Focusing on redressing these past issues is ineffective. The danger posed by this current movement is in its short-sightedness. People should focus on the grave social injustices that exist today.
The argument
Proponents of this position argue that fighting against injustice by attempting to change history is ineffective and distracts from the real issues at hand. Taking down statues in an illegal manner will not help combat racial and social injustices, because the realities that non-white communities face are not the result of these monuments. The causal claim is the crux of the argument: if the disadvantage were produced by the statues, removing them would relieve it; since it is not, removal alters the streetscape and leaves the conditions untouched. It is almost offensive, on this view, to focus a battle for equality on this "issue" rather than seek change through policy, political representations, and other channels that exist for this purpose. The objection is partly about opportunity cost, since the attention, organisation and public sympathy a movement commands are finite, and spending them on monuments spends them on something that cannot deliver the outcome sought. It is also about method: the law must be upheld so that we do not fall into chaos and anarchy, and a campaign that sets its own terms aside from legal process invites everyone else to do the same. Instead of focusing on inanimate statues, proponents argue, we should fight against injustice through democratic channels. Vote, petition, and call on your MPs to get the change you desire. Those channels exist precisely to convert public feeling into binding change, and unlike the toppling of a monument they produce outcomes that outlast the moment which produced them. Vandalizing statues and property, by contrast, stains the movement for justice and takes away from its power, handing its critics a reason to dismiss the cause rather than answer it. The fight against injustice should focus on policy that can go into effect now and positively change the present.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Taking down monuments and statues of racist figures does change the present. We can fight for justice through democratic means and by redressing protracted injustices simultaneously. This fight is not binary, and taking down controversial public items helps show people the truths about their history. For example, the removal of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol exposed much of his past that people tried to sweep under the rug. At the same time, momentum for addressing these historical injustices increased across the world.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The premise answers a claim its opponents do not make. The case for removing a monument is not that the statue causes deprivation, but that a public honour expresses a community's judgement about whose conduct it celebrates. That is a separate question from the causes of inequality, and showing that statues do not cause it leaves the actual claim untouched. [Rejecting P2] The premise conflates removal with vandalism. Most removals have proceeded through councils, boards, consultations and votes, and the argument's objection to illegality would be satisfied by those routes rather than by leaving the monuments in place — so what it establishes is a claim about method, not about whether the statues should stand. [Rejecting P3] The distraction claim assumes a fixed quantity of public attention, which is asserted rather than shown. The counter offers the contrary case: the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol brought his role in the slave trade to far wider notice and coincided with increased attention to the related policy questions rather than displacing it.