Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The good news: the Mississippi legislature voted to remove the Confederate flag from its state flag, a symbol that has long and rightfully angered people because it symbolizes the defense of slavery. Mississippi was the last state to have the Stars and Bars on its flag.
The bad news: From the Washington Post (click on screenshot):
It’s not a done deal yet, but I’m betting, it being Mississippi and all, that the state seal, complete with an affirmation of our trust in a Nonexistent Man, will be slapped on the flag. Naturally, the idea was from Republicans supposedly seeking “unity”, though of course they’re “erasing” atheists:
JACKSON, Miss. — Two of Mississippi’s top elected Republicans proposed Wednesday that the Confederate battle emblem be replaced on the state flag with the words “In God We Trust,” seeking a path toward unity in their state amid the backdrop of national protests over racial injustice.
“It is my personal belief that it is time for us to change our state flag to reflect the love, compassion and conviction of our people,” Attorney General Lynn Fitch said. “The addition of ‘In God We Trust’ from our state seal is the perfect way to demonstrate to all who we are.”
Mississippi has the only state flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem — a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. White supremacists in the Legislature chose the design in 1894 as backlash for the political power African Americans gained during Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Mississippi voters chose to keep the flag in a 2001 statewide election, but the design has remained contentious. Elsewhere in the country, debate has sharpened as Confederate monuments and statues recalling past slavery have been toppled by protesters or deliberately removed by authorities amid a groundswell against racial inequities.
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said a new flag would help future generations.
“In my mind, our flag should bear the Seal of the Great State of Mississippi and state ‘In God We Trust,’” Hosemann said. “ I am open to bringing all citizens together to determine a banner for our future.”
Here is the Great Seal of the State of Mississippi. While it would seem to violate the First Amendments, the courts have ruled that “In God We Trust” is a nonreligious phrase (!). After all, it’s on our currency!
In truth, given a choice between the two flags, I’d much prefer the newer version, for slavery is more odious than religion. Some religions are pretty innocuous, while all forms of slavery are immoral and reprehensible. Still, isn’t there a flag that really will unite the people? After all, “inclusion” must deal with the increasing number of nonbelievers in America.
How about a nice emblem of the state bird? Oh, scratch that: Mississippi’s state bird is the mockingbird.
Here we have Karen Attiah, a major editor with the Washington Post, spewing out stuff on Twitter that’s even more vile and bigoted than the stuff Trump emits regularly. It’s racist, full of hate, and exactly the kind of stuff that got New York Times tech writer Quinn Norton fired. (Sarah Jeong, her replacement, wrote the same kind of bigoted nonsense, but was defended by the NYT because she was Asian-American and supposedly just returning Twitter hatred “in kind”. But the different fates of Norton versus Jeong show a fundamental hypocrisy at the paper. [Jeong appears to have been quietly jettisoned since then.])
Here’s Attiah’s bio at the Post (click on screenshot), and because the lettering is tiny, I’ve reproduced it below the screenshot.
Global Opinions editor, writing on international affairs and social issuesEducation: Northwestern University, BA in communication studies, minor in African Studies; Columbia University, master’s in international affairsKaren Attiah is the Global Opinions editor at The Washington Post, where she
commissions and edits commentary on global issues from a variety of international writers. She joined The Post in 2014 as a digital producer in the Opinions section. Attiah often writes on issues relating to race, gender and international politics, with a special interest in Africa. Previously, she reported as a freelancer for the Associated Press while based in the Caribbean. Attiah was a Fulbright scholar to Ghana and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. She received her bachelor’s degree in communication studies from Northwestern University.Honors & Awards:
Fulbright fellow, 2008
Foreign languages spoken: Spanish
So what did Attiah say? Here’s some of it, and at least one of these—the first one—was taken down. (Screenshot from twitchy):
That tweet, from yesterday, has been deleted, but screenshots were saved. (Note the superfluous apostrophe in “Karen’s”.) It’s palpably unfair to blame contemporary “Karens” for all of this, much less to raise the threat of “revenge.” Note that Attiah’s first name is “Karen”!
And apparently Attiah didn’t regret that odious tweet:
I’m not sure what “squidward running away” means, unless its fleeing rapidly out of fear, but without regrets.
Want more? Here Attiah uses her term for Democratic women: the “Axis of Shevil”:
Dowd, of course, writes for the New York Times. Both she and Pelosi are apparently guilty of racism.
But wait! There’s more:
If that’s a joke, it’s not funny. And I doubt it’s a joke.
The there’s this, which tars all white people with taking pleasure in lynchings. Of course those horrible spectacles were treated as entertainment by many in the South, but I seriously doubt that many of us “enjoy dominating and destroying black bodies.”
Perhaps now, what we finally see is a collective white shame and guilt about these cruelties.
So white people, you guys need to figure this out how to erase the emotional rewards of sadistic pleasure white people have long enjoyed in dominating and destroying black bodies.
As a free-speech hard-liner, I’m not calling for Attiah to be fired, and of course she won’t be, though she would were she white and said this kind of stuff about blacks, Hispanics, or Jews. But we should expect a consistent standard in the media, so that hate and bigotry against one group is treated just like hate and bigotry against any other group. Nobody gets a Bigot Pass because of their race. Still, we know that that isn’t the case, because it’s always open season on some groups. You don’t even need a duck stamp.
I’m starting to regret having recently subscribed to the Post.
I guess statue destruction is the topic du jour, but do read about this one, as it raises some conflicts for protestors.
About ten days ago, I reported about a statue of Abraham Lincoln that might be pulled down or replaced. The original is The Emancipation Memorial (sculptor: Thomas Ball, erected in 1876) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C., and there’s a replica in Boston that was the subject of controversy. Here it is:
In my post, I quoted a Boston site about the statue being endangered.
The statue in the city’s Park Square is a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington and depicts Lincoln with one hand raised above a kneeling man with broken shackles on his wrists.
The statue is meant to show Lincoln freeing the man from slavery, but a petition against the statue says it “instead represents us still beneath someone else.”
The petition was started by Tory Bullock, a Boston man who says the statue has long led him to ask, “If he’s free why is he still on his knees?” His call to remove the memorial had attracted nearly 6,000 signatures as of Saturday.
The Boston Globe reports that Mayor Marty Walsh is in favor of removing the statue and is interested in replacing it with something that recognizes equality. Walsh’s office said the administration is looking into the process required to make the change.
Indeed, at first glance I found the statue, well, “cringeworthy”, but I added a caveat in my own take, a caveat that turned out to be crucial (my emphasis below):
I have to say that, in a modern context, it’s a tad cringeworthy. However, the question “If he’s free why is he still on his knees?” might not be relevant if Lincoln is seen in the process of raising up those who were downtrodden. A statue made today wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—show a crouching black man, but are we to tear this down because it was made in 1876, not long after Lincoln died? If you think it should stay up but be contextualized, how would you contextualize it? At least we don’t have to tear down statues of Lincoln by himself, like the great marble sculpture in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
But you know, I was too lazy to actually look up the statue, but was finally prompted to do so by this tweet from Sarah Haider, which has an African-American lady explaining the statue’s symbolism. Listen to what the woman on the video has to say:.
Paid for by freed slaves, it’s poignant message is being misunderstood and ignored by self-righteous young activists, who see it as yet another hateful symbol to be destroyed. pic.twitter.com/4IUwvpbglF
Designed and sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1876, the monument depicts Abraham Lincoln holding a copy of his Emancipation Proclamation freeing a male African American slave modeled on Archer Alexander. The ex-slave is depicted on one knee, with one fist clenched, shirtless and broken shackles at the president’s feet.
The Emancipation Memorial statue was funded by the wages of freed slaves.
This gives the statue an entirely different meaning, and had I, or the purity sniffer Tory Bullock, looked it up, you’d find it not only inoffensive, but inspiring. And seriously, the original was erected by former slaves? No matter that the replica is in Boston: both statues convey the same message. Who would be so churlish to haul this statue down in light of its history?
Nevertheless, Tory Bullock, who seems to be black (if the picture below is him), persists. His question, “why is he still on his knees?”, is answered with “he won’t be for long”, though of course we still have the residuum of slavery. But the history of this statue, and what it’s supposed to show, convinces me that it should stay. If some get offended, well, too bad.
Bullock’s iPetititon (click on screenshot below), originally aimed to garner 1,000 signatures, now has over 12,500, and he reports this:
The Arts Commission in Boston has decided to hold a public hearing to shape and eventually VOTE on what happens to this statue. THANK YOU for signing the petition to get their attention but now it’s time to make YOUR VOICE HEARD! They’ll be taking live and written testimonials about the piece. I’m going to need the full squad on this one. This memorial has been up for more than 100 years and now is the time we all stand up…this is our chance to finally respectfully put this image away while NEVER forgetting its history.
Given the way things are going, only a few offended people are needed to sufficiently shame others, afraid to be called racists, to vote for tearing down a statue. As Greg reported this morning, two statues in Madison, Wisconsin have been pulled down even though they have no negative connotations and one of them was of an anti-slavery activist killed while fighting with the Union Army against Confederates.
This makes no sense. What we have here is hair-trigger Offense Detectors, which are so sensitive that they detect things that aren’t offensive. At some time we have to start pushing back against the mishigas, and that time is now.
According to CNN and the New York Times, John Roberts has once again joined the Supreme Court’s four liberals to produce a fantastic 5-4 decision, this time overturning a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana that would have effectively blocked nearly all abortions in the state, limiting the number of doctors in Louisiana who could provide abortions to ONE.
According to the NYT, here are the details of the law:
The case was the court’s first on abortion since President Trump’s appointments of two justices shifted the court to the right.
The Louisiana law, which was enacted in 2014, requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
The law’s supporters said the law protects the health and safety of women seeking abortions, and that the requirements for obtaining admitting privileges helps ensure the competence of doctors. Opponents disputed that, saying that hospitalizations after abortions are rare, that women would receive medical care at hospitals whether their doctors had admitting privileges or not and that abortion providers are often unable to obtain admitting privileges for reasons unrelated to their competence.
Only two of the five doctors who provide abortions in Louisiana have obtained admitting privileges, one in New Orleans and one in Shreveport. But the Shreveport doctor testified that he could not handle the clinic’s work alone. If the law went into effect, a trial judge concluded, there would be a single doctor in a single clinic, in New Orleans, available to provide abortions in Louisiana.
The Court’s opinion, penned by Stephen Breyer, can be found here.
JAC: People keep thinking that I’m the author of everything on this site. While that’s usually true, we also have occasional contributions from others, most often from Greg Mayer, a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. And this comes from him.
by Greg Mayer
Readers of WEIT may recall that last Monday Jerry noted that, according to the NY Times, President Ellen Futter of the American Museum of Natural History has decided that the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that stands in front of the Museum’s entrance on Central Park West will be removed. I’ve (almost) given up on the University of Wisconsin, but some institutions are still worth fighting for. It took me a few days to compose a letter, and below is what I sent her on Friday.
Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, American Museum of natural History, 14 June 2019.
Ms. Ellen Futter, President
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024
Dear President Futter:
I am writing to you to express my dismay at your decision to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from in front of the the Rotunda entrance of the Museum.
I hope I need not have to recount for you Roosevelt’s close association with the Museum during his lifetime, and his many contributions to natural history as a naturalist, collector, conservationist, and scientist. The State of New York chose the Museum as the location for its memorial to Roosevelt in all his fields of endeavor– politician, public servant, soldier, statesman, author– not just in natural history.
As a conservationist, his historical importance is unparalleled, because, as Governor and President, he was able to act on his principles. He expressed these principles succinctly in a letter to Frank Chapman, one of the Museum’s curators, while he was Governor:
The destruction of the wild pigeon and the Carolina paraquet has meant a loss as severe as if the Catskills or Palisades were taken away. When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel just as if all the works of some great writer had perished[.]
As a scientist, Roosevelt is one the very few presidents who, as a much published student of the natural world, can be counted among the company of scientists. During a recent visit to the Museum to do research, I had the pleasure of examining in the Bird Library a copy of Roosevelt’s paper on animal coloration, published in the Museum’s Bulletin in 1911, one of the only scientific papers published by a president.
The statue itself presents Roosevelt in Western frontier garb, while at his side are a figure of an American Indian and an African. The American West and Africa were extremely important in Roosevelt’s development and career as a naturalist, and he wrote much of his experiences in both places. The figures represent not conquered peoples, but the people and places with whom, and where, Roosevelt lived and worked during his years in the West and during his year-long African expedition. The entrance outside of which the statue stands leads, appropriately, into the Akeley Hall of African Mammals– a hall which had been planned to be called the “Roosevelt African Hall”.
Your effort to cast the removal of the statue not as a repudiation of Roosevelt, but as a critique of the statue’s “composition”, is a transparent stratagem, and is even more disreputable, making the statue’s removal an aesthetic whim, rather than an ideological act. Realistic depiction of allegorical figures in a pyramidal shape may not be the fashion today, but it is the essence of a museum to conserve, display, and interpret natural and cultural artifacts from all of time and history, not to get rid of those that go out of style.
Those calling for the statue’s removal may be well-intentioned (though ill-informed– those who defaced the statue a few years ago thought the figure to Roosevelt’s left was an African-American). But good intentions and justified grievances are not enough to excuse the act of iconoclasm that you are contemplating. The English Reformation may have had some good points in its critique of the Catholic Church, but that did not justify the destruction of the monasteries and the loss of their libraries– a severe loss, just as Roosevelt himself wrote to Chapman.
To remove the statue is to condescend to the misdirected passions of the crowd, no matter how just the essence of their grievances. I urge you resolutely to reconsider your decision.
With all best wishes,
Gregory C. Mayer
Professor of Biological Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Parkside
A couple of notes on items in the letter; some of these points are not explicated in the letter, because I assume Futter would know them. First, the entrance to the Museum here leads into the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda, which is a large space containing an Allosaurus attacking a Barosaurus, as well as various memorials to Roosevelt. The floor below the Rotunda houses the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall, also with memorials to Roosevelt, including a bronze sculpture of Roosevelt sitting on a bench (alongside which many pictures have been taken). This whole section of the Museum, together with the plaza, facade, and statues, constitute The New York State Theodore Roosevelt Memorial. Second, Roosevelt’s letter to Frank M. Chapman may be found here. Third, the earlier misinformed protests alluded to are the subject of this NY Times article. And finally, if you want to know more about Roosevelt as a naturalist and his connection to the Museum, Darrin Lunde’s The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History (Crown Publishing, 2016) is a good place to start.
Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, American Museum of natural History, 14 June 2019.
I grew up on Long Island, both sides of my family are from Brooklyn, and my father worked in the City. As a budding naturalist, though my attention focused on the Bronx Zoo, the American Museum did not escape my notice as a source of wonder, amazement, and knowledge. Until I went to grad school at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the American Museum was “my” museum. I visited, and continue to visit, the American Museum to examine specimens for my research. In fact, for the last few years, I’ve been visiting the American Museum almost every year (because of the extraordinary richness of their collections for a project I’ve been working on).
Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, American Museum of natural History, 14 June 2019.
The first thing I did as I contemplated my response was to check what info I immediately had to hand about the Museum and Roosevelt. I was surprised to find I had more than a dozen books about the Museum, its collections, and its history. The earliest I purchased in 1975, during a high school field trip; the latest I bought during a research visit last year. I doubt I’ll get a reply; the only time I’ve gotten a reply to such a letter to a higher up was a letter to Harvard, and they knew I was an alum. My hope is that if enough criticism is voiced, there might be a reconsideration.
Theodore Roosevelt equestrian statue, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, American Museum of natural History, 14 June 2019.
The defenestration of statues is reaching absurdist territory, with two recent take downs in Madison. Protesters pulled down the statue “Forward” outside the State Capitol. The statue is described by the Wisconsin Historical Society like this:
“Forward” is an allegory of devotion and progress, qualities [sculptress Jean Pond] Miner felt Wisconsin embodied.
The statue has often featured, as a positive symbol, embraced by protesters, in demonstrations in protests for women’s rights, gay rights, labor, etc. The current protesters are either abysmally ignorant, or actually oppose progress.
Forward, as recently defaced. She was subsequently pulled down and thrown in the street. Amber Arnold, Wisconsin State Journal.
Even more bizarre is the destruction of the statue of Hans Christian Heg, an abolitionist and Union officer who was killed by Confederates while leading his troops at the Battle of Chickamauga. Heg was originally from Norway, and the Norwegian media have taken note of the statue’s destruction. This excerpt, from a Norwegian piece entitled “Historians Puzzled After Statue Razed” sums it up:
Norwegian officials were surprised and saddened by news that the statue of a Norwegian-American anti-slavery activist is among the latest to be toppled and dumped in a river by demonstrators in the US state of Wisconsin. Hans Christian Heg opposed slavery and fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. . . .
Colonel Hans Christian Heg became a symbol of Norwegians’ anti-slavery activism. He was shot and killed during the Civil War while leading a Union regiment against the South’s Confederates, so Norwegians can’t understand why his statue became a target of anti-racism demonstrators.
That the latter is actually the case is suggested by a remark made to NBC News by a demonstrator at an attack on a statue of Andrew Jackson, to the effect he was getting rid of “Confederates”. This is absurd. Jackson was a staunch Unionist. During the nullification crisis of the 1830s, Jackson firmly opposed nullification and secession, and, at his behest, Congress passed a bill authorizing him to take military action against South Carolina. According to Britannica,
Jackson’s actions in asking for the Force Bill were seen by nationalists as a heroic move that preserved the integrity of the Union and underscored the primacy of the federal government.
Jackson was a Southerner and slave-owner, but we don’t know what he would have done thirty years later, because he was long dead by the time of the Civil War. (You should read, by the way, Jackson’s proclamation on nullification, simply as an example of argumentation. I’m not sure if he wrote it himself, but it’s a rhetorical tour de force compared to what emanates from the current president.)
One of my greatest concerns is that these events are providing the perfect ammunition for Trump’s re-election campaign. You may think that tearing down Lincoln, Grant, and Civil War heroes is the action of a few zealots, and I hope that’s true. But four years ago I thought the follies of the academic authoritarian left were an academic sideshow, but it turned out Fox News was broadcasting these follies 24/7. The events in Madison have not gotten much coverage from other national media, but Fox is already making hay of these events; (video here; more coverage).
In seeing what is going on, I thought, “This is like the Cultural Revolution”; Andrew Sullivan had similar thoughts. If Lincoln, Grant, and Heg cannot pass muster, then no one can.
Reader David Fuqua sent a “spot the” photo which he thinks is pretty easy. Well, give it a try. Here’s what you’re looking for (and verify the ID if you can); click the photo to enlarge it. The answer is below the fold:
I rate this one easy, maybe too easy for your readers. This may be a juvenile yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea), but I’m not sure.
While evolutionist John Avise sends us a “Duck O’ the Week” every Sunday, I also get regular non-duck contributions from him (birds, of course, as he’s a keen birder). Rather than hold onto them until the duck series is done, I’ll post his latest batch. John’s notes are indented.
I’ll let you identify the species, and you should be able to get them all!
I recently (June 23, 2020) visited an urban park here in Southern California and found the surface of one of its ponds to be totally covered in a thick mat of Duckweed (Lemna minuta?). I was somewhat surprised to watch birds go about their business as if there was no green blanket atop the water. They clearly “knew” that the covering was superficial because they landed, swam, dove, and fished just as if it wasn’t there. The duckweed also afforded me a fine lime-green backdrop for several artsy bird photos. Here are my pictures of several avian species on that pond: Great Egret (Ardea alba); Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias); Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus); and Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). Nobody was visibly eating the duckweed but neither did these birds seem bothered by it at all.
