The parroting of the "Washington owned slaves" red herring...

Lots of people owned slaves. It was a thing back then. It was a very bad thing. We fought a war because our government wanted to make it illegal, and another group of people didn't think the government should do that, so they wanted to get rid of the government.

Then some assholes in places where that insurrection was strong put up statues to commemorate the people who wanted to destroy the government and keep slavery legal.

And then we tore them down.

The End