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'Today it is clear—the largest Confederate monument in the South is coming down.': Court rulings clear way for removal of Lee Monument in Richmond...The 130-year-old, 60-foot-tall bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on a horse gained national attention last year as a focus of protests in Richmond. The base of the monument is now covered with graffiti and it was illuminated at night with holographic images. A year ago, demonstrators at the circle — now surrounded by fencing — were tear gassed by police.
CNBC's Shep Smith reports on the removal of a 130-year-old statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which has stood over Richmond since the late 1800s.
Mexico City to swap Columbus statue for one of indigenous woman[...]Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the bronze likeness of Columbus would be moved to a park and a statue of an Olmec woman would take its place.[...]She said that relocating the statue was not an attempt to "erase history" but to deliver "social justice".Ms Sheinbaum said that the Columbus statue "would not be hidden away" but that the civilisations which existed in Mexico before the Spanish conquest should receive recognition.
What is believed to be the only Confederate statue remaining on public grounds in Maryland will be removed after the Talbot County Council adopted an immediate resolution to move it from outside the courthouse to a private park in Virginia.The bronze Talbot Boys Statue, stationed on the lawn outside the Eastern Shore courthouse, honors Talbot County residents who fought for the South during the Civil War, its chief figure a life-size young soldier clutching a Confederate flag....The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in May demanding the statue’s removal, calling it unconstitutional, and Maryland activists long have said that the statue should no longer stand outside the courthouse. Prior council resolutions to remove the monument failed, although a smaller Frederick Douglass statue was erected in front of the courthouse in 2011, according to the suit. More recently, singer and Easton native Maggie Rogers urged individuals last week to support the council’s resolution.Kisha Petticolas, a Talbot County public defender named in the ACLU suit, cheered the council’s decision, but called herself “cautiously optimistic.”“I am an African-American woman and the United States of America, in 2021. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve read a lot” she said. “And I know that these things don’t die quietly.”
QuoteMexico City to swap Columbus statue for one of indigenous woman[...]Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the bronze likeness of Columbus would be moved to a park and a statue of an Olmec woman would take its place.[...]She said that relocating the statue was not an attempt to "erase history" but to deliver "social justice".Ms Sheinbaum said that the Columbus statue "would not be hidden away" but that the civilisations which existed in Mexico before the Spanish conquest should receive recognition.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58462071I'm not sure why they chose an Olmec statue when they have nothing to do with Mexico City. They could have made the statue a citizen of Teotihuacan instead...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan(Also, Mexico City won't be fully decolonized until someone named Sheinbaum isn't the mayor!)
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born to a secular Jewish family in Mexico City.[4] Her father's Ashkenazi parents emigrated from Lithuania to Mexico City in the 1920s; her mother's Sephardic parents emigrated there from Sofia, Bulgaria, in the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust.
"No one's saying that we need to pull these houses down."
Boston is the latest U.S. city to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day in a surprise move by acting Mayor Kim Janey.The executive order signed by Janey recognizes the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day starting next week on October 11.“This is a small step in a long journey around justice in our city,” Janey told reporters outside of Boston City Hall on Wednesday. The event was held in collaboration with the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) and members of the Massachusett Tribe that all helped increase the city’s engagement with indigenous communities.Though Columbus Day is considered a federal holiday, 14 states and more than 130 local governments have chosen to replace it or just not observe it. In Massachusetts, more than two dozen communities honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, with Boston becoming the latest city....Former Boston mayor Marty Walsh didn’t support replacing the holiday and Janey’s executive order was not announced as part of the public schedule until Tuesday night.
The Andrew Jackson statue at the @WhiteHouse was redecorated!
An Oxford college has installed a plaque next to a statue of the mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes, describing him as “committed British colonialist” who exploited the “peoples of southern Africa”....The University of Oxford angered campaigners in May by backtracking on its previous decision to remove the statue, ignoring the views of an independent commission.The explanatory plaque says Rhodes was a “committed British colonialist” who “obtained his fortune through exploitation of minerals, land and peoples of southern Africa. Some of his activities led to great loss of life and attracted criticism in his day and ever since.”...“We can’t take down absolutely everything that connects us to colonialism,” said the woman, who asked to be referred to as Rosie. “Are we going to take all the banking system down, all the things that made this country?”
An 18-year-old woman who gave her name as Oliver, from Denmark, said the plaque seemed to be an attempt to reach a middle ground. “But the middle ground is more about working around some people’s egos … it [the statement] feels like something I would read in a GCSE textbook.”“I certainly don’t think it’s too much,” said a young passerby, responding to academic complaints that the plaque had gone too far down the road of vilifying Rhodes. He said: “I think for some people it probably won’t be enough, because if you don’t want to walk past [the statue] every day, you are still not going to want to walk past it.”
Sculptor suggests solution to row over keeping statue of colonialist in place at Oriel CollegeThe statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, should be turned to face the wall in shame, the sculptor Antony Gormley has proposed.Gormley’s suggestion, made in an interview with the Financial Times, would be an innovative solution to a years-long battle over whether the 19th-century colonialist and white supremacist should remain in pride of place at the university.It comes after Oriel decided to retain the statue, despite the findings of an independent commission that backed its removal.Gormley said the statue should stay, the FT reported. But he added: “If we need to readdress our relationship to him, I would just simply turn him to face the wall rather than facing outwards.”Turning Rhodes to face the wall would be “an acknowledgment of collective shame” that would also “reassert the fact that Oriel College and many institutions have property from Rhodes’s riches”, the FT quoted Gormley as saying.
“Recontextualization is not enough,” the museum said in the proposal, stressing that wherever the statue goes, it would remain “an icon of violent white supremacy.”
Carrying signs and chanting in Spokane, Wash., about 40 Pacific Islanders and allies protested the statue of a 19th-century U.S. Navy sailor.The rally: The protesters marched through downtown Spokane on Oct. 16. demanding City Council members take down a statue of John R. Monaghan....Historical significance: According to CAC Community Outreach, the statue of Monaghan was erected in 1906. “Although most who pass by the statue are unlikely to know who Monaghan was, or what battle he fought in, it is known around the world to the Pacific Islander community as a devastating reminder of the thousands of innocent men, women, and children whom were brutally murdered,” CAC Community Outreach wrote in the petition. "It stands as a monument to the unprovoked, antagonistic, colonial attacks by the United States on Sāmoa and Sāmoan civilians, and to the racist perceptions that Americans had of them at that time. The impacts have been deep and lasting." “But the racist and ignorant perceptions that went virtually unquestioned during that era should not be allowed to represent Spokane today, 115 years later,” they continued. “We must not continue to pay homage to unjust wars, people who carry them out, and racist, colonial beliefs that lead to them.”