Two Years In, Black Lives Matter Has Prompted More Americans To Reject White Guilt
The committed Marxists who created Black Lives Matter have been incredibly successful at deeply altering life in this country.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a 70-ton boulder named Chamberlin Rock — in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
But on Oct. 9, 1925, the Wisconsin State Journal printed a story about the process of digging up the boulder — and it was referred to in the story as a "n*****head," which was a commonly used expression in the 1920s to describe any large dark rock, the paper said.
It's unclear if or for how long the boulder was called that racist name, the Journal said, adding that the term itself appeared to fade from common usage by the 1950s. In addition, the paper said university historians identified the news story as the only known instance of the offensive term being used.
But in the wake of George Floyd's death in May and the nationwide protests and rioting that followed — including the tearing down and demands for removal of statues and monuments with any connection to racism — the Wisconsin Black Student Union followed suit over the summer and called for the removal of Chamberlin Rock, the Journal said.
And just last week UW's Campus Planning Committee unanimously voted to recommend to Chancellor Rebecca Blank that the boulder be removed, the paper reported.
Plan to remove 70-ton boulder from UW-Madison's Observatory Hill moves forward https://t.co/sTdKvTf3nG— Wisconsin State Journal (@Wisconsin State Journal)1605738007.0
Blank has previously indicated she supports the rock's removal, the Journal added, although a timeline for such a project hasn't been established.
UW's Black Student Union President Nalah McWhorter said the boulder is a symbol of daily injustices students of color face on the predominantly white campus, the paper said.
"This is a huge accomplishment for us," she told the Journal on Wednesday. "We won't have that constant reminder, that symbol that we don't belong here."
Kacie Butcher, the university's public history project director, said there was a Ku Klux Klan presence throughout Madison in the 1920s and on-campus minstrel shows, the Capital Times reported.
"That racism hasn't left campus. It's just changed, and this rock … is a symbol of this ongoing harm," Butcher said, according to the Times. "We have a real opportunity here to prioritize students of color and their experiences — something we haven't really done historically — and this is an opportunity for us not to trivialize these demands, but instead truly engage in these really complex conversations."
As far as what will happen to the rock once it's lifted from its spot, the Journal said options include burying it at its original resting place, breaking it apart and disposing of it, or moving the rock to the Ice Age Trail — a thousand-mile footpath formed by glacial ice in Wisconsin.
More from the paper:
The Black Student Union is conducting a survey and hosting an open forum on Sunday to gather feedback on members' preferences, which it will then take back to the Campus Planning Committee.
The group is also working with the Department of Geoscience, which sees educational value in the rock and its rich geological history. Carried by glaciers from perhaps as far north as Canada, the boulder was excavated from the side of Observatory Hill in 1925.
Geochronology professor Brad Singer told the committee the department prefers it be relocated so instructors can continue using it as a teaching tool.
UW-Madison needs to secure approval from the Wisconsin Historical Society before removal begins because the rock is located near an effigy mound.
The first step requires UW-Madison to submit a request to disturb a catalogued burial site. All Native Tribes of Wisconsin are notified during the process, which can take 60 to 90 days and includes a 30-day comment period. A qualified archeologist is also required to be on site during removal.
Officials estimate the cost to remove the boulder ranges from $30,000 to $75,000, the Journal said.
Once the rock is gone, McWhorter told the paper that the Black Student Union will focus on generating ideas for how students of color can reclaim the space, such as installing a piece of art.
"So it becomes a way to celebrate instead of having it as an empty space reminding us of what it once was," she added to the Journal.
The school's Black Student Union over the summer also called for the removal of an Abraham Lincoln statue on campus.
McWhorter at the time said the iconic former president who abolished slavery was "very publicly anti-black" and that "just because he was anti-slavery doesn't mean he was pro-black."
Since then the school's College Republicans launched a petition in opposition to the school's student government passing legislation that calls for the removal of Lincoln statue, the College Fix said.
The legislation from the Associated Students of Madison says the Lincoln statue is a "remnant of the school's history of white supremacy," the outlet said.
“UW-Madison student gov votes to remove Lincoln statue, a 'remnant' of 'white supremacy'”“Students argue that Pre… https://t.co/sCcynh7nMP— Eduardo Neret (@Eduardo Neret)1603907514.0
But Blank, UW's chancellor, pushed back on demand to remove the Lincoln statue, the Fix said, which cited her June statement on the matter:
The university continues to support the Abraham Lincoln statue on our campus. Like those of all presidents, Lincoln's legacy is complex and contains actions which, 150 years later, appear flawed. However, when the totality of his tenure is considered, Lincoln is widely acknowledged as one of our greatest presidents, having issued the Emancipation Proclamation, persuaded Congress to adopt the 13th Amendment and preserved the Union during the Civil War.
Blank also said as the "leader of UW-Madison, I believe Abraham Lincoln's legacy should not be erased but examined, that it should be both celebrated and critiqued," the Fix noted.
Amid the flurry of moves by major food brands to change their names and logos to reflect racial sensitivity in the wake of George Floyd's death — as well as the protests and riots that followed — Mutual of Omaha was no different and chose to ditch its Native American chief logo.
And now it has unveiled its replacement.
The logo is now an image of a lion, which points to the iconic TV program "Wild Kingdom," the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Our new logo reflects our mission and values, and our commitment to helping people protect what’s important to them… https://t.co/tiRfEdNybY— Mutual of Omaha (@Mutual of Omaha)1605196828.0
The paper said the company decided an African lion would be the best animal from the wild to represent it as a symbol of strength and protection.
"We tried tons of animals," Keith Clark, senior vice president of marketing at Mutual of Omaha, told the World-Herald. "This one really rose to the top."
More from the paper:
Native American imagery had been part of Mutual of Omaha's logo for 70 years, with the distinctive profile of a chief a familiar sight atop the Fortune 500 company's headquarters.
But in the wake of the national reckoning over racial justice spawned by the killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, the company announced in July that the logo's time had passed.
Mutual Chairman and CEO James Blackledge said that while the chief logo had long been viewed by the company as a sign of strength and respect, "we are still using a symbol from another culture that isn't ours."
The company dropped the image, kept the company name in its distinctive font and launched the search for a new logo.
Mutual of Omaha tested four logos, the World-Herald said, adding that the lion logo generated the best response with only 10% of respondents not liking it and many liking it a lot.
"It was head and shoulders above the rest," Clark told the paper.
The World-Herald added that the company's old logo will live on at Omaha's Durham Museum and that Mutual of Omaha has given a number of items featuring the chief logo to the museum as well as its history.
It's unclear if the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will protest the new lion logo as exploiting the King of the Jungle.
As TheBlaze has previously reported, a number of businesses have gone the same route as Mutual of Omaha. For instance, Uncle Ben's rice recently changed its name and no longer uses the image of a black man on its boxes. The image now simply reads "Ben's Original" in blue lettering over an orange background.
Uncle Ben's rice will now be called Ben's Original, and new packaging with a new logo will hit stores next year. Pa… https://t.co/FAkfz2e626— AP Business News (@AP Business News)1600858443.0
Quaker Oats announced that the famous Aunt Jemima brand of breakfast syrup and pancake mix would be going away because it perpetuates racial stereotypes, and Eskimo Pie also planned on changing its name.
L'Oreal — the world's largest cosmetic and beauty company — said it would stop using the word "whitening" on its products; and the Houston Association of Realtors decided to axe the word "master" in descriptions of bedrooms and bathrooms on real estate listings in favor of the term "primary."
Also, the Court of Master Sommeliers, which "sets the global standard of excellence for beverage service within the hospitality industry," will stop using the term "master sommelier."
Things were tense on election night in Washington, D.C., with the usual leftist suspects decked out in Antifa garb and trying to cause as much unrest and trouble as possible.
But one scene in particular has been attracting a fair amount of attention on social media — and it apparently started with a question of some sort.
Cellphone video captured a large crowd of leftists filling a street and most of a sidewalk at Black Lives Matter Plaza when a bearded man wearing a white shirt and dark jacket tried to pass by — but a hooded individual pressed up to the man and wouldn't let him pass.
It isn't clear what — if anything — the leftist asked, but the smiling, bearded man appeared simply to want to proceed down the sidewalk with as little trouble as possible — so he seemed to nod and say something that ended with "lives matter."
With that, the leftist fired a lightning-fast punch to the man's face — and then it was on. More punches were thrown:
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @bgonthescene
The victim tried going after his attacker, but one of the leftist's comrades descended upon and briefly wrestled with the victim — yet the bearded man still managed to land a couple of punches upon his second opponent.
But soon several other leftists ganged up on the victim — including one who appeared to hit him with what appeared to be a bat, and upon impact it seemed to resonate with a metallic "plink."
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @bgonthescene
Somehow the victim got up and quickly walked away.
Here's the clip:
Fights breaking out at Black Lives Matter Plaza in DC #Washington #DC https://t.co/m5NSEWl3h8— Brendan Gutenschwager (@Brendan Gutenschwager)1604455842.0
Soon the victim was seen walking down a street with the assistance of another man who managed to keep at bay the leftist gang that apparently followed from the attack site. Brendan Gutenschwager, the journalist who captured the action, said the victim's head was bleeding.
In the following clip, the victim remarked that he was hit in the head with glass bottle as he and the man who helped him eventually arrived to the safety of a police line.
A man intervened to walk the injured man to the police line set up near the White House. Protesters continued to fo… https://t.co/HLaUAnuZyL— Brendan Gutenschwager (@Brendan Gutenschwager)1604457100.0
Amid such intense racial strife dominating the headlines, it was powerful to see a black man standing up and helping the injured white victim. This man then confronted the leftist mob by emphasizing in no uncertain terms that the victim is "a human being."
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @bgonthescene
"Y'all think this s**t is cute?" he told them. "That man has rights just like everybody else. And throwing s**t at somebody doesn't solve the problem. The election is going on."