Posted on 03/13/2006 2:34:07 PM PST by Conservative Coulter Fan
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?
I suspect it would.
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."
These sound like the same people who voted down the statue of the medal of honor winner at the University of Washington.
Just when you thought you'd heard it all.
I just hope,I really do, that there are plenty of people out there as fed up with this s*** as I am...for crying out loud, I'm ready for North Carolina to leave the union, again!
How did that work out the first time?
I've got a better idea. How about we figure out how to make the liberals move to Canadia ?
lody! I hope the statues are not right-handed ,too !
Hay, after 9/11, when they complained and hindered...excused and justified...I started suggesting they make a swim for France...or we'd trade them like baseball players to Cuba. and let Castro have Michael Moore, the Hollyweird crodw, etc.,...or relocate them to Canada as many of them said they would do but failed to do..
In Virginia...there were statues of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Richmond...to statisfy their P.C. lusts...they included a statue of Arthur Ashe...I believe...he was some black tennis star that died of AIDS.
"I'm ready for North Carolina to leave the union, again!"
"How did that work out the first time?"
Well, it ain't over yet!
My family is a relative newcomer to the US but, all other things being equal, I would be proud to join the South.
There's something about tradition, family, honor and clear values that makes me want to avoid the large city cesspits that represent the "North".
I was expecting them to force the artist to replace the mom statue with another dad statue...
It went----poorly. I believe Ft. Sumter is at Charleston and it was South Carolina that left the Union first.
Some big mistakes were made, but the end result was inevitable, No country can survive when real sanctions are applied. Sanctions such as Barricading the ports and Borders. When one part of a divided country has 95% of the Navy and 75% of the industry and twice the population,the other half hasnt got much of a chance. The boys from down south put on a good show though. In order to beat them the North had to throw away the Constitution. Lincoln broke most every Article of the Constitution.
One of the 20th Century's great conservative minds, Russell Kirk, articulated the situation well, especially about the regressive nature of large cities...although I wouldn't join him entirely for he seemed to oppose industrialization completely. Read...The Conservative Mind...or his 78' book on the collapse of higher education.
I think during the first year...or perhaps even some of the latter years...it has been pointed out that had the South successfully crossed into the North...cut the major railways...and threatened key segments of their industry...they could have forced the North to seek a truce, but Davis was opposed to invading the North....and Robert E. Lee was opposed to going into northern cities and crippling their industry.
On a purely hypothetical note, could you imagine the caterwauling that would go on in the "North" today if they had to fight the Civil War, especially if it divided along Red/Blue state lines? I would imagine that most of the "Red" Western states would join a secession movement from the "enlightened Blue" "North". It would be rather funny to watch the anti-war Norther elite-types struggling between the desire to preserve the "Union" and their pacifist "principles".
It tickles me just thinking about it...
You don't have to leave the Union.. They left it looooong ago.
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