How can ordinary people buy the statues that are being pulled down?

by philg

“Roosevelt Statue to Be Removed From Museum of Natural History” (NYT): “The equestrian memorial to Theodore Roosevelt has long prompted objections as a symbol of colonialism and racism.”

I celebrate this decision because I would love to see this statue replaced with one of Donald Trump on a golf cart (and also to see Donald Trump’s image carved into Mt. Rushmore, either to join Teddy Roosevelt or to replace him; photo I took from a friend’s Mooney in 2002 shows that there is plenty of room; the lower photo shows that there is already a venue there architecturally suitable for a fascist rally).

As a practical matter, though, where can people buy these discarded works of art? Our neighbors, for example, all have enough room for such a statue, thanks to our two-acre zoning minimum (ensures that none of the low-income black Americans whose lives matter to us (judging by the hundreds of Black Lives Matter signs in our town) can afford to move in). But will they be on eBay or what?

(What did TR actually say about Black Lives Matter? “Teddy Roosevelt discusses America’s race problem” describes a 1905 speech:

In his argument for racial equality, Roosevelt used the rising tide raises all ships metaphor, stating that if morality and thrift among the colored men can be raised then those same virtues among whites, already assumed to be more advanced, would rise to an even higher degree. At the same time, he warned that the debasement of the blacks will in the end carry with it [the] debasement of the whites.

Roosevelt’s solution to the race problem in 1905 was to proceed slowly toward social and economic equality. He cautioned against imposing radical changes in government policy and instead suggested a gradual adjustment in the attitudes of whites toward ethnic minorities. He referred to white Americans as the forward race, whose responsibility it was to raise the status of minorities through training the backward race[s] in industrial efficiency, political capacity and domestic morality. Thus, he claimed whites bore the burden of preserving the high civilization wrought out by its forefathers.

I wonder what he would say if he could see the “forward race” of white Americans consuming millions of taxpayer-funded opioid pills!)

Related:

16 thoughts on “How can ordinary people buy the statues that are being pulled down?”

  2. I do not think buying the discarded statues is a prudent course of action in the current climate. Essentially, you’d label yourself as a white privileged racist person with a penchant for racist art.

    Why make the hongweibings job easier by placing a target on your forehead ? Ostracism, in its original meaning, may be the mildest punishment for that act of arrogance and disobedience. Mobs do not appreciate this sort of behavior.

    • I remember the frothing accusations and shrieks of horror from the left when the Iraq National Museum (or some similar place) was plundered by its citizens.

      Later, it turned out the curators had removed the good stuff ahead of time. This was mostly ignored in surly silence. But surely America can do better than Iraq! There are no curators who have sympathy with what history is being destroyed, is there? Crush, break, burn!

  3. Since Yale appears to be abandoning it’s roots in European art, I would also like to see its vast hoards of artifacts repatriated to Europe. It’s a win-win.

  4. I think the moment has arrived to blow up Mount Rushmore. In 2017 it was a little premature, but we’re in a whole new world now.

    From Vice, 2017:

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kkkby/lets-get-rid-of-mount-rushmore

    “Let’s Get Rid of Mount Rushmore”

    “With the president of the United States basically justifying neo-Nazism, it seems unthinkable that we will ever see a day when there is a serious push to blow up Rushmore and other monuments like it. But if that moment ever arrives, I suspect I’d be onboard. Demystifying the historical figures of the past, pulling them off the great mountain top back down to Earth where they shat, farted, spit, pissed, fucked, raped, murdered, died, and rotted seems like important business for this country. As long as we allow those men to be cults of personality who exist beyond reproach, we’re never going to be able to see them for all of their good and all of their evil.”

  5. The recent climate reminds me of the Taliban destroying the Buddha statues in Afghanistan in 2001. In some cases mobs are destroying history just because “they” don’t like it. The reason why “they“ don’t like it is no more irrelevant than the Taliban’s reasons for destroying the Buddhas.

  6. It appears that you may not have read the NYT article. These are the couple of paragraphs.

    Ms. Futter made clear that the museum’s decision was based on the statue itself — namely its “hierarchical composition”—- and not on Roosevelt, whom the museum continues to honor as “a pioneering conservationist.”

    “The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “The City supports the Museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue.”

    Interestingly, the photograph of thr statue that you use here doesn’t include the American Indian and black American standing behind Roosevelt. The impression is that you’re intentionally misleading your readers.

    • Vince: Interesting on the statue! I struggled to find a good photo of it that I could cut and paste. I wanted one from the museum’s own web site, but this was the only one I could find. It was as though they had already purged it. If you can find a better one on the museum’s site, I would be grateful!

      (That said, the original post is not about any specific statute, but rather about the hundreds or thousands of enormous statues that either have already been pulled down or soon will be.)

    • Why are they continuing to honor Roosevelt if the rest of the article is accurate, e.g., that he “became overtly racist, historians say, endorsing sterilization of the poor and the intellectually disabled”?

      Are they next going to honor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley , Nobel laureate and anti-welfare crusader (he believed that paying America’s least successful individuals to have more children would lead to an ever-larger population of unsuccessful Americans)? They will say “Well, we don’t agree with his viewpoint on welfare and gene pool quality, but we discovered that he had a bird feeder outside of his kitchen”?

    • There is a photograph that includes the controversial parts of the statue in the NYT article that you linked to.

  7. But how does pulling down the statue of a person help & to whom?

    During those times slavery was prevalent & the society took benefits of it (even when it was im-moral).
    I am sure, even the ancestors of the protestors also benefited from slavery (directly or indirectly via cheap stuff & labor). Thus, in a way, almost everyone was complicit. But those times were such.
    Maybe that’s why these people feel some guilt & sense of resentment.

    I also used to feel the same way, having a sense of resentment & anger towards the British & Islamic invaders (I am Indian).. But, that doesn’t help in any-way. Its important to move on & look ahead. But not forget! so that we don’t repeat it in the future !!

  8. Perhaps we need a statue park, where all those statues of confederate generals can sit side-by-side with statues of Stalin and other eastern bloc dictators that were taken down.

  10. I wonder when museums, picture galleries and libraries turn will come ?

    Probably 90% or more stuff they house inside their walls is evil for one reason or another, e.g. white privilege, misoginy, racism, etc.

Comments are closed.