I think the biggest thing I am trying to point out is that right now today, no matter how many things we get rid of, tear down, destroy, or censor - none of us now are going to forget that these things happened. These things were not good. They are mistakes to learn from. But think in the future, 50 years down the road. People who are not even born yet may not know anything about these things happening. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. 

BUT, also with these things erased, future people will not be taught of them.

(Sidetrack: I'm a bit disturbed to find out about the Tulsa thing that happened in 1921 where angry racists burnt down what was known as "Black Wall Street". This was something I wished I'd have known about a long time ago, I just learned about this a few weeks ago after the protests started. Black people HAD "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" and were doing financially very well in that sector. They were kind of slapping "White Wall Street" in the face with a "reverse racism" where since White Wall Street wouldn't do business with Black Folks, the Black Wall Street wasn't doing business with White Folks. White Folks got jealous and angry that these "Uppity blacks" were doing better than the dumb poor white folks, so they burnt it all down. I'd wondered over the years "Why don't black people just join forces financially/business-wise, and build their own economy in the US if the white folks wouldn't let them in. But at this time, my theorization was missing the key point that this HAD been done before as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, and it was all lost and destroyed. (Then covered up.) At least where I went to school, none of this was mentioned in American History class. So it was erased, and it was not something I could learn from.)

That's kind of the key of what I'm talking about as far as "Should be destroy and forget?". While these monuments represent a bad past, I am still prety against erasing them.

Beyond that, I'm not a very good debater. So I'll just leave this with a few quotes from smart people:

1.  I didn't capture who said this, it was a discussion on one of the news sites: "If we keep destroying the dark parts pf american history, we are essentially denying how bad this country truly is or was. I remembered reading about how the US had concentration camps during WW2. This was no where in the school history books. Also u remembered reading a small passage about the genocide of Native Americans. They barely even covered it almost downplaying what actually happened.
   
   I'm not saying we should defend monuments of racist, but we still need to educate the younger generation of the racism and sexism that's existed in the past."
    
2. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. 
   
   -George Orwell; 1984
    
3. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
   
   -- George Santayana (1863-1952), Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1

I am curious what you (and others) think of this point of view. These are just my thoughts, not an absolute "this is how things should be", but thinking long term, I have doubts about the wisdom of erasing the past.