A statue of the former US President Theodore Roosevelt in front of the New York Natural History Museum is removed because of racist symbolism.
The monument, which shows Roosevelt on horseback next to an indigenous man and a black man on foot, has long been “controversial”, explained the museum. “Many of us perceive the representation of the natives and the African as well as their arrangement in the monument as racist.”
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After the death of the African-American George Floyd in a brutal police operation, public attention also turned to statues and monuments as “powerful and hurtful symbols of systemic racism,” the museum said. The monument should therefore be removed.
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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed with the assessment: The monument portrayed blacks and indigenous people as “subjugated and racially inferior”. Removal of this “problematic statue” was therefore “the right decision at the right time”.
Roosevelt’s great-grandson Theodore Roosevelt IV also expressed approval. “The world does not need statues, relics of another time, which neither reflect the values of the person they are supposed to honor, nor the values of equality and justice.”
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Trump calls decision “ridiculous”
On the other hand, criticism came from President Donald Trump: “Ridiculous, it doesn’t,” wrote Trump in the short message service Twitter.
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt – not to be confused with the later President Franklin D. Roosevelt – was the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He was considered progressive and campaigned for the protection of nature. However, according to the New York Natural History Museum, he also had racist views of Native Americans and blacks.
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In the wake of the debate on racism in the United States after Floyd’s death, protesters overturned or smeared a number of statues with racist or colonial references. Statues of Confederate generals have come under fire because the southern states fought for the continuation of slavery in the US Civil War.
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