The Roman Colosseum analogy is good, but easy to digest because it is “ancient” history; we are still steeped in this racial stew which has been at us for more than 400 years.  There has to be a better way to deal with this than removing confederate statues, but defenders of them aren’t going to like my solution.  

I think part of a long over-due national dialogue has to include confederate statues accompanied by written and/or visual displays which fill-in much needed painful information.  That painful information is rarely taught in our classrooms, yet it is a key part of our "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" we never had (see Desmond Tutu, the man who almost single handedly averted a massive race war). We cannot move forward until something like this is done!

Before you drag out your tired cliches in opposition to this idea,think about this as an opportunity to turn around many things which have diminished our nation's soul. We can go from brainwashing to enlightenment.