In response, the KKK and white supremacist Trump supporters are going to start taking down public art sculptures they deem are way too elitist.
Umm. The statue was erected in 1924, an intense period of Jim Crow and KKK ascendancy. The date indicates the intent of the those statues to begin with. They weren´t some innocent monumenst to noble ancestors; they were symbols of white protestant Christian power and control of the government. And that´s what they symbolize today. The neo-Nazis and white supremacists know this, and that´s why so many of them showed up in Charlottesville last week.
In an ideal world, they might keep the stature there, but have a counter display about the context of oppression in which the monument was erected. But I can´t blame folks for taking matters into their own hands; after almost a hundred years of those figures tacitly giving legitimacy to a racist system, enough is enough.
I agree with the governor that there are better ways to remove these monuments.I’d like to suggest this way instead:
Good. Repeat times 1,000 and melt them all down, too.
OÑATE’S MISSING FOOT
By JAMES BROOKE
1998
This imposing twelve-foot high statue of Juan de Oñate is located a few miles north of Española, New Mexico. In January of 1998, it was damaged by vandals.
ESPAÑOLA, N.M. – One moonless night in early January, just as Hispanic New Mexicans were starting to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first Spanish settlement in the American West, an American Indian commando group stealthily approached a bronze statue here of the first conquistador, Don Juan de Oñate. With an electric saw, the group slowly severed his right foot – boot, stirrup, star-shaped spur and all.
“We took the liberty of removing Oñate’s right foot on behalf of our brothers and sisters of Acoma Pueblo,” read a statement sent by the group, which later sent to news outlets a snapshot of its hostage foot. “We see no glory in celebrating Oñate’s fourth centennial, and we do not want our faces rubbed in it.”
The news quickly traveled from this lowland reservoir of Spanish culture 120 miles to the southwest to a mesa, where cheers echoed among the adobe brick houses of Acoma Pueblo. Since 1599, the Acoma had passed from generation to generation the tale of how Juan de Onate had punished the conquered Acoma by ordering his men to chop off the right feet of 24 captive warriors.
“It was funny when it happened to the statue, but it wasn’t funny when it happened to the real people,” said Darrell Chino, an Acoma artisan.
At the Oñate Monument and Visitors Center, Estevan Arrellano, the director, supervised the attachment of a new foot to the 12-foot-tall statue in late January. He groaned: “Give me a break – it was 400 years ago. It’s OK to hold a grudge, but for 400 years?”
“When I think of what Oñate did to the Acoma Pueblo, I have a vision of Indian men lined up to have one foot cut off,” Andres Lauriano, a Sandia tribal council member, wrote in The Albuquerque Journal. “I see the blood pouring from their legs as they crawled or hopped away. I see the bloody pile of feet left behind.”
Of course he had to say that as a matter of responsible law and order. But as a practical matter no, there is not a better way. They need to be toppled spontaneously, flash-mob style, before any terrorist sympathizers mobilize with weapons.
According to coverage in NC newspapers, the maximum penalty for this is $500 and 24 hours of community service. Hell, people of NC - act! We’ll have a fundraiser for your fines.
And what would it take to get the OK from the rednecks who run the NC legisilarure?
In general, I prefer that these statues be removed through proper legal means. But I agree that this grass-roots tearing down of “that wall” had to happen, that they will know the anti-hate movement by its resolve. Way more effective than mean-mugging over the DMZ towards Pyongyang.
We need to be careful not to concede the moral high ground.
I don’t think the high ground was conceded here. If the video had been of hipsters beating the crap out of Nazis with metal pipes, I might feel differently (though admittedly i’m unsure of my feelings about that hypothetical these days). But I think we recognize the power of imagery, and the toppling of a statue by ordinary citizens is a very power image. Propaganda-worthy, even.
As with all things in this era, it will steel the resolve of some of those who fly the swastika, but it will make others question their resolve. And on the opposite side, seeing ordinary citizens act boldly in a tinderbox is consistent with the idealist view we still have of America (even when so much evidence to the contrary is around us). So I think this motivates the anti-hate movement and gives pause to the Nazis, and nobody was injured in the process.
As much as I’d like to, I really can’t support the crowd on this one. Violence begets violence. While people may think it’s acceptable to vandalize this statue, there are people out there, unhinged people, who are willing to drive into crowds and take up arms against those who protest against them.
Can’t say as I approve of vandalism, but they made their point quite elegantly, I think.
Hmm…if the precedent is set that a critical mass of people can decide with no due process that a statue is offensive, what is going to stop a bunch of Deranged Right losers from deciding to tear down a statue of Martin Luther King? This act is fraught with unintended consequences.
This was beautiful. Doing this just days after the horrific terrorist action in Charlottesville, and the president’s unwillingness to condemn it, gives these protesters the moral authority to act. After all, if white supremacists can murder in the street without condemnation from the president, then it sort-of makes the case that we can’t wait for government to “do the right thing” with these statues.
This is also going to be extremely difficult for Republican office holders to talk about. If they denounce the vandalism without discussing the statue, then it will appear that they have no defense of the statue. If they denounce the vandalism with a defense of the statue, they will be echoing the president’s defense of the white-supremacists with calls to respect “history” and will be seen to be taking sizes with Nazis and the KKK. If they say nothing, they concede the argument altogether.
And that it fell so easily and was destroyed so utterly, was inspiring imagery.
EDIT: To be clear, this was a crime and must be prosecuted as such. This is the proper deterrent against the formation of roving bands of disgruntled citizens vandalizing anything they don’t agree with. That doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally celebrate a righteous outlaw.
If there are statues of Confederate politicians, I am 100% behind destroying them. I am not in favor of tearing down statues honoring soldiers many of whom fought and died for what their government was telling them was correct.
I’m okay with the protesters getting arrested for taking it down. I’m completely fine with there being legal consequences for the property destruction. And if their convictions were strong enough, they won’t mind either. That’s civil disobedience.
Thing is, all it will take to prevent the MLK statue from coming down is the same people standing in a circle. And there are more of them than there are Nazis.
The comments so far in this discussion are most instructive. I was gonna ask my fellow left-leaning TPMers if they supported this kind of action. I see that they do and once again,I’m asking myself if there is still a place for me in the Democratic Party or if I’m even welcome in it.