-->

Thursday, April 06, 2017

Ok now Mitch really is changing history

I guess to be fair we should note that they're all like this, but there's something extremely Mitch about the out-sized grasping for self-aggrandizement here.
"There is no one in this city that has worked harder to take down these four Confederate monuments than this administration," Landrieu spokesman Tyronne Walker said in a statement. "We have been steadfast in our efforts and are committed to taking down the monuments as quickly as possible.
Well, no, actually the hard work was done by activists like Take 'em Down and others who agitated against the legacy of Jim Crow for decades. Mitch just happened to be the mayor when the moment for taking down the statues arrived.  He deserves credit for taking the correct side at the appropriate time.  But elected people should never be credited with having "worked harder" than the people who actually create the political capital that makes it possible for things to happen.  

This, by the way, is precisely what Take 'em Down is trying to do once again here.
"White supremacists have forced potential vendors to boycott this round of efforts to remove these monuments to white supremacy," Take Em Down NOLA said in a statement. "That the city received only one bid for an outrageous price speaks to that collusion."

The group is also calling on the mayor to hire a structural engineer to advise city workers on how to remove the monuments without having to hire a firm through a request for proposals. Only one company, Couzan Services LLC, submitted a bid for the work in response to the city's request for proposals. It wants to be paid $600,000; the city only budgeted $170,000.
When the process starts to bog down, somebody has to shove something in order to keep it from losing momentum. This is what activists do.  What people like Mitch do is shout down at folks to "stay in your lane"  and show deference to them.  But that's not how any of this works.

No comments: