The statuephobia spreads across the United States

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"Bring sage, bring drums, wear your robes with bells, and the mask." With that message, which combined tribal folklore and coronavirus precautions, the Indigenous Association of Richmond, the Virginia state capital, called its supporters and supporters in the city's Byrd Park on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. the afternoon. The photo that accompanied the message left little doubt about the objective of the protest: it was an image of the sculpture of Christopher Columbus in the park, painted red, with the words 'No more colonizers, enslavers, and colonialists'.

A few hours later, the sculpture was at the bottom of a pond . Protesters had wrapped a rope around the statue, ripped it off, and thrown it into the water. It had not been an isolated incident. 765 kilometers in a straight line from Richmond, in the city of Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, the sculpture of Columbus was beheaded at that very moment.

On Wednesday, Richmond authorities removed the statue of Columbus from the pond, and Boston authorities dismantled his. Marty Walsh, the mayor of that last city, gave a very measured explanation of the future of the headless statue. "Given the conversation we are having right now in our city of Boston and across the country, we are going to take our time to assess the historical significance of this action ." Anti-statute activists, however, were not taking time to evaluate anything other than how to tear down statues.

In the city of Minneapolis, where the current crisis began after the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin, on May 27, a group of activists called by the American Indian Movement (AIM) ) was knocking down on Wednesday the statue of Christopher Columbus located in front of the State Capitol - that is, the building in which Congress meets.

The 'statuephobia', then, is spreading throughout the United States. It is the new phase of the debate - rather, it is shouting - about race relations in that country. Now the dispute is centered on symbols. Some of them are personalities who played a central role in maintaining slavery. This is the case of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederation, that is, of the secessionists who broke the country in 1861 to maintain the "peculiar institution" -as it was called slavery then- and unleashed the Civil War of 1961 to 1965, by far the largest armed conflict the United States has had in its history. The Davis statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond - an impressive walkway filled with sculptures honoring the heroes of the cause of slavery - was demolished on Wednesday.

The White House is also joining this fight, although in the opposite direction. President Donald Trump "does not even consider" changing the name of the ten Army bases named after Confederate generals, and will resume their massive rallies on Friday of next week in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma. , in a decision loaded with symbolism. On the one hand, June 19 is what is known as 'Emancipation Day', because it was on that date that the last slaves of the United States were declared free persons.

Tulsa riots

But, on the other hand, in June 1921, Tulsa experienced the greatest racial disturbances in US History, in which hundreds of African-Americans died and more than 10,000 suffered the total destruction of their homes in a tremendous pogrom in which they were employed. planes to bomb their neighborhoods. All the killing was caused by a black shoe shine driver entering the elevator with a white woman. That Trump has chosen Tulsa precisely has, therefore, a clear meaning . It is common in the USA, where the racial subtext is very strong. The decision of the current president seems to be a copy of that of the then candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980, when, in the middle of the electoral campaign, he gave a rally on 'the rights of the states' - the expression used by the secessionists - in Neshoba County , in Mississippi, where three people who were helping black citizens register to vote in the 1964 election were killed by the racist and Protestant organization of the Ku Klux Klan.

All this reveals the considerable ideological and historical omelette that is being organized in the United States, especially since some symbols of today were very different when they were created. Although the Spanish cause us hives, in the US, for example, Columbus identifies with the Italian community. In fact, the Richmond statue that activists threw into the pylon was erected in 1927 under pressure from the Italian-American community at a historic moment when there was strong anti-immigration sentiment in the US, as it is now. For much of Richmond's population, putting the 'Italian' Columbus close to the heroes of the Confederacy was outrageous. Now the navigator is on the same level as Jefferson Davis.

Other events have been more weighty, although less visual, especially for a foreign audience. Most important in this regard has been NASCAR's decision to ban the display of Confederate flags and symbols in their careers. NASCAR is the company that organizes the most famous car races in the US, such as the one in Daytona or Indianapolis. Nine of its most famous competitions are in the south of the country, and its audience is white, rural, and conservative. Just like his riders: Of the 46 drivers competing in the main NASCAR tournament, 44 are white, one is Mexican, and one is black. And, if there is something that raises the possibility of violent incidents, it is that, because these races are attended by tens of thousands of people who are generally lovers of firearms. NASCAR has not clarified how it will implement the ban in its next two competitions , which are, as usual, in the South: Florida and Alabama.

Thus, the war of symbols has reached everything. There is the decision of the country group 'Lady Antebellum' (an expression that could be translated as "pre-war lady", in reference to the alleged gallantry and chivalry of the slave south) to change its name to "Lady A" , who has been greeted by some of her fans on social networks with the label of "traitors" and with the promise of burning their records or deleting their songs from their 'playlists' on their mobile phones.

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