Perhaps we need a museum of offensive monuments

According to an article in the December 20, 2015 issue of The New York Times (“Monuments’ Removal Challenged”), a plan to remove four Confederate monuments, two of which are on the National Register of Historic Places, from New Orleans has been challenged by three preservation organizations and the New Orleans chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Although the suit is based on the issue of whether the land beneath the monuments is publically or privately owned, it contends that the monuments are part of the city’s history and should be protected. Many who pushed for their removal see the monuments as representatives of an offensive ideology. If we are being honest we must acknowledge that many much older monuments that we look at and judge primarily on aesthetic terms are representatives of different offensive ideologies. Perhaps what is needed is to send them all to a museum of offensive monuments.