Black Lives Matter, Group Covers UVA Jefferson Statue, Lists DemandsBack on August 13, 2017 I wrote:Posted: Sep 12, 2017 7:03 PM PDT
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – A group has now covered the statue of Thomas Jefferson that sits in front of the University of Virginia Rotunda.
Dozens turned out with Black Lives Matter signs around 8 p.m. Tuesday. Three people were on the statue that is covered in black.
A sign on top of the covering read: “TJ is a racist and rapist.”
I suspect that the tragedies today in Charlottesville might lead not only to the destruction of statues of Robert E. Lee, but, eventually, to the statues of Charlottesville’s original Haven Monahan: that notorious rapist of a black body, Thomas Jefferson.As I wrote in Taki’s a few days later:Reading Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s masterwork A Rape on Campus three years ago, I was struck by how much the Rolling Stone writer feared and loathed that the University of Virginia, Charlottesville was founded and designed by Jefferson. It made Erdely feel unsafe that the blond no doubt glass-breaking students felt a cultural connection with Jefferson, a sense of heritage.
That’s not OK!
But it’s precisely American history’s virtues, more than anything else, that enrage so many people these days against the great men of the American past. While the Founding Fathers might be nominally condemned for their misdeeds, they are largely resented for their accomplishments.The University of Virginia is where Jefferson, as a building and landscape architect, more or less invented the American college campus, one of the most successful and prestigious design innovations in world history.Human history suggests that people are naturally prejudiced in favor of their own ancestors, because the accomplishments of their forefathers reflect well upon them.
America is increasingly dominated by people with shallow roots in this country. So it’s hardly surprising that they find it insulting to reflect upon what Americans not related to them once accomplished. Instead, it’s heartening to denounce the Founding Fathers as bad men whose descendants deserve their displacement.
Punching down is safer and more fun than punching up. Hence the less dominant become the founding stock, the more their lineage is abused.
Jefferson’s genius is carved in the American landscape, which is what make him so especially intolerable.