J.W. Booth statues first started appearing in predominantly Southern cities during a time when it was popular to publicly celebrate the traitorous and murderous act of shooting a sitting president in the back of the head. “What he did wasn’t wrong,” said one leader of a white supremacist group who asked not to be named. “Race traitors deserve what they get.”
Controversy is brewing around the continued display of statues honoring other (often quasi-) historical figures of questionable merit, such as Pennsylvania’s Rocky Balboa (a fictional character); New York’s bull, near Wall Street; as well as Illinois’s Popeye and Dick Tracy. “There are enough actual human beings who did positive or beneficial things for this nation, in whose honor we could erect statues,” said via email a spokesperson for Americans for the Reduction of Hatred and Ignorance in Public Life, a think-tank. “I mean, come on. It’s 2017 - time to stop celebrating murderous traitors and fake celebrities.”
americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan