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.
It seems to me that supremacists shows up and try to shut down the other side because they believe they are the superior to the other side. All supremacist movements scare me, even the violent alt-left supremacist movements. Seems to me if they had stayed home there would be story, little to no violence, no murder, etc. My father always told me, you don’t going looking for trouble, because trouble will find you and it will either hurt you bad or may just kill you. It seems the alt-left should have known this, stayed home, ignored and marginalized the alt-right rather then make them a money making story for the news media.
Are there any statues or portraits of Margaret Sanger that should be taken down? How about Robert “Sheets” Byrd? How about Al Gore’s father, a Senator who voted against the Civil Rights Act, along with other Dem senators? How are portraits of southern Dem governors who were against Civil Rights for Blacks?
Trump should repeat this and reject this Stalinist eradication of our history.
Bye bye The Louvre!
Okay, can I insist that Seattle remove the statue of Lenin that has stood in the Fremont district of Seattle since 1990? I find Lenin and what he stood for, and the many lives lost under his regime and other communist regimes, to be offensive.
200 people can do a lot of damage. Particularly when you have 20000 people sitting on their rumps watching that 200 tear apart their country with barely a whimper.
Name a title or two, please!
I would love to learn more about Teddy Roosevelt.
They can change the name of Columbia U to Faggot College. All the leftist dish*ts who went there can then choke on it.
You’re absolutely right that a “mere” 200 could do major damage to your city or state.
What I was thinking is that NEWS COVERAGE feeds the Beast and only 200 people is a pathetic poor showing in NYC and should not be news. Note: 200 people protesting abortion is not considered news. Even 50,000 pro-lifers is not news.
The majority of *female* voters voting for Trump -— 30 million -— is apparently not news. (I’ve seen even FReepers under the impression that female voters mostly voted for Hillary.)
But 200 people in NYC protesting a statue, is news?
To the people who select what we’re going to think about 24/7/365.
Good luck with that. I will smash any indigenous peoples day statue with a baseball bat until there is nothing left of it. I will buy 10 statues of Christopher Columbus and put it outside of my house on Staten Island and let every newspaper know and beat the living f*** out of every piece of s*** Indian white liberal or anybody else that comes near it.
link to book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/286271.The_Rough_Riders
it’s very much worth reading for a host of reasons.
> “rename Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day”
Fly ‘em all down to Bogota, COLOMBIA...and let them agitate to change that country’s name, preferably in front of the presidential palace! Yeah, that will be fun! /s;)
“Let the Taliban Artillery troops take out Teddy at Mt. Rushmore.”
You have said a LOT in that remark...the Taliban would destroy ALL faces on Mt. Rushmore...representational art of any kind is considered idolatrous to muslims, those Commie nutcases ate in a way, clearing the decks for Islam...wonder if any Arab money is funding them???
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