As historian David Olusoga said after Edward Colston’s statue was torn down, such statues are about glorifying a person. When an eye-catching piece of art, like a statue, is set out in a public area we send a symbolic message that we accept the person’s ideology even if it led to mass harm and enduring inequality; and that this ideology is still part of our identity. Removing and relocating statues that romanticise a racist past is one step toward this goal — but it cannot be our only step.