“Imagine being Jewish, walking around a public park, seeing a statue of Hitler, and someone proudly saying, “my great-great-grandfather was a Nazi, and we should respect our history!’ Of course, that doesn’t happen, because it’s INSANE!
Now, imagine how a Black person feels seeing confederate monuments in America”.
—Sarah Guilford
Sheltered living in NYC, as the only statue getting complaints is Christopher Columbus.
Statues don’t bother me. 
Nigger is a mischievous word which presently means
something different than it did in the past
based on who says it and to whom
The first time I was called nigger was what it meant in the past
in catholic school so long ago
during that Channel 7 series premiere of Alex Haley’s book “Roots”
Statues don’t bother me.
Took a long time to forgive Alex Haley
as it did to shake off the nicknames of Kizzy and Kunte Kente
Got revenge though.
Converted to an Episcopalian (Catholic light without the constant guilt or repentance)
Statues don’t bother me. 
I remember attending a photographer’s party in San Francisco
The only person of colour snacking on lox and cream cheese
Whoopi Goldberg was the Hollywood flavour of the month back then
and can’t count how many people said I looked like her while laughing
Snacking on lox with cream cheese while being black
Statues don’t bother me.
I went home angry
and festered in being compared frequently to looking like Whoopi
since I moved to San Fran
Why Whoopi?
In NYC I was compared to Halle Berry at the swimming club
where I swam laps while being the only person of colour
Statues don’t bother me. 
Had to reassess my opinion on Ms. Goldberg
and what beauty represents
Did some research
Can’t say enough about
the perseverance she possessed
to get to where she’s at
in the entertainment world
Respect of the highest
Adoration at her legacy
and I was never a fan of Halle Berry!
Statues don’t bother me. 
On a camping trip in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains
I refused to visit a plantation that was turned into a museum
not run by blacks
But my camping buddy wanted to partake in the tour
I stayed on the tour bus
sitting in the middle
the only person of colour
that at one time would have been sent me to
the back
Statues don’t bother me.
My buddy returned from the tour
visibly upset
I did not offer compassion
Was I compelled to?
NO
He is white
I am not
Statues don’t bother me.
And they never will for the pain of being black in America left its mark from birth. The confederate flag and those so called statues are a reminder of what was and what still is. Dismantling the statues, chopping of their heads, defacing them with graffiti will never erase what they stood for and what they remind us of now.
The statues should not be discarded but placed in a museum because we should never erase the symbols of our past but remember…where we’ve come from.
