Posted on 08/15/2017 12:42:36 PM PDT by TigerClaws
Hundreds of activists gathered at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday to take down the “racist” statue of Theodore Roosevelt and an urgent call to rename Columbus Day.
More than 200 people cheered outside the museum as activists covered the statue of Roosevelt on horseback flanked by an African American and Native American on either side and demanded it be ultimately removed.
“A stark embodiment of the white supremacy that Roosevelt himself espoused and promoted,” the group explained in a statement. “The statue is seen as an affront to all who pass it on entering the museum, but especially to African and Native Americans.”
Activists from the groups NYC Stands with Standing Rock and Decolonize This Place organized the protest to draw attention to the museum’s encouragement of racist tropes, and implored New York City to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day.
Anti-Columbus Day protest Columbus Day controversially commemorates Christopher Columbus reportedly arriving in the Americas on 12 October 1492. Columbus is believed to have brutally enslaved the indigenous people upon his arrival and imposed harsh punishments, including torture. His arrival also ushered in European settlers to the Americas who waged wars against Native Americans and brought diseases with them that had a lasting devastating effect.
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There is growing movement to change the name of Columbus Day. In the past year cities in 10 different states have moved to change the name to Indigenous People’s Day, the largest being in Phoenix, Arizona. However, opposition remains in places like Oklahoma City, and Cincinnati.
In New York, the Columbus Day Parade attracted 35,000 marchers and many more viewers. It’s considered a celebration of Italian heritage given Columbus was born near Genoa.
“This is Indigenous People’s Day,” said Kandia Crazy Horse, a country singer who is a member of the Pamunkey tribe of Virginia. “In celebrating this, we’re trying to see that New York City and the rest of Turtle Island [North America] ratifies Indigenous People’s Day as an … annual event that’s counter to the Christopher Columbus narrative and Columbus Day.”
Amin Husain, an artist and organizer with Decolonize This Place, said they had been working on Monday’s protest for about three weeks. He said it was important to debunk what was being shown in the museum.
“This is the most coveted museum,” said Husain. “I think that people are ignorant. It’s a white supremacist society. It doesn’t seem like it’s important [renaming the day] but it is super important” for oppressed people.
The group started with a 10-stop tour of the museum in which they highlighted a variety of exhibits they felt were racist and misrepresentative, which ranged from how the representation of Africans reinforces negative stereotypes to the exoticizing of Islam in the Hall of Islam exhibit. “Where is the Hall of Christendom?” one of the tour guides asked.
“It’s just to echo what this is, it’s really a hall of white supremacy, that’s what this is,” said Nitasha Dhillon, one of the organizers.
Ash J (@AshAgony) The scene outside of @AMNH today as #DecolonizeThisPlace's anti-#ColumbusDay tour covered the Teddy Roosevelt statue. (pic: @hoods4justice) pic.twitter.com/USiNOV0wie
October 11, 2016 At the end of the tour in the hall, activists began chanting, “Respect! Remove! Rename!” before swarming around the large dinosaur skeletons in the lobby with signs that read, “DECOLONIZE THIS MUSEUM”, “ABOLISH WHITE SUPREMACY” and “BLACK LIVES MATTER”.
“Teddy Roosevelt’s nature was not empty wilderness. It was and is indigenous land,” one reader said as the organizers took turns reading from a speech. “Taken through violence. Just like Columbus who came to enslave. To take their gold and their bodies and their souls.”
Musicians played songs from the Lenape tribe, whose territory the city sits on, and activists walked through the crowd with burning sage.
Outside about 25 police officers arrived as the group attempted to shield Roosevelt’s statue with a green material, but there were no arrests.
The Italians ain't gonna put up with that!................
JUST IGNORE THESE MORONS
WHY IS ANYONE LISTENING TO THEM?????
Let the Taliban Artillery troops take out Teddy at Mt. Rushmore.
Yes, this will be neverending. BLM is a rascist organization. But, since Whites are their problem, it is okay for them to destroy us by destroying our history.
This is awful, a nightmare. It is a purge pure and simple. We are at war and we do nothing but let a small fraction of the population take out Civil War history and anything to do with the white man.
A ping list needs to be started on this subject.
OMG, 200 people! You could gather 200 people in NYC by dropping a bag of quarters from a 15th floor balcony.
Scumbag leftists.
They’ll be blowing things up and killing people soon, since our own govt and LEO is complicit by doing nothing to stop this crap.
The protesters should hand-deliver their demands to these guys:
I want a statue of TRUMP in my city.
EFF 'em, let loose the dogs.
This is officially an epidemic.
While ordinary Americans/Trump voters are going about their lives, working and doing back to school things, THIS is what the Left is getting by with.
Nobody in power has the will to say, “F you, that’s ridiculous, and we will get the National Guard if need be!”
Luigi, Dominic, & Vito are going to make these anti-Columbus Day `activists’ an offer they can’t refuse.
“Youse leave Columbus Day alone, and we leave your faces alone. Capish?”
Interesting story about TR
First US president to invite a black man to dinner with the President at the WH
http://usslave.blogspot.com/2012/07/booker-t-washington-theodore-roosevelt.html
I told you so.
Communists hate America. Anyone who did anything with it, to make it great, to make it happen, to promote it, will be thrown into the fire.
They attack Confederacy first, because it’s an easy target (and notice, leftists LOVE the North and hate the South; it’s the ONLY time they think the “U.S.” is perfectly correct and saintly; any other time, the U.S. is $!#$!) with that PC meme so firmly attached, the most-aggrieved preferred victim group.
Funny!
You see, Mika Brzezinski said it’s MSM’s job to control what sheeple think.
GET THE !%#!#%!%#%!@$@ OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!!!
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