All statues that are not art are bullshit.
Newspeak pedestals are to assuage egos
To pair or sever self-identity with group
A statue is never the apotheosis of a single human
MLK, Lincoln, Lee, Disney, Saint Bocephus
MLK, Lincoln, Lee, Disney, Saint Bocephus
No one needs a non-artistic statue
A public encapsulation of god to worship
This man or woman venerated for valor or status
Public honor in visual idolatry
Is insulting to the complexity
Of interconnected systematic relationships
Critical thinking
They are in a word--lazy
A non-artistic statue is a corporate brand
A crucifix
A flag
A capital letter behind a name on a ballot
To truncate intellectualism
He or she is up there
We are down here
Perfection and squalid
God and worshiper
These statutes are bullshit
Want to find a hero
Read a library. Know our history.
Recognize the layers of metal in the elevated effigy
The gold leaf on the calf
The genocide in the iron
The bloodshed in the stars and bars
The stolen indigenous people’s land
Under the foundation
To remove is not to forget,
But Germany does not put Hitler’s mustache in the public square
Baghdad noosed Hussein’s marble neck in 2003
With an American flag and tank dancing
400 years of Trans-Atlantic Slavery
Over fifty million dead
Confederacy generals and President
Black Codes, Jim Crow, Jordan Edwards
Gray uniformed grand-pappy
Fought for the interests of rich white men
To own Poor black men and women
Hoodwinked as pawn
To believe in symbols inside that gray coat
His white skin
His crucifix
Gave him wealth to belong above
Confederate monuments
Ask is this art?
What is the lesson, the redeemable of exaltation of genocide?
If it ever was to remind us of the error of slavery,
Why display the killer? The rapist?
The torturer? The naked emperor?
As that symbol
The question is not what to replace these crafted bits of stone
In an endless search for what is worthy of worship
The question is, is this art?
Art is to open the human soul
This reminds us of our pain on battlefields
Of grand-pappy dying on one
Of grandfather scourged for not picking enough cotton on another
To claim equality is a false equivalence
Codified in the laws of this American land
From who gets paid, who votes, who can get a mortgage in a red
line
Who can eat and where, who can worship and where
To who can look at a police officer holding a gun and live
To who can stand in a street and say,
“The only art present in that stone is a pain better removed
To be put into a gallery of proper context,
Because leaving them here in a position of prominence muddles the mind
To support the rapists over the raped.
The murderer over the murdered
And there is no art in that
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