This one does not make sense to me even within the logic of "woke" culture.
How does anybody alive in 2020 possibly have the standing to tell the emancipated slaves who contributed their hard-earned wages to erect this monument that the design they chose is "problematic"?
How does anybody alive in 2020 possibly have the standing to tell the emancipated slaves who contributed their hard-earned wages to erect this monument that the design they chose is "problematic"?
If these kinds of questions are to be adjudicated by reference to a hierarchy of oppression, it seems like the people who paid for this monument are... pretty damn hard to second-guess.
A lot of people claiming Frederick Douglass' support for removing the statue.
But though Douglass wasn't altogether happy with the design, his solution was radically different: Add another statue that would show black people as full citizens (and, uh, honor Ulysses S. Grant.)
But though Douglass wasn't altogether happy with the design, his solution was radically different: Add another statue that would show black people as full citizens (and, uh, honor Ulysses S. Grant.)
Finally, note that Douglass' most important suggestion has already been realized in D.C.: Opposite the Emancipation Group, there stand what you might call the Joys of Freedom Group: a statue of Mary MeLeod Bethune and some of the children she (among her many activities) educated.
