Paste, August 21, 2018: The kids are all right: Silent Sam had to come down
Silent Sam is a Confederate soldier statue on the campus of the University of North Carolina, and Monday night, after years of controversy, a group of students pulled it down.
So, let’s consider these two facts. First, Silent Sam is a slap in the face not just to any black or minority student at UNC, but also to any white student with a sense of empathy or justice. It’s easy to call monuments like these “a legacy of hatred,” but in fact it wasn’t a legacy at all—it was active, it was present. Second, everybody in power had let them down, and the indications were that it would stand forever. For UNC, preserving decorum and avoiding a fight were more important than taking a stand on behalf of its students. With their inaction, they broadcast a very simple message: On our campus, symbols of institutional racism are acceptable.
Under those conditions, there was only one way the statue was coming down.
