When Monuments Fall
By: The Octopus, The Owl
Tags: Criminal Justice Reform, Protests, BlackLivesMatter, End Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality

~ From the Owl ~

Disclosure: I am a sociologist by training and career, with a historic fascination and a few grad classes in anthropology. Translation: I’m a giant nerd when it comes to analyzing social behavior.

Photo by Richmond Photographer @radio_tokyo

Hence, I often take an unknowing outsider’s view in how I look at our world, trying to interpret it like an alien dropped here without speaking the language of American culture.

On these terms, the most impactful actual action during this long simmering, over-marinated unrest may have been the organic, extemporaneous toppling of major monuments to the heroes of times when everyone was decidedly unequal. There have been protests before, and in the last handful of years the dialogue on Confederate statues has escalated, with over 100 reportedly removed nationwide.

This is something different, something spontaneous, a force of social nature, though. Previous efforts were widely challenged, and those that occurred did so after bureaucratic delays and typically only in liberal bastions. Now, all over the world, all over the South, the people are lynching the monuments to white supremacy. Not all, but many, by force and without delay.

What this really means is that a critical mass of belief has been reached. Enough people view their continued prominence as offensive to what we stand for today that those former beliefs are now de facto defunct.

And, let’s be honest: It’s about damned time. Call it heritage, if you want, they are monuments to those whose wealth, power, fame, and success were possible only in a world where slavery created the possibility of profit and violence was the primary mechanism of dominion.

Not just the Confederate generals, either, going all the way back to Columbus. But, yes, especially those Confederate heroes. Leaders of treason who attempted to literally end this nation’s existence specifically in order to–and it’s preeminent in the Articles of Confederacy–maintain slavery. Yeah, the state’s rights to violently, permanently dehumanize people according to their melanin concentration. And most people so devoutly determined to keep those statues would themselves have been disenfranchised at the time by those disallowing all but wealthy, White males from voting. These are the monuments of the gods of racial hierarchy and class divisions–and they have fallen at the hands of the people.

Historically speaking, this has happened in numerous cultures. When the statues of the deities are destroyed by the proletariat, it is the ultimate sign that the belief system upon which those in power have built their hierarchies is no longer respected. It means the priests and the rulers who the people’s faith legitimizes are no longer seen as, well, legitimate. It typically follows great challenges, resource mis-allotment or droughts or military failures–or such greed and repression that nearly everyone is left without real hope of a decent, fair life.

Such has become the case. Certainly not everyone, but enough people are fed up and hopeless, despairing of a world where police can still mercilessly, publicly murder a man for nothing but the color of his skin and his lack of affluence and at least casually suspect they will get away with it.

The thing about these moments historically is that, scientifically speaking, they represent hard stops on the preceding era, belief systems, and hierarchies. From Easter Island to Mesopotamia to ancient Andean civilizations and many others, when the people behead the totems of the old gods, a new day has been born.

So seeing this leaves me hopeful that a true revolution towards equality has taken a major step forward.

~ Originally written June 12, 2020 ~

When monuments fall

at the hands of the people

old gods can only

feel sorry for themselves

amplifying their own impotency

their power built on blind faith hills

that eroded silt new hope fields

When the heroes of yesterday’s ideals get lynched

their power’s been un-supered

when the past sacrosanct’s publicly profaned

their imbalances are sunk

They say an idea can’t be killed

but when outdated monuments are toppled

they sure have been buried

trampled to dust beneath the people’s stomping feet

a hateful symbol suffocated

in perfect resonance with too many Black men

When monuments are toppled by the people

the founding fathers finally fully known

imperfect men with some great ideas

along with slaves, greed, and brutalities

their bodies now but ancient dirt it’s seen

as their best now are nearly mature

When old monuments do fall

the Coliseum’s forever repurposed

made a Forum for true democracy

our gladiators handed megaphones

the objectified and judged now heard

glory still currency now reminted

When curioed relics of antiquity

are ceremoniously devastated

regardless of their value

because of their values

the pyramids turn inverted

enslaved builders stand atop and waving

rivers run uphill

time finally moves forward

as long theorized

When old monuments are toppled

organically by the loud majority

old hierarchies burn, too,

kindled by their rotten scaffolding

anthropologists deem this moment Full Revolution

evidence nothing will ever be just the same

no longer “gonna,” something has now changed