AMERICAN IDOLATRY MEETS WOKE ICONOCLASM

WHY DO PEOPLE PULL DOWN STATUES?

- CRISPIN SARTWELL

PROTESTERS WHO PULL down statues are usually not content with removing the inanimate metal or stone object from its pedestal. They berate it, ridicule it, hammer it; they try to set it on fire; when that doesn’t work, they’re liable to behead it or dump it in a river to drown. Then the authorities retrieve it, as though fishing a corpse out of the lake. They crate it up so it can do no further harm, ship it to a statue internment facility, and forget about it forever.

Sympathetic accounts of the process make it sound quite rational. A statue of a Confederate general or a slave-owning president or Christopher Columbus, looming at you above the public square, might, especially if you are black or Indigenous, make you realize that the people who run and adorn your city aren’t like you. In fact, they make heroes out of the sort of people who oppress people like you, and they create a built environment where you might have to make your way through your oppressors’ distorted, self-serving interpretations of history every day on your way to the bus stop.