These monuments including the equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee are cultural artifacts and the removal or modifcation of them would destroy their context. This cultural destruction of artifacts is a nothing less than an act of genocide just as the crimes committed by the Taliban against Buddhist statues becasue they were offeneded by them. If the issue has to do with someone's hurt feelings over slavery ,then stop teaching Spanish in the schools because the Spanish were the ones who introduced slavery in the New World.