Category: Social Justice

“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:

• “Export market for Confederate-themed statues?” (my 2017 post)

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In a country where some people showed up only recently (see “Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065”), how many people are interested in a conflict that may have occurred years or centuries before they or their ancestors arrived in the U.S.?

I surveyed some immigrants and children of immigrants regarding Juneteeth.

A Russian-Ukrainian: I was just discussing it with another immigrant. We had no idea this day existed. We had no idea this day existed. Russia abolished serfdom around the same time. No one keeps track who descended from the serfs.

A Hungarian: We got the day off and my company sent around some interesting background material. [I couldn’t get him to explain what he found interesting about it, given that he arrived in the U.S. only a few years ago. decades after the Eisenhower-era desegregation initiatives, for example.]

Child of immigrants from India: The whole thing is stupid.

Immigrant from China: This has nothing to do with me.

Immigrant from Russia: What would happen to me if I said that I was also likely a descendant of slaves?

Immigrant from Russia, asked “What did you do for Juneteeth?”: I have a job.

Immigrant from Korea: At this rate, Americans will need more than 365 days in the calendar. Why do the gays get a whole month if the slaves get only one day?

Immigrant from Ukraine: I heard some noise from their parade a block away. Apparently black parades are allowed during covid. My company gave us a floating day for reflection this year.

Child of immigrants from India: When do regular Americans work?

Readers: What do your immigrant friends say about inheriting this old conflict?

From a February stop in Charleston, South Carolina, a plaque regarding a 1951 desegregation case.

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A post from 2016, “Why don’t black lives matter?”:

I wonder if the U.S. is now simply too populated and government too centralized for us to be confident that Citizen A will care about Citizen B. As there are people suffering badly in other parts of the world and most of us don’t do much to help them it is clear that human sympathy cannot stretch to a population of 7+ billion. Thus why should we expect sympathy to stretch to 324 million (popclock)?

(in 2020, the numbers are 7.65 billion and 330 million)

Even the Black Lives Matter leaders don’t seem to care specifically about American black lives. The Guardian reports that the group is working on behalf of Palestinians (who might be surprised to learn of their “blackness”!).

Readers: What do we think? Is the U.S. population now just too large for people to genuinely care about fellow residents in the abstract?

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From some young people brave enough to spend months cowering-in-place at Mom’s house… “What Comes Next: How Harvard Must Combat Systemic Racism” (The Harvard Crimson):

Our subsequent three editorials will address actionable responses the University can take. In the first, we will call on the University to address its own complicity in racist and anti-activist policing. Harvard must abolish its private police force. The Harvard University Police Department is no different than municipal and state forces across the nation. HUPD has been deployed in the armed policing of Boston-area protests and has helped arrest protesters at least once in recent memory. It has a history of racist policing and a current culture of racism, unjustifiable violence, and unaccountability. It has no place on our campus.

In the second, we — in a long-overdue shift — will join the call for Harvard to divest from private prisons and the prison industrial complex. Our previous precedent was not only insensitive, but missed the point. We can no longer fail the black community by failing to take into account the magnitude of oppression enacted by the prison industrial complex and its investors. Harvard can’t either.

In the third, we will dive into Harvard’s continued engagement with issues of race, both internally and externally. From explicitly — and with real financial teeth — supporting mutual aid funds, nonprofit organizations, and bail funds that combat state oppression of black people, to moving beyond facile diversity and inclusion rhetoric toward a more robust engagement with racism, discrimination, and ignorance on our campus, we will call attention to a number of ways — long advocated for by the activists already committed to this fight — that Harvard can consistently make its campus and community more just.

Racism in the U.S. (and “genocide” perpetrated by Israel) doesn’t stand a chance now that Harvard undergraduates are Zooming to the front lines.

Related:

• my own prediction regarding investments in private prisons in light of the coronapanic

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From New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, closed since mid-March:

There is a link to a letter from two rich white guys:

We must come together as a Met community to grieve and to reflect on how we, as individuals, and as a museum, can do more to support social justice efforts in this country. We are thinking through various ways we can create opportunities for staff to have these conversations remotely, and we will share more details on what’s next in the coming days.

What’s the value of this offer to “come together” if the museum is closed? Those passionate about social justice can’t even go in to see all of the prominently featured art by dead white European males.

The comments on the site are interesting. Americans love empty words, it seems:

Thank you for Standing in Solidarity. What a fabulous idea.

Thank you for your commitment to build from these defining lessons born from our torn national fabric and lack of patriotic and empathetic leadership.

Thank you for this important public statement.

At a time when we have so little to be proud of, your statement makes me proud to be a patron and volunteer at the MET.

So important that the arts become a vocal part of our National crisis. Thank you for this statement.

As an world reknowned institution, it is unprecedented that you would reach out to the disenfranchized people of New York City as you have done

Thank you for your leadership in broadcasting this important message of acknowledgement of the absolute horror of our own uniformed police …

Thank you for making your views clear . It is wonderful for a cultural institution to be so explicit over it’s support for this matter.

Tony Mcdade, Nina Pop, Muhlasia Booker, and so many more. Black Trans Lives Matter.

In other words, even if you haven’t gone to work for more than three months, you can still be a hero if you tell your web contractors over in India to put a black image on your home page!

Uh oh, a couple of people want to see something beyond an update to the HTML on the index page:

While the museum is closed, would you consider hanging banners on the facade of the MET that are created by black artists, support the Black Lives Matter movement, and/or honor George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, or Breonna Taylor?

Will you be donating to The Black Lives Matter movement or offering donations of any kind to any programs?

A Deplorable comment:

Does your plan include the other oppressed groups, or will it be at their expense?

LGBT
Age discrimination
etc.

(He/she/ze/they forgot about half of the victims in “LGBTQIA+”!)

Separately, when do art museums reopen in the plague lands? A lot of Texas museums are reopened (e.g., Kimball), but there does not seem to be any plan for Boston and New York. Why can’t they add a $50 plague fee to each entrance, do security monitoring remotely with cameras, and call it good? The Met is 2 million square feet. If there are 500 people in the museum, are they really more likely to spread the virus to each other than if these same people were walking around on Manhattan sidewalks, going into grocery and liquor stores, meeting on Tinder, etc.?

New York does not have a monopoly on virtue. Here’s the home page of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, now in Month 4 of its closure:

The “Give Today” link is to a Black Lives Matter organization? It is certainly noble of the institution for rich white people to use their platform to raise money for Bostonians of Color! Oh wait… clicking “Give Today” leads to an appeal to give money to the Museum of Fine Arts, not to Black Lives Matter:

What does the rich white Canadian who runs the museum have to say about the experience of poor black Americans:

It is past time to recognize that the usual commitments to change are not enough, and that we have an obligation to make a difference. Only demonstrable actions will evidence a commitment. We acknowledge that the MFA, like many art and cultural organizations across America, has work to do to become the institution to which we aspire. This is the time for us to determine: “How will the MFA take the lead on bridging and healing the divides that exist among us?”

Past commitments didn’t work. What’s the solution? Additional commitments:

We commit to action, to listen, to do, to speak, to gather, to insist.

Related:

• “The Met Welcomed More Than 7 Million Visitors in Fiscal Year 2019” (somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 on a typical day, then? if the museum is open for 500 people at a time in 3-hour blocks and stays open from 9-9, it could accommodate 2,000 per day)

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