Posted on 09/24/2010 5:46:25 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
ITHACA, NY--A Green Street mural approved by the Public Arts Commission is causing a minor uproar after Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman was described as “Comrade” Tubman. In an interview, the artist said his goal is developing a “socialist movement in the United States.”
Earlier this month, the city’s planning director lavished praise on the 30×600-foot mural of Tubman and Frederick Douglas beneath the Aurora Street bridge. “I think it’s a great introduction to our city,” Ithaca Planning and Development Director JoAnn Cornish said. The mural, paid for through a state grant applied for by the city and the business-oriented Downtown Ithaca Alliance, “is exactly what public art should do,” Cornish added. However, that is not the impression others are left with after viewing the mural.
“The word comrade is historically inappropriate and anachronistic,” writes Tompkins County historian and author Carol Kammen in the Journal.
Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Matas told Kamen “he read it somewhere” that Tubman was known as ‘comrade.’ Just how did this mural – the first officially-sanctioned in Ithaca – gain the city’s approval? Seems Matas got the nod after showing the Public Arts Commission a cartoon.
He's a little late. It arrived and pissed all over the rug.
Tubman is an authentic American hero. How shabby to use her courageous exploits in freeing people to promote the enslavement of others.
I would tend to agree. She was one tough cookie.
Maybe in some Communist literature somewhere, but I don't think that term was in use at the time among slaves, or Abolitionists, for that matter.
She was better known as "Moses", because she led her people to freedom, but I'm sure the leftist literature wouldn't touch that religious analogy with a 10 foot pole!
Go down Moses
Way down in Egypt land
Tell ole Pharaoh
To let my people go
When Israel was in Egypt land
Let my people go
Oppressed so hard the could not stand
Let my people go
“Thus spoke the Lord”, bold Moses said
“If not, I’ll smite your first born dead
Let my people go
I don’t know how you stand it. My jaw drops in disbelief with every post by you.
For those of us who live here ... we just shake our head, chuckle a little, and repeat ..."Only in Ithaca"
more stone cold insanity from the Peoples Democratic Republic of Unfortunately, Obama, Pelosi and Reid are doing their level best to nationalize the insanity.
We had a presentation at our kids' school once, with a young woman playing the role of Harriet Tubman, and at the end of it, the others in the performance group sang this song. They were surprised to see me singing along, I guess the song isn't that well known.
Harriet Tubman (Come on Up)
One night I dreamed I was in slavery,
'Bout eighteen fifty was the time,
Sorrow was the only sign,
Nothing around to ease my mind.
Out of the night appeared a lady,
Leading a distant pilgrim band.
First mate, she yelled pointing her hand,
Make room on board for this young man.
Refrain:
Singing, come on up, mm mm mm, I got a lifeline
Come on up to this train of mine
Come on up, mm mm mm, I got a lifeline
Come on up to this train of mine.
She said her name was Harriet Tubman
And she drove for the underground railroad.
Hundreds of miles we travelled onward,
Gathering slaves from town to town,
Seeking every lost and found,
Setting those free who once were bound.
Somehow my heart was growing weaker,
I fell by the wayside's sinking sand.
Firmly did this lady stand,
Lifted me up and took my hand.
Refrain: Singing...
Who are those children dressed in red?
They must be the ones that Moses led.
Refrain: Singing...
I wonder what the arts committee would do with a tasteful rendering of, say, “St. Sarah”?
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