and mend the nation. So, a reorganizing America tolerated the wounded pride symbol of the confederate flag as long as its bearers pledged allegiance to the US. After all, the only group it really offended was blacks and, as unfortunate as that was, it just wasn’t important enough to threaten the nation’s reconstruction. But the confederate flag became more than a symbol of wounded pride, it became a symbol of white supremacy. Defeated whites continued to vent their anger at losing by bullying and getting away with it. It really is curious how that anger and sense of supremacy has lasted over 150 years.
A statue such as of George Washington is also a complex issue. We all want to believe in our founders, but some of our founders were slavers; our nation was founded on slavery. Not something to be proud of, but can we still be proud of our founders? Do they deserve statues? They certainly did great things. Their great flaw is only one in retrospect, but now it is a great flaw. Can a country born with such flaws still have a proud future? It can if it can learn from mistakes and become more just. Reconciliation is one of humanity’s greatest traits.
No white person can truly feel what these symbols do to non-whites, but we can imagine. They make a constant, pervasive point that America thinks non-whites are different. Is tolerance of this point caused by implicit bias or is it the other way around? Hard to say, but both probably – a quantum state of things. On a personal level for non-whites, it must create constant frustration, self-doubt, and even fear. Imagine having to live like that! Do former slavers (whites) think that blacks are inferior because their ancestors were slaves? Or is it something else?
It could be shame; is shame driving it all? Clearly slavery and racism are shameful. So was stealing the country from the natives and then screwing them repeatedly with treaty defaults. Decent whites are probably ashamed of the past but continue allowing shameful things because they are too ashamed to admit them. Non-decent whites are ashamed probably of their inferiority (e.g., lost war, lousy job, bad breaks, control frustration, etc.), although they won’t admit it that way, so they bully. They beat their dogs because they can’t beat the boss. When successful liberal whites deny racism, it’s probably because they are ashamed of it. And then there are successful, even sophisticated (on some levels) whites who are happy to be racists. But why?
Other than Hitler and his sick crew, can there be a rational, mentally healthy human that truly believes one race is superior to another on a “genetic” level? The answer is probably not. It is the cultural differences that we disdain. Although cultural differences should be embraced for adding richness, somehow we have evolved oppositely. This probably embedded early in human history when a clan could not trust other clans. Can this prehistoric mistrust of “other” be purged from our lizard brains?
Although one can argue that non-white mistrust is justified by experience, added to white mistrust our worst elements become recursive. Our racism goes both ways – one justified, one shameful, neither helpful. How can we fix that? Whites can’t even understand black hood jargon, and blacks regard some white behavior as truly alien. The fact that blacks mostly don’t succeed in life unless they talk and act white proves white racism, but is there another way to allow black success? Does Spike Lee prove there is? It’s not obvious how to fix this, but its time has come. We can start by neutralizing symbols and other triggers; maybe more fixes will then become obvious.