The only people who think removing Confederate statues is erasing history are the ones in favor of keeping them. A statue is not a history book. Removing it does not obscure anything.And if that was the goal, there'd be a lot more destruction and attempted destruction at play: slave auction sites, plantations, old state houses, just to name a few. I daresay if that was the goal, BLM protesters would have burned Lafayette Square and St. John's in June, 2020, rather than take refuge in them -- let us not forget, Lafayette Square was a slave market.
No, to date the extent of the destruction has been narrowly, insidiously, and tellingly tailored -- specifically, that of erasing the history of Jim Crow. As has been stated by all sides, and thoroughly agreed upon. Which, of course, obfuscates the existence -- and answers -- to multiple questions, many of which those encouraging statues' removal find rather inconvenient:
1. Why did Jim Crow happen?
2. Why did northerners, abolitionists, and supposed progressives tolerate -- or even support -- Jim Crow for a century?
3. What was going on outside former Confederate states at the time?
4. How does systemic white supremacy outside former Confederate states reflect, and coincide with, Jim Crow?
5. Who raised the funds and commissioned the statues?
6. Did Jim Crow ever really end, or did it simply evolve with the times?
...and the most important one...
7. Why, as materially-interested parties, are those in power tolerating the destruction of these monuments when they enjoy the monopoly of violence and have ample power to put an end to it?
Occupy, the 2014 BLM movement, and the events of summer, 2020, reveal what happens when movements actually capable of threatening systemic white supremacy come into being. They're suppressed with extreme prejudice, using the most violent and demonstrative means available. It's no new, or unfamiliar, phenomenon -- contrast the fates and legacies of Fred Hampton, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The only one of those three men whose birthday is a national holiday, is the one whose message was capable of being censored, subverted, and captured by the state.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, and what his advocacy had become at the time of his assassination, tells the true tale.
Did the state's censoring and subversion of King's message involve tearing down Confederate statues?