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1/ THREAD Some thoughts on the recent podcast from @CheatsMovement with @LevarStoney, specifically the mayor's comments related to #monuments and #warmemorials in #Richmond:
2/ Straight to late in the episode when Cheats mentions the recent meeting between the mayor and Mitch Landrieu @MayorLandrieu in #Richmond @VirginiaMuseum (on 3/19). "Did you learn anything talking to Mitch Landrieu about monuments?," Cheats asks (35:56 into the stream).
3/ Stoney's response at 36:35: "There are going to be some lonely, dark times when you do big things that change the fabric of any community..."
4/ "... and in order to actually get to the point where you can do those big things you've got to the have the community really really behind you and they've got to stay behind you, as well."
5/ OK. Census-building is clearly important. And there's some encoded language here related to the "change" that I think @LevarStoney would like to see happen. But "big things" means... what, precisely? Plaques? Removal of a certain statue? Funds for reinterpretation?
6/ There's no clarity here, whatsoever. We don't know what @LevarStoney means because he's not saying anything of substance.
7/ When it comes to issues related to #monuments we need leadership from the front that contributes to the consensus-building. And to be blunt: we shouldn't require or search for a simple majority.
8/ When it comes to isssues of racial equity we need to amplify the voices, opinions, and experiences of the people who are being harmed by monuments to white supremacy.
9/ Comments from @LevarStoney were much more about him, as an individual -- HIS relationships and the political capital HE might expend in backing changes to the Avenue -- than anything else.
10/ What did I WANT to hear from @LevarStoney during the podcast? I wanted to hear him build on his statement related to Monument Avenue from August 2017, issued in the aftermath of A11/12 (and more than "I wish they had never been built").
11/ I wanted him to go on the record and say he was going to DO SOMETHING. And there is plenty that can be done.
12/ For instance, the city of Richmond can be as courageous as the city of Norfolk and file a lawsuit that challenges the state law regarding the inability to "disturb or interfere with" war memorials.
wavy.com/news/local-new…
wavy.com/news/local-new…
13/ Members of the Richmond City Council, including @thedrmikejones, can put forward yet another right to decide resolution when it comes to war memorials (likely sometime in the fall during the lead-up to the next legislative session in the General Assembly).
14/ County Boards of Supervisors, including those in #Richmond and #AlbemarleCounty, can put recommendations in their legislative packets for the same Assembly that makes their desire for local control of #monuments clear.
15/ We can remove obstacles to monument recontextulization/ removal at the local level, including amending § 17.05 of the Charter of the City of Richmond (2015) dealing with "Control of monuments and other works of art."
16/ As it is currently written, the law emphasizes preservation, only, and could undergo some line edits that would include more explicit language related to the city's right to modify, alter, contextualize, and/or remove monuments law.lis.virginia.gov/charters/richm…
17/ We can follow Judge Graffeo, appointed to a seat in Jefferson County, AL, in noting in reference to monuments that "A city has a right to speak for itself, to say what it wishes, and to select the views that it wants to express"
18/ And we can all speak out against the Dillon Rule, which effectively curtails our cities' 1A, 5A, and 14A rights related to the city's right to free speech and their right to control their own property.
