Tag: statue genocide

bookmark_border“Hey MAGAs, show me your best cognitive dissonance!”

Posted on by Marissa

I recently saw a post from one of my Facebook “friends” regarding the accidental leaking of military information by Department of Defense officials in a group chat.

The post read: “Hey MAGAs, show me your best cognitive dissonance! Best one wins a new red hat!… Go ahead, twist me a pretzel and tell me why this is all OK.”

This post, to be blunt, really pisses me off. And it does so for two reasons:

First, the double standards and logical inconsistency. This person expresses outrage about what is a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things, while completely failing to express any criticism of an obvious, pervasive, and blatant campaign of atrocity that is enormous in both its scope and its severity. He calls an accidental leak “a major fuck up” and “justification for heads to roll.” However, he expressed not even the mildest criticism of the statue genocide that began in 2020 and continues to this day, a series of deliberate and intentional acts of extreme cruelty targeting people who are different from the norm in an attempt to ensure their erasure from society. It makes no sense that someone would get so outraged at what is essentially an accident, while apparently feeling no outrage whatsoever at a deliberate and cruel campaign to inflict harm.

Second is the entire way that the argument is framed. This person purportedly invites others to discuss and debate, while simultaneously stating that anyone who expresses a differing opinion is demonstrating “cognitive dissonance” and “twisting a pretzel.” This way of framing the issue puts people who see things differently in a no-win position: we could either be silent and pretend that we agree when we don’t, or we could speak up and have our views automatically be labeled as “cognitive dissonance” and “twisting a pretzel.” Talk about intolerance for those who think and feel differently than you do. What is the point of inviting discussion when you have no openness to considering alternative perspectives? Why even ask people to contribute their views, when you admittedly have no intention of actually hearing or learning from those views, but intend rather to use those views as evidence of their authors’ twistedness and cognitive dissonance?

Personally, I support Trump and his administration because I’m on the autism spectrum and my special interest is history and statues, so the events involving statues that have taken place over the past 5 years have had a profound negative impact on me. The issue of military information being leaked just isn’t important to me in comparison, and therefore I do not share the outrage that this “friend” and so many other people are expressing. This isn’t cognitive dissonance, and it’s not twisting a pretzel. I simply have a different perspective because I’ve had different life experiences and my brain works differently.

bookmark_borderLydia O’Connor, a despicable bully and bigot

Posted on by Marissa

There are no words that can adequately express the cruelty, nastiness, and immorality demonstrated by the despicable lump of flesh and bone that calls itself Lydia O’Connor:

“Trump Signs Order To Restore Inclusive and Diverse Monuments, Remove ‘Anti-America’ Ideology.”

Or perhaps:

“Trump Signs Order To Restore Monuments Signifying That People Who Are Different Actually Have a Right To Exist, Remove ‘Anti-America’ Ideology.”

There, Lydia. I fixed it for you. 

Needless to say, I did not read the entire article, because my mind and nervous system don’t have the resilience needed to handle such a traumatizing experience. Thanks to merely glimpsing the headline, my body is shaking with rage, my stomach is sick, and my chest feels like it’s being crushed in a vice.

This headline, and the accompanying article, are enormously harmful to me as an autistic person who has grown up being excluded, bullied, and different from the norm. The monuments that O’Connor sickeningly characterizes as “racist” are the monuments to people like me. They are monuments to people who are different. They are monuments to the entire concept of being different from the majority, resisting authority, rebelling against social norms, not fitting in, thinking for oneself. They are the monuments that enable a person like me to actually be accepted and included in society. They are the monuments that signify that I have a right to exist. 

But yeah, this is clearly racist.

Obviously, allowing people who are different from the norm to exist, is racist. 

It’s racist to honor a diverse range of viewpoints, stories, and perspectives, rather than only honoring those that conform to the dominant ideology.

It’s racist to accept and include people who are different.

Not.

This headline and article are completely unacceptable. And this is an understatement. In fact, anything negative that could possibly be said about this headline, article, and author would be an understatement, because no language has words adequate for the task of accurately describing such complete moral bankruptcy.

Racist monuments. 

Yup. Because for me to actually have a life worth living is “racist.”

Because allowing me to exist as an autistic person is “racist.”

No.

Wrong, Lydia.

Allowing people who are different form the norm to exist, is not racist.

This is obvious. It should not even need to be stated. It is, in fact, bizarre that it needs to be stated. It is bizarre that over the past five years, I have had to state this again and again, because despite how obvious it objectively is, it is clearly not obvious to a large percentage of the population. Even after five years of living through this hell, it is still both shocking and sickening beyond belief that an ideology has taken over this country which believes that allowing a person like me to exist, allowing a person like me to be accepted and included in society, is racist. 

I have a right to exist. My existing is not racist. Period. Full stop. End of story.

Thanks, Lydia, for completely destroying my morning. Just another attack on my very existence, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of such attacks that I’ve been subjected to for nearly five years now. I am so incredibly sick and tired of people thinking this way, speaking this way, writing this way. I am sick and tired of having to justify my existence again and again, of having to defend my very existence against claims that it is “racist.”

Lydia O’Connor is the epitome of a bigot and a bully with no mind, no soul, no capacity for independent thought, no empathy, and no tolerance for any perspectives other than her own. She and the Huffington Post have inflicted severe harm on me by writing and publishing this article and should be sued for the harm that they have caused. 

I have a right to exist. Statues like these have a right to exist. We are not racist. Period. Full stop. End of story.

bookmark_borderTrump takes action to restore statues on federal sites!

Posted on by Marissa

A very significant piece of good news took place Thursday night, when President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This order directs the Vice President and the Secretary of the Interior to restore federal parks, monuments, memorials and statues “that have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history or improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.” 

This is objectively fantastic news and for me, desperately needed. I’ve had an absolutely awful few days and this lifts my spirits somewhat. Trump should have signed this order on his first day in office, but better late than never! This executive order means that thanks to President Trump, the statue genocide will indeed be partially reversed, something that my 2020-2021 self did not think was possible.

Check out some posts / coverage by:

bookmark_borderAn argument that the statue genocide is unconstitutional

Posted on by Marissa

I recently came across an excellent article by David McCallister at the Abbeville Institute, entitled, “A Modern Bill of Attainder?” In it, he argues that the despicable “Naming Commission,” which erased all diversity from the names of military bases and also completely destroyed Arlington National Cemetery, is unconstitutional because its actions constitute a Bill of Attainder:

Removals of base names, ROTC battle streamers, just to name a few constitute honors granted but removed pursuant to a Congressional Act meant to stigmatize a group’s progeny into perpetuity. By the passage of section 370 of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress did just that when they adopted Elizabeth Warren’s Naming Commission provision based on her contention of universal, and individual guilt for treason, acting as judge, jury and executioner, with a complicit Congress behind her, despite President Trump’s veto of the troublesome Law.  The Law singled out a deemed group unworthy to have any honors based on their military service, over 150 years after the fact, and saddling their descendants with hereditary shame and stigma.  No trial, no treason.  No treason, no condemnation.  No condemnation, no cancellation.

(emphasis added by me)

These sentiments really resonate with me and articulate what is so wrong with the statue genocide in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. The sentiments expressed by McCallister apply not only to the disgraceful Naming Commission, but to all atrocities committed against Confederate historical figures and Christopher Columbus as well.

Essentially, removing a historical figure’s statues, monuments, public art, holidays, names, and other honors constitutes giving that historical figure the death penalty. Yet there was never any grand jury convened to charge the historical figures (and in many cases, no particular crime that they’ve even been accused of committing), no due process, no speedy and public trial (or any trial at all, for that matter), and no jury. And because historical figures are no longer alive, they are not able to be confronted with the witnesses against them, to obtain witnesses in their favor, or to have the assistance of counsel for their defense. In short, what has happened with statues and monuments over the past few years constitutes giving historical figures the death penalty without a trial. And this violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. Plus, the atrocities committed against statues are the very epitome of cruelty. If these sickening actions are not “cruel and unusual,” then nothing is. Therefore, the statue genocide violates the Eighth Amendment as well.

bookmark_borderKeeping the historical figures alive and why it matters

Posted on by Marissa

Last month, my cousin passed away. Matt was 35 years old, two months younger than me. We both enjoyed cheering on the Boston sports teams, physical fitness, and trying different restaurants. On a deeper level, as we aged out of our twenties and into our thirties, we shared the experience of being “misfits” in a way. Neither of us was interested in getting married or having kids, as so many of our peers were doing, and we both changed jobs several times in a struggle to find suitable career paths. Matt was an amazing poker player, basketball player, and friend. He loved golf, trips to Encore, and his apartment in the Seaport. In the spring of 2021, Matt suddenly lost consciousness while walking down the street and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He underwent various types of surgery, chemo, and radiation, all while living life to the fullest extent that his health situation would allow. All of these worked to slow the progression of the cancer, but it eventually returned. Matt enjoyed the company of family and friends, and retained his dry sense of humor, all the way till the end of his life.

While reminiscing about Matt’s life with family members, someone expressed what I consider to be a very meaningful sentiment: that people are not truly gone until and unless no one remembers them anymore. Matt touched many, many lives, as was evidenced by the droves of people who came to the funeral home and to the reception afterwards to pay their respects. I will never forget the moments that I spent with him, talking about the latest Sox or Celtics game, walking along the waterfront, joking, sharing meals and cocktails at local restaurants. And I’m sure this is true of the countless other family members, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances of Matt as well. In this way, Matt will live on in the hearts and minds of all the people whose lives he touched. 

As I do with everything, I connected this to the historical figures that I love, and that have become the victims of an unimaginably cruel and heartless genocide. This sentiment is exactly why it is so important that historical figures be preserved in the form of statues, monuments, holidays, and place names. These things are what prevent the historical figures from being truly gone. These are the ways in which the historical figures live, long after they have physically died. And this sentiment is the reason why the genocide of the historical figures has been so deeply immoral, so sickeningly wrong, and so immensely damaging. By destroying historical figures’ statues, monuments, holidays, and place names, you are murdering them. You are preventing them from living on. You are obliterating them from existence as historical figures.

This is why honoring the historical figures, via writing, art, and erecting my own statues, is so important to me. This is why I’ve dedicated my life to these activities and why I consider them my source of meaning and purpose. Because these are the activities that keep the historical figures alive. Just like my cousin Matt, the historical figures will live on in my heart and in my mind.

bookmark_borderMy open letter to Gov. Youngkin regarding HB1699

Posted on by Marissa
Unfortunately, bigots and bullies in the Virginia legislature – who believe, apparently, that everyone who is different from the norm should be obliterated from existence – passed a bill known as HB1699. You can read about this disgusting, unconscionable, and immoral bill here. (I guess I don’t make reading about it seem very appealing when I describe it that way, but describing it with milder language would be inaccurate.)
I wrote the below email to Governor Glenn Youngkin, encouraging him to veto this bill:
Dear Governor Youngkin:
I am writing to respectfully ask that you please veto bill HB1699. This bill is mean-spirited, cruel, discriminatory, and hurtful. I am on the autism spectrum, and my special interest is history. What makes history so important to me is that it includes stories and perspectives from a wide array of different people. Confederate history is part of history. People who fought for the Confederacy deserve to be honored just as much as anyone else does. Their stories deserve to be told, and their history preserved, just as much as anyone else’s. It is unconscionable that, after years of the most brutal and vicious attacks imaginable on Confederate historical figures, a bill would be introduced that would hurt lovers of Confederate history even more than we have already been hurt. Bill HB1699 would personally hurt me as an autistic person who loves history. It’s beyond upsetting that a bill such as this would even be under consideration. Please, please veto this horrible bill.
Sincerely,
Marissa
I highly encourage you to do the same. You can contact Governor Youngkin by…
Email: glenn.youngkin@governor.virginia.gov
Phone: (804) 786-2211
Or mail:
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 1475
Richmond, VA 23218

bookmark_borderPhotos of the aftermath of the statue genocide

Posted on by Marissa

Judy Smith recently posted some photos of a drive down Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. These photos are heartbreaking. The one thought that echoes in my mind when looking at images like these is: How could people possibly think that this is a good thing?

Where there once were beautiful statues, there is now nothingness. Where there once was a celebration of history, there is now meaninglessness, purposelessness, and emptiness. Where people who are different from the norm were once accepted, now we are shamed, condemned, attacked, viciously hurt, excluded. Where life was once worth living, now it is not.

“We hate you,” the city of Richmond says to me, as well as to all people who are different.

The city of Richmond, like so many other cities across the United States, was completely ruined. Deliberately. On purpose. People actually thought that this was a good thing to do. How? How could they think this? It is completely incomprehensible to me.

These images depict the sickening result of the statue genocide. Statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, and Matthew Fontaine Maury are supposed to stand on this street, where now there are only vacant expanses of dirt. I will feel rage and grief at what happened to these statues for the rest of my life. I will never fully heal, as long as these hideous wounds remain in the landscape of our country. What happened to these statues was wrong. These statues, these historical figures, and the fact that what happened to them was wrong, must never be forgotten.

bookmark_borderYou know what’s “pure hell,” Tim Walz?

Posted on by Marissa

According to Fox News, Minnesota governor and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz described he and Kamala Harris’s loss as “pure hell” and said that Democrats are “fatigued.”

You know what’s pure hell? Watching the man that you love be lynched. Seeing the noose tightening around his neck, and the mob of angry bigots pulling on the rope. Hearing the sickening thud as his massive bronze body falls to the ground. Watching his murderers celebrate their “accomplishment.” Watching them stand on the pedestal where the man you love stood just seconds ago, their hands raised in sickening triumph. Watching them pose for pictures with their knees on his neck as he lies, pitifully, face down on the pavement.

Seeing police officers lined up, off to the side, watching this horrifying scene unfold, doing nothing to intervene because they were instructed not to. Hearing this atrocity – a demonstration of pure hatred for you because you are different from the majority – characterized as “understandable” and an act of “civil disobedience.” Hearing that the main perpetrator was released with no punishment, and that the other perpetrators weren’t arrested or charged to begin with.

Having to somehow continue existing, year after year, in a society that considers the above scenario to be completely acceptable. A society that doesn’t care about your pain, that doesn’t care about your feelings, that doesn’t care about your viewpoint, that doesn’t care about your perspective.

This is pure hell, Tim Walz. This is what I’ve experienced. And you caused it.

bookmark_borderFantastic news re: 250th anniversary, statue garden, and protecting statues!

Posted on by Marissa

On Wednesday, President Trump signed a truly awesome executive order.

The order establishes a task force to plan an “extraordinary celebration” in honor of America’s 250th anniversary, on July 4, 2026. If Trump’s campaign speeches are any indication, the festivities will begin on Memorial Day 2025 and will include a “Great American State Fair” in Iowa, and a “Patriot Games” for high school athletes from across the country.

Additionally, the executive order re-establishes the plan to create a National Garden of American Heroes, a statue garden filled with statues of 250 historical figures. The order goes so far as to commission artists for the first 100 statues, indicating that the statue garden isn’t just an abstract hope, but is actually on the path towards becoming reality. “The National Garden will honor American heroism after dozens of monuments to Americans, including Presidents and Founding Fathers, have toppled or destroyed and never restored,” said a press release.

Speaking of statues that have been topped or destroyed and never restored, the executive order reinstates Trump’s order from 2020 that was aimed at protecting existing statues from destruction at the hands of bigots and bullies. This policy directs the Attorney General to prosecute people and groups responsible for vandalizing and/or destroying statues to the fullest extent of the law. It also withholds federal funding from state and local law enforcement agencies that fail to do the same. The AP describes this order as “reviving efforts to harshly punish those who vandalize or destroy existing statues and monuments.” This is true, and there is absolutely nothing bad about it, because harsh punishment is exactly what such people deserve.

As alluded to above, you might recall that both the plans for the statue garden and the policy strengthening punishments for anti-statue bullies existed previously thanks to an executive order that Trump signed during a dark time that feels simultaneously like yesterday and like a million years ago. (I blogged about it here.) Unfortunately, within his first few days of taking office, Biden mean-spiritedly and cruelly signed an executive order rescinding both of these policies, thereby cancelling plans for the statue garden and deliberately declining to punish the people in our country who are the most deserving of punishment. Although this new executive order doesn’t undo the unspeakable atrocities that were done, I am heartened that Trump has once again chosen to stand up for the statues.

I will never stop fighting for statues, I will never stop advocating on their behalf, I will never forget or forgive what happened to them, and I will never stop writing about them. This is what is truly important. This is what matters. And I’m truly glad that President Trump, to a significant extent, feels the same.

Sources: Newsmax, MSN/AP

bookmark_borderStatues are what Selena Gomez should be crying about

Posted on by Marissa

I recently saw this Instagram post from Benny Johnson about the video of Selena Gomez crying about the Trump administration’s deportations of illegal immigrants. Johnson, and various other right-leaning people whom he quotes in his post, argue that Gomez should instead be crying about all of the people killed by fentanyl overdoses, the people murdered and/or raped by illegal immigrants, and the 300,000 migrant children who have gone missing.

While I don’t agree with the sexist stereotypes in the post regarding which ages and genders of people tend to be the victims of which types of crimes (people of either gender and any age can be raped, and people of either gender can overdose on fentanyl), nor do I agree with the characterization of Gomez’s video as a “meltdown” (that’s insulting to autistic people because a meltdown is a term used to describe an autistic person’s involuntary reaction to a sensorily or otherwise overwhelming situation), I do think that the post makes some valid points. 

Riley Gaines, one of the people quoted in Johnson’s post, points out: “Laken Riley was one of many. Selena Gomez did not cry for her.”

This is true. And it reminded me of another thing that Selena Gomez did not cry about: the statues that were brutally and viciously destroyed at the hands of the BLM movement and “woke” ideology. Selena Gomez did not cry for the soldier statues whose heads were smashed to pieces with sledgehammers in Portsmouth, Virginia as people cheered and a brass band played. She did not cry for the statues hung with nooses from traffic lights in a North Carolina town. She did not cry for Christopher Columbus, lynched on the steps of the Minnesota state capitol as his murderers raised their hands in triumph and posed for photos with his pitiful, face-down body. She did not cry for Robert E. Lee when his head was sawed from his body and his face sliced off before he was placed into a white-hot furnace and reduced to molten bronze.

I’m going to stop giving examples, because thinking about these atrocities and typing the words to describe them makes me feel sick to my stomach. And these are only a few examples among hundreds. To say that I’ve cried for what happened to these statues is an understatement. Over the past four and a half years, I’ve sobbed uncontrollably on more occasions than I can count, wailed, screamed until my voice was hoarse, punched walls, thrown furniture, and shed enough tears to fill an ocean. I’ve experienced pain so intense, so agonizing, and so excruciating that it is impossible to fully describe. No words can do it justice. What happened to these statues is the most angering, saddening, heartbreaking thing that has ever taken place in the world.

For Selena Gomez to cry for what is happening with illegal immigrants, while ignoring the far worse situation that has happened and that continues to happen with statues, demonstrates a complete lack of both logic and empathy. What happened to these statues – not what is happening with illegal immigrants – is what is actually upsetting. What happened to these statues is what Selena Gomez should be crying for. In fact, what happened to these statues is what everyone should be crying for. The entire population should be unanimously shouting from the rooftops, screaming at the top of their lungs, protesting in the streets, demanding justice, for what happened to these statues. 

But Selena Gomez doesn’t care about the statues, and neither do most people. To cry about immigrants being deported, but not about the statues, demonstrates a lack of empathy on the part of both Selena Gomez and society as a whole.