Pirate's Cove

Hey, remember when Leftists said that this was just about Confederate statues, and that’s all? Yeah, about that, part 2, 451, as Glamour Magazine’s Samantha Willis goes full moonbat

It’s Not Just Confederate Monuments—all Statues of Problematic Men Must Go

(this came out right before the tiny Unite The Right march, which featured tons of violent leftists, and Samantha spends a few paragraphs about the coming march before)

Many who are taking to the streets for the Unite the Right Rally 2 would argue that there’s no harm in keeping these symbols. But when is a statue more than a statue? At this moment in America’s present reality, we question: Are monuments to men who rebelled against their mother country to preserve the institution of slavery appropriate in public spaces? How can a flag marked with stars and bars be a visceral symbol of shame to some, and pride to others? Women—like Newsome and Bryant, of different ages and heritages and in every quadrant of the country—are galvanizing efforts to remove, contextualize and understand these symbols of who we were to help us determine who we are. But for all that we lost in Charlottesville, we gained something else too; a seismic shift in public consciousness. Women are organizing to confront not just men of the Confederacy, but the problematic figures we’ve revered who used the tools of patriarchy and power to hurt women and people of color.

The message is clear. Women have had enough of bad men. And they aren’t going to let them stand forever. (snip)

Elsewhere in the country, women lead efforts to examine and contextualize statues of men other than Confederate soldiers, but whose place in history are also hotly debated.

In April, the life-size, metal likeness of the man once lauded as the “father of gynecology” was deposed from a Central Park pedestal it had occupied since 1934. Doctor James Marion Sims mastered a method of repairing fistulas—abnormal openings between the vagina and the bladder, uterus or rectum—using enslaved black women as his guinea pigs during years of experimentation. Sims didn’t give the women anesthesia; their pain, he himself noted, “was extreme.” Sim’s unethical work was the bedrock of racist medical practices that persist today, many that result in the rising maternal death rates of black women, who are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Black women were at the forefront of activism to remove Sims’ statue from the Park; Black Youth Project 100 staged a protest last August, where a group of women rallied in front of Sims’ statue, their gowns saturated with blood-red paint. They represented Sims’ enslaved victims Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy and the other women butchered at the expense of Sims’ career.

So, anything that Offends them must be Removed from the public view. Statues and things that most people never even notice.

Melissa Mark-Viverito, Vice President for strategic engagement at Latino Victory, was serving as Speaker of the New York City Council when Sims’ statue came down. (She had also advocated for its removal.) The previous years’ national dialogue about Confederate monuments “gave us the opportunity in New York to reevaluate who is being revered, who is being honored,” says Mark-Viverito.

“My district [New York City’s 8th District] is predominantly a community of color,” says Mark-Viverito. “[It is] largely Spanish speaking, largely Latina, with a sizable Black demographic.” The heritage of Mark-Viverito’s constituents, as well as her own as a Puerto Rico-born woman of color, led to her view that Sims’ statue had no place in the Big Apple’s public domain.

“History is about learning and about awakenings,” she says over the phone between meetings. “If we get an accurate portrayal of who [Sims] was, we evolve. [Sims’ expertise] was at the expense of women who were enslaved; he used them as objects because he viewed them as his property. Anyone who believes in equity and justice, when they realize what the statue represents, [they realize] it’s just not appropriate.”

“So now the statue has come down, and now the conversation is, what replaces it? It’s created an opening to engage in that conversation.”

In other words, history that Offends them should be erased. Like Columbus Day and any and all statues and stuff related to Christopher Columbus, which has been happening for years.

Debates about historically and socially significant symbols will likely keep rolling through the country. Whether the monuments and flags stay up or come down, whether we rename roads and schools to reflect standards of our time instead of the past, it’s clear that women enrich this national dialogue. By sharing their diverse perspectives gleaned from a range of identities and life experiences, women play a critical role in contextualizing the ideals and people in American history that we choose to memorialize—and those that we won’t.

OK, I’m not a woman, but, when do we take down all the Robert Byrd statues and plaques and rename all the buildings and road and bridges? Heck, all the stuff named after Democrats, because that Offends me? And naming all those cities in California with Spanish names despite being a majority white population? Cultural appropriation! They must all be renamed! And, since Planned Parenthood receives federal money, and I don’t like the name, it Offends me, they should be forced to choose a new one. See how easy it is, Liberals? See the slippery slope?

Of course, most of the ladies reading Glamour probably care more about Hailey Baldwin and Justin Beiber continuing their world engagement tour with ice cream along with a song by the Weeknd being about Selena Gomez.