Why Abe Is Stuck in His Cage
The saga of five guilty (of what? don't ask) statues awaiting their rehabilitation in their "hospital."
Happy Presidents Day (with a special nod to federal employees who get a free kick-back day).
Maybe not so much in Portland.
Even though it’s been chucked down the memory hole, you might recall that Portland’s season of riots back in 2020 caused several statues in our heretofore public parks to be blowtorched, splashed with paint (red, of course), pulled over with chains and otherwise defaced for the amusement of a mob. Three happened to have been presidents.
In addition to President Abraham Lincoln (who merely signed the Emancipation Proclamation)…
.. President George Washington (saved the American Revolution but owned slaves) also hit the pavement…
…along with Teddy Roosevelt (who said not-nice things about Native Americans), a statue of generic Oregon pioneers (too white, gun-carrying), and an Oregonian publisher, Harvey Scott (who founded a newspaper that lasted long enough for the O’s current editor to label him a racist).
This being Portland, the authorities promptly carted the statues off to internment in a secret warehouse (no kidding), where Ol’ Abe stands to this day, nicely caged…
..and looking embarrassed for a city that put up with anarchy, vandalism, collapse of civil authority, sieges of public buildings, attacks on federal employees with lasers and firebombs, arson, widespread looting, Antifa thuggery, “milkshaking,” tear gas, crippling of the cops, a killing or two…have we left anything out?
Ol’ Abe and others who didn’t anticipate our refined moral principles have thus remained in solitude for three years…
..and you may be wondering: why someone didn’t just say, “Put ‘em back,” if for no other reason than proving that a mob of malcontents, petty revolutionaries, and morons can’t be allowed to scare us into inaction.
Nah. It’s Portland, stupid.
Instead, the vandalism triggered a traditional progressive knee-jerk: a big new city program loaded with incommunicado bureaucrats; the hiring of a flock of consultants feasting on a hefty grant; leading to the usual political pandering, such as this progressive word-fog from Commissioner Dan Ryan1…
“We are determined to create a thorough and inclusive process to ensure underrepresented communities are engaged in these discussions. It’s imperative to me that we handle the Portland monuments project with utmost care, and it sets an example for the nation on how we respond to conflict during these times of tension.”
Drop by the city’s Portland Monuments Project (hereinafter PMP) website, for a quick overview, which wouldn’t be complete without a flow-chart…
…which indicates that Ol’ Abe will remain crated at least until July (more on that date later) when the lame-duck City Council gets to vote. Maybe.
You’ll note that the business of making some sort of decision kicked off last fall—of course, it couldn’t be launched without a “DEI outreach matrix and conversation guide.” Followed (if you can’t read the fine print above) with the de rigueur “grant opportunities” followed by “creative programming RFP grants” last month…although you will search in vain for anything on the site that tells you…
What the grants are for…
…and who got them…
…and how much the city shelled out.
Just as secret as the location of the guilty statues.
The city claims that “The City of Portland and the Regional Arts & Culture Council have been gathering public feedback since 2020” on the fate of the guilty statues, although there’s no mention of who gathered the data or what they found back in the days of Covid.
Adding to one’s sense that no one’s been in much of a hurry to get Ol’. Abe back on his plinth is this puzzling entry for all of 2021…
Launch of listening sessions within the South Park Blocks Master Plan by Portland Parks & Recreation.
And then…nothing. Until we get to 2023…and it gets messy.
Commissioner Carmen Rubio (now running for mayor) was, at that point (for no discernable reason) charged with “overseeing” city arts efforts, whatever that means. She cooked up an agreement to hire Lewis & Clark College to figure out what to do with the statues; again, no one is talking on the record about what the college was paid—but it came at the same time the national Mellon Foundation (named for an early 20th century plutocrat who wasn’t nice to labor unions) gave the city $350,000 for the project.
Mellon was hardly a dispassionate participant: its website says…
Today, our public realm disproportionately celebrates a limited few and overlooks the multitudes who have made and shaped our society, limiting our understanding of our collective history.
Lewis & Clark College (whose namesakes were guilty of opening the west to white exploitation) assigned Jess Perlitz, associate professor and head of sculpture at the college to run the study.
Meanwhile, there was yet another player in the mix: Amara Pérez, hired to help oversee the city’s end of the project as “Inquiry and Engagement Coordinator.” No record of what she was paid, but to paraphrase an old revolutionary, “When I hear the word consultant, I reach for my wallet.”
As for her dispassionate bona fides, note that Ms. Perez is proprietor of Red Sea Road Consulting LLC…
I am a black and indigenous woman of color. I seek to support people, communities, and organizations in building and maintaining relationships through a restorative and transformative justice lens.
The College finally issued its 65-page report, here, if you want to kill time reading more than you ever imagined about statues. It was loaded with history, a bibliography, reading lists, and its own weird graphics...
…just the sort of thing you’d expect from academe.
It wouldn’t be a proper Portland production without the requisite survey; you can read it here on SurveyMonkey.com (aptly named), where the first question sorta gives the game away…
1. The City of Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights defines equity as, when one's identity does not determine or predict the distribution of resources, opportunities, and burdens for group members in society.
With that in mind, how do you think monuments in general can promote equity and inclusion?
…and…
2. The City of Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights defines equity as, when one's identity does not determine or predict the distribution of resources, opportunities, and burdens for group members in society.
With that in mind, how do you think monuments in general can prevent equity and inclusion?
…and then asks for votes on each of the five statues, offering just one choice to restore them; the other choices include restoration with explanatory information—three guesses what it’ll say.
The Lewis & Clark College report’s fearless recommendations included walking tours and scavenger hunts; an “augmented reality” program to plug into your kicky new Apple Vision Pro; “Monument & Memory Work grants,”2 from our old friends, the RACC; public talks and, that word beloved of progressives: “conversations.” Plus “new commissions,” since…
New monuments can help contextualize any of the currently removed monuments if they are returned, as well as any other monuments in the collection or sites that come into question.
The report meanders on and on, but you get the idea. Short version: don’t put the statues back on their plinths until a bunch of folks get their beaks wet.
It was duly submitted, to little media notice…and then two consultants promptly quit, in high dudgeon that, as OPB reported…
…a city commissioner entering an election year pushed to fast-track the process — going against experts’ advice and potentially costing the city tens of thousands of dollars along the way.3
Consultant Perez signed off with…
“I think that the public needs to know why a city commissioner would undermine an equity-driven process. Unfortunately, the city is where power gets held and where inequity gets reproduced.”
One hopes Ms. Perez cashed the city’s check before she departed.
The city commissioner under the gun was none other than Dan Ryan who was probably startled to be tagged as one of the anti-equity them.
But, as they say, the revolution always consumes its children.
Then a bunch of Portland politicos—including, no surprise, Stephen Kafoury, former state legislator and member of the Portland political dynasty—raised their own ruckus.
Everyone basically was screaming: we need more community input! We want more consulting! We want more delay! We want-want-want!
Not to be outdone in the Muddy the Waters competition, yet another progressive front, Converge 45, launched its very own anti-statue jihad to…
…consider the conditions and impacts of public monuments in Portland, including those that have been removed and those that should be built…
…although their broadside looked an awful lot like a pitch for an upcoming exhibition for…
Ideas …for new monuments and memorials. It can also be for interventions, renovations, interpretations or other projects. These ideas and propositions will be gathered and shared in an online gallery and with civic leaders.
Why is the background sound we hear behind all of these clarion calls the ca-ching of a cash register?
Meanwhile, Commissioner Rubio must say a little prayer that she got relieved of all this nonsense before declaring for mayor; now it’s in Commissioner Ryan’s bailiwick, poor guy.
Ryan (who just happens to be running for election to the new city council) spoke at a recent District 4 “arts talk,” (it’s on YouTube; he comes in at 21:55, after the scarf dances, where he remarks about the Portland penchant for “meeting and meeting and meeting”).
He mentioned, delicately, that “Abe, George, Teddy—you know who they are—they’re basically in the waiting room of the monument hospital to be repaired…” and mumbled that there’ll be a decision about their fate in February. Whereupon he bunted to a breakout session where opinions would be “wanted.”
We’ve been through a couple of breakout sessions, expertly controlled by the city’s thuggish “facilitators,” so we hold no great hopes.
As for “Meeting and meeting and meeting,” maybe that’s the most honest thing anyone in the progressive ruling class has said within memory.
And February is now half-over.
Basically, it’s a standoff—which is exactly what the people who think that a mob should have the last say on the statues want.
Meanwhile, Ol’ Abe and his compatriots who didn’t foresee the future when Portland tore itself apart molder in the secret “hospital.” Where, no doubt, they are being re-imagined.
Reborn? Not a chance.
Happy president’s day.
Ryan bobbled the homeless portfolio, so Mayor Wheeler put him in charge of the city’s “arts.”
Administered by the RACC (Regional Arts and Culture Council), which we wrote about here and here and here—and which doesn’t really think that its grants should be open to public scrutiny. The city recently moved to end its cozy contract with RACC and its executive director got bounced for a dodgy appropriation.
True to its tradition of not backing up its editorial comments, OPB never explained how much would be lost.
Outstanding article which tells us so much we wouldn't otherwise know about this sorry subject from our self-suppressed local media. I remember the night GW's statue went down at the old Masonic temple site on NE Sandy. In fact, I watched the start of it on one of the live feeds available online in the hot Summer of Love. KOIN-TV had a cameraman filming the screaming crowd surrounding the statue when suddenly green lasers appeared from the west on Sandy. Green lasers were a dead giveaway back then that worse things were about to follow (see also TR's demise on Columbus Day and the attack on the Oregon Historical Society). The lasers caused both the cameraman and the police to retreat lest they endanger their eyesight. Antifa then had their way with the Father of Our Country. Now, as if somehow to legitimize the crimes, the City of Portland is placing every roadblock imaginable to prevent the restoration of the statues. The Summer of Love lives on.
Excellent article Richard. Where did you get the photos of the hidden statues? I wonder how much Portland taxpayers will spend on this while all we hear is that there is not enough money to repair our streets, take care of our parks and answer 911 calls?