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Thread: About why removing the Confederate statues in Charlottesville seems to be on hold right now. Even though the new VA state law went into effect today, we can't actually start doing it, because the City has an injunction against it from trying to remove them last year. 1/
Richmond currently has a state of emergency because of a month-long police riot and white supremacists threatening people (and Black people hanging out a park, I guess?), so Mayor Stoney used the public safety threat to have them relocated pending going through the new process 2/
Cville is working on getting a judge to dissolve our injunction. But until then, we can't start the multi-step, multi-month process to remove them, because even starting the process could be considered a violation of the injunction. 3/
https://charlottesville.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=222
https://charlottesville.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=222
Even then, the City Council doesn't have a meeting until the July 20th (there's always a break at the beginning of July), and Mayor Walker has been appropriately reluctant to schedule any public meetings (even to re-do the PCRB bylaws) to give staff the break they need. 4/
City staff are probably going to have a renewed round of personal threats when this process kicks off, so a respite (or at least no additional stress) given all the COVID-related work is important. 5/
On July 20th, they'll likely vote to start the process. This starts with a public notice of a public hearing to be held in 30 days, likely in late Aug. Even if we could do it earlier, I doubt anyone wants to have it around Aug 11 and 12. 6/
After that, Council can vote on whether to "remove, relocate, contextualize, or cover" them. If Council votes to remove (which I would be shocked if it wasn't 5-0), there's a 30 day window to offer them to any "museum, historical society, government, or military battlefield" 7/
Presumably, no reputable ones will, as they didn't the first time they were offered. This could get tricky though if there are questionable offers. 8/
So late Sept / Oct for removal at the earliest. If there are no offers, Council can do whatever it wants with the statues. There will be some offers to buy it, and Council's easiest option there is to just go with the highest offer. But again, could get tricky. 9/
So, say, if that offer is a crowdfunding to go dump it in the Chesapeake Bay, great. Cut it up or melt it down for commemorative coins? I'd buy one. Put it next to a giant confederate flag on 64? Not so much, but it's money, and there might be a (another) lawsuit otherwise. 10/
But remember: it's not about the statues. Because of the brave work of a lot of people, first and foremost @ZyahnaB , our community now knows who Lee and Jackson really were, and why white supremacists in the 1920s loved them. 11/
We know the Lost Cause was a lie, and that the Confederacy existed to preserve and expand slavery. We know how that unbroken thread of lies connects slavery, the Era of Racial Terror, segregation, mass incarceration, police brutality, and disproportionate Covid motality 12/
In a couple months, we're (hopefully) opening schools again. Kids who were already struggling are likely to only have 2 days of in-person class a week, and some will spend the other 3 school days in downright dangerous situations, even without Covid. 13/
It's not going to be great even in the best case, and has the real potential to effectively re-segregate our schools and blow open the gap in test scores, which looked to be steadily closing. This scares me. 14/
Point is, the statues can (and have to) wait a few more weeks -- we have enough urgent issues to work on right now. Let's get to it. 15/
