Over the past few days I've been so incredibly proud of protesters and

demonstrators who've decided to tear down monuments to slave traders to people who

bought and sold and traded human beings, and then worked

them literally to death.

It's outrageous that here we are in 2020 and that we still have to argue even for the destruction of these monuments.

Some of them are being taken down semi-voluntarily, but others are being taken down by force. I want to unpack it. I want to say why I support it and say why we should all get behind it.

This is Sean King and you are listening to The Breakdown.

The Breakdown.

The breakdown.

The breakdown. Break down. You'll often hear me say that it's hard to understand a moment in history.

You'll often hear me say that it's hard to understand a moment in history when you're in it. that is against racism, against white supremacy, against mass incarceration

and police brutality, it's not only against those things. It's about creating a future

where people can thrive, where racism and white supremacy is not the dominant principle in so many institutions,

and we're starting to see something powerful happen all over the world. You may have seen videos that I

posted on my Instagram page yesterday of young activists and organizers in the UK.

They're not in London. they're actually in a coastal town called Bristol,

and they tore down a statue that's been there since the 1800s of a man named Edward Colston.

People have been demanding that they take that statue down for generations because Edward Colston got filthy rich off of buying, selling, and trading human beings and working them to death.

That's what slavery was.

He bought, sold, and traded Africans for profit

and became a beloved figure in Bristol because he got so rich

that he started to do nice things for white folk in Bristol with the money that

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