Week 10 Personal Post-Affirmative action for statues

10When tolerance means intolerance
Posted: March 13, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Daniel Burke is the owner of a minor league baseball team – the Portland, Maine, Sea Dogs.
He thought it might be a nice touch to commission some public artwork to rest outside Hadlock Field where the Sea Dogs play and offer it to the city for free.
So he commissioned Rhoda Sherbell, a Long Island, N.Y., artist to create bronze statues of an American family – mom, dad and two kids – headed off to watch a game together.
Can't get much less controversial than that, can you?
That's what you think.
Portland's Public Art Committee had other ideas. They see racism and sexism and probably homophobia beneath the bronze veneer. The statues just don't reflect the diversity of Maine's largest city, members say.
Jack Soley, the committee vice chairman, said he's seen enough public artwork in Portland displaying "white folks on pedestals."
Portland has enough of those, including a statue of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, he said.
"There's so much statuary in Portland that represents white, Anglo-Saxon people," explained Jay York, another committee member. "We want to encourage strong, interesting public art that the city of Portland can enjoy of years to come."
What's got the art czars in a tizzy is a father figure, a mother carrying a small girl holding a teddy bear and a son wearing a baseball glove and wearing a Sea Dogs shirt.
Now let's review the demographics of the fair city of Portland, Maine, for a moment.
Let's see: Irish – 18 percent; English – 17 percent; Italian 9 percent; French (non-Basque) – 9 percent; German – 6 percent; Scottish – 4 percent; French Canadian – 4 percent; Scotch-Irish – 3 percent; black or African-American – 3 percent; Polish – 2 percent; Swedish – 2 percent; Russian – 1 percent; Vietnamese – 1 percent; Cambodian – 1 percent; Danish – 1 percent; Dutch – 1 percent; Welsh – 1 percent; Norwegian – 1 percent; sub-Saharan African – 1 percent; British – 1 percent; Canadian – 1 percent; European – 1 percent; American-Indian – 1 percent; Greek – 1 percent.
In other words, compared to most American cities, Portland, Maine, is pretty much a lily-white community.
By the way, did I mention the statues are bronze, not white?
So it seems the elite art czars of Portland, Maine, care more about the appearance of diversity in their community and the way that is exhibited through public artwork than they care about real racial diversity among the population of the city.
Notice you see no movement to encourage black people to move to Portland, Maine. They evidently want black statues, not live black people.
This may be the first affirmative-action program in the history of mankind for racially diverse statues.
Look at the photo of a Sea Dogs game at Hadlock Field. It would seem, if this proposed statue is indeed intended as a depiction of a white family, that it would be pretty representative of the folks attending games there.
Unless this isn't about racial diversity at all.
I suspect it's not.
I suspect the real problem with this statue is not that it shows a white family. I suspect the real problem is that it shows a family. It shows a mommy and a daddy and two kids. Worse yet, the little girl is clutching a teddy bear and the little boy is wearing a baseball mitt. Oppressive sexual stereotyping if ever I've witnessed it.


But maybe the elitist art czars of Portland, Maine, are just not truly appreciating what is really going on in this statue representation. Maybe this isn't a traditional family at all. Maybe the woman is no woman at all, but a transgendered male who was formerly shacked up with his homosexual partner. The couple may have adopted these two children who were forcibly removed from the clutches of a white, Christian fundamentalist family who spanked them.
If those were the circumstances the artist was seeing, would that make public artwork more acceptable?



This seems to be an increasingly reported item, that someone feels that there are "too many statues of white people". What a racist comment! Would it be tolerated by the media if people said there were "too many black people in basketball" or "too many Asian people" accepted into colleges? I think not. Those statements would be reported as being what they are, racist stereotypes. But for some reason it's ok to say racially stereotyping things about white people. This is so obviously wrong that it is difficult to believe people still aren't seeing that it is a racist comment, either we are trying to be color blind as a society, or we are not, but don't sing the praises of being color blind only when it applies to certain "pet groups". And make no mistake, this scenario about the statues is totally about somone's racist ideological ideas. The owner of the team commissioned the statue, as the person who is paying for it, he has the right to select whatever he wants. The city has the right to place, or not place the statue on public property. There is no reason for the city to insult the giver by saying more than yes or no about accepting the statue. Furthermore, after reading about the demigraphics for the city, plus the remarks about who attends the games,I believe that the majority of the city dwellers who attend the games are probably represented by the statue . The fact that the commissioners are trying to say more than that illustrates that they have a "diversity" agenda, and that "affirmative action statuary " is probably not far behind.