Executive Order on Building the National Garden of American Heroes

From a White House press release:

The National Garden will draw together and fix in the soil of a single place what Abraham Lincoln called “[t]he mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart.” In the peace and harmony of this vast outdoor park, visitors will come and learn the amazing stories of some of the greatest Americans who have ever lived. The National Garden will feature a roll call of heroes who deserve honor, recognition, and lasting tribute because of the battles they won, the ideas they championed, the diseases they cured, the lives they saved, the heights they achieved, and the hope they passed down to all of us — that united as one American people trusting in God, there is no challenge that cannot be overcome and no dream that is beyond our reach.

I actually like this idea a lot. It sucks that it was born out of racism, a white man’s desperate attempts to coddle his base full of white people who are uncomfortable with their shrinking privilege in a society that is waking up to the injustices that were for so long perpetuated by a white ruling class, but if we include a truly diverse cast of historical figures, from various backgrounds and various areas of achievement, this statue garden could be one of the best things to come out of a nightmare of a presidency. We all have both light and dark inside us; if done properly, this garden could be a place for nuanced conversations about the often-flawed human beings that made America what it is today.