Amazing, Inspiring Statues Are Out There, And They Dont Honor Racists

The violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend have brought a sometimes-overlooked problem into the spotlight — the hundreds of statues across the United States honoring individuals who fought to preserve slavery.

While cities like Baltimore and Durham, North Carolina , have begun to remove them, there still are more than 700 Confederate monuments installed in public areas across 31 states, according to USA Today .

Not everyone is on board with taking them down. The white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was billed as a protest against the removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that he is “sad to see ” Confederate monuments being taken down.

Rather than mourning racist imagery, people on Twitter have some better ideas. On Thursday, Matt Pearce, national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, posed a question that sparked some brilliant responses .

Turns out, there are plenty of other sculptures out there to admire besides those memorializing Confederate leaders. And Twitter users have been sharing some of their favorites.

This wasn’t on Pearce’s thread, but here’s a personal favorite.

With all of these inspiring, humorous and provocative statues in America and elsewhere, somehow we think a few racist ones won’t be missed very much.