This is in response to Morgan Liddick’s “Let’s talk about America’s ‘original sin’” column published July 14. Was there a point in this column to progress our current society? Slavery does still stain our country. How does any amount of historical context justify it? The mortality rate in the U.S., access to health care, standards of and access to education and equal pay are all still heavily influenced by the color of one’s skin because of slavery and colonialism. People are still teaching their children both intentionally and unwittingly to value Black lives less than white. Allowing statues of slave owners to stand is an intentional demonstration telling us that valuing Black and Indigenous lives less is justifiable. Liddick is also claiming, like many who would keep these statues intact, that without a statue, leaders like Washington and Jefferson would not be remembered. Do these men not have a legacy?

It doesn’t matter why these leaders owned slaves, or how culturally and historically acceptable Liddick claims it was, at any point in history. We have an opportunity now, and for so long since the birth of this country, to change this atrocious narrative. Why are we publishing columns trying to justify it?