Fighting about statues can be a good thing

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/20891758.16245/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9ib3Bpbmlvbg/57d8157f3f92a424d68d6450Bc39edcef [Get the newsletter](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2) Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). The Washington football team is reportedly [preparing to change its name]( after the team’s corporate sponsors finally demanded it. Good for the sponsors, and good for the team for caving to the pressure. It’s natural to conflate this issue with the question of Confederate and other monuments, but in fact these are very different controversies. In the first instance, of course, the name of a sports franchise is simply a business decision. Presumably the name will change if the team thinks it will make more money; similarly, the corporate sponsors are at some level just following the bottom line. But what’s really at stake here isn’t politics at all. It’s a question of etiquette: Call people what they want to be called and, more importantly, don’t call them anything they don’t want to be called. If “Charles” wants to be called “Charlie” and hates being called “Chuck,” it’s rude to call him Chuck! Don’t do it! The same goes for groups. Are there potentially hard cases? Of course. A group may be split, with some strongly objecting to one name and others strongly opposing another. A large group that goes by one name may contain a handful of people who find that name objectionable. It may be hard to assess what a group thinks of a name. The Washington football team hasn’t been a hard case. Retaining the old name was an obvious, easy-to-recognize etiquette violation. It’s long past time to get rid of it. The monuments question, on the other hand, is clearly political. Deciding who and what we publicly honor is at the core of our self-definition as a polity. Those decisions proclaim who and what we value. Unlike with etiquette, there are no correct answers in an absolute sense, although honoring those who betrayed the nation to protect slavery — or even honoring them because of that reprehensible act — hardly contributes to our moral standing. But Confederate monuments aren’t really about honoring slavery anyway; the point has been to argue that Black Americans aren’t really full citizens. Removing those statues doesn’t magically solve anything other than removing the public celebration of that argument, but that’s reason enough to do it. Beyond that? Don’t fear the slippery slope. Yes, there are hard cases. For example, [one could argue]( that we shouldn’t publicly honor anyone who owned human beings. But there is, of course, a big difference between honoring someone for their flaws and honoring them despite those flaws, and so there’s a (stronger I think) case that we should continue to honor Washington, Madison and Jefferson. A nation shouldn’t be afraid to confront its history honestly, and to make properly political decisions about what we wish to celebrate about ourselves. Those decisions may be painful, but we shouldn’t just shrug them off. I might even suggest that a healthy, vigorous, mutually respectful discussion about who and what to honor can be a useful experience for a democracy, given that the stakes are, if not lower, at least less tangible than the who-gets-what of most practical politics. And perhaps the values that we could learn to mutually appreciate in our disagreements over monuments could be helpful when we turn back to substantive policy questions. Oh, and it’s probably not the worst thing for the United States if those who think that Washington, Madison and Jefferson should be honored could articulate why — what they stand for that we still value today. 1. Benjamin Kenzer at the Monkey Cage on the [militarization of policing](. 2. Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes on [commuting the sentence of Roger Stone](. 3. Former special counsel Robert Mueller [also on the Stone case](. 4. Michelle Goldberg on how President Donald Trump’s administration may be [botching the drive to reopen public schools](. 5. Marshall Cohen on [“mail in” versus “absentee” voting](. 6. And Karen Tumulty on [Donald Trump, mask-wearer](. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). Also subscribe to [Bloomberg All Access]( and get much, much more. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.  Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Early Returns newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022