nursingforsocialjustice

How can we understand where we are today without knowing what happened yesterday?

What is history? What is the value? For more information click here. History isn’t static. It’s is not a bunch of facts and artifacts that exist that are reported on and remembered in an objective way. Someone is telling the story. The frameworks through which we see these artifacts and learn about these stories is subjective. We have different perspectives, we have different frameworks that inform how history is analyzed and synthesized. These are informed by our experiences, what the research questions are, what is deemed as important and unimportant. The frameworks are important. The context is important.

While statues and monuments that were constructed to celebrate and honour certain events and people at a certain point in time are being torn down and defaced a parallel process is necessary to explain why. A process is necessary to make it publicly known that we need to question the things and people that we celebrated and admired from the past, and recognize that there are more to many stories than what was made public. Why now? At this historical moment there is political will to understand and explore the value and worth of these monuments in this historical context, as it is essential to consider who is being celebrated and what they are being celebrated for because they also caused pain and trauma, and a system that is continuing to cause pain and trauma today.

Peace,

Michelle D.