Some scholars have already performed research that supports the link between Confederate memorials and racism. In their paper, Henderson and her co-authors note that many monuments were dedicated during the Jim Crow era, often on the grounds of prominent government buildings. The researchers also cite a review of 30 dedication speeches for Confederate memorials, which found that nearly half invoked “explicit racist language,” including phrases such as “love of race” and “your own race and blood.”
In addition to scholars, “this is something that activists have also been saying for a very long time,” Henderson noted.
The UVA researchers wanted to know if there was further quantifiable evidence connecting the memorials with racism, so they merged county-level data on lynchings between 1832 and 1950 with data on Confederate memorializations. They discovered that — even controlling for population size and other variables — the number of lynchings was a “significant predictor” of the number of monuments in a given area.
Source: PNAS
Here’s an example of a monument dedication ceremony in 1913 clearly showing how they were meant to promote domestic terrorism such as lynchings.
He doesn’t want people to see or hear him for real, and he doesn’t feel responsible for directly facilitating crimes with his platform, as exposed in a CBS report (interview starting minute 20:45):
…I don’t see how I’m to blame…nobody is perfect. It is hard to police it…
He clearly states at the start he was attracted simply by an easy grab of power and he aimed to get as much as possible, while hiding himself and feeling no responsibility at all to anyone being victimized.
The hypocrisy of the platform operator, the criminal mindset, is palpable. He will only appear in a way he can’t be faked, while feeling no responsibility for profiting off others who suffer from being faked.
At the start of the CBS video, we see the usual framing as having an own set of facts. That seems very much like saying everyone can read a book, print a flyer, or build/repair their own car.
While I appreciate fear that comes from people reading anything, building anything, it seems a bit too much to say things fall apart.
Talk like that reminds me of President Jackson inspecting mail and arresting sailors in 1830s to censor abolitionist speech.
I honestly don’t know who is a celebrity or why so a lot of the videos remain just some person, begging a question why “celebrity” means “factual” at all to anyone. It’s like asking whether a Black woman speaking through a white man’s face is an actual power shift, and if so what real underlying problem comes from a drop in data trust.
CBS doesn’t get to the true issue that existing “trust” concepts (e.g. white man’s face is speaking) tend to be completely broken, which is the real story here.
Deepfakes expose a lot of falsehoods in trust, which forces us to face societal-level mistakes (systemic prejudices and discrimination). How should we tell the blind to trust their eyes, for example? Or how do we tell the deaf to trust what they hear?
Audio manipulation is even easier than video, as a recent court document reveals for a massive crime.
The source is Forbes. Or is it? Can you even trust this image hasn’t been faked? Everyone has the capability to modify it, so who is to say anything is real? But seriously. Source: Forbes.
A painting of a naked woman by Pablo Picasso that has been hidden beneath one of his “Blue Period’ masterpieces for more than a century has been recreated by UCL scientists using a combination of X-rays, AI and 3D printing.
Ph.D. researchers Anthony Bourached (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) and George Cann (UCL Space and Climate Physics) have developed a five-step technology to reproduce art works that have been painted over.
I’m not sure it was hidden. Sounds to me more like the artist wanted to paint something else using the same canvas, perhaps unhappy with the nude or even inspired by it to cover it up with another idea.
The researchers say they believe Picasso was reluctant to cover up work because cost of materials was high and it was “early in his career”.
However, their own argument works against them. Willfully covering up an image makes MORE sense if material costs are high (reuse). And the value of the image is lower because early in career, thus this “loss” was probably perceived by Picasso as only a gain… like someone overwriting an image on a small hard drive because more drive space is expensive and the image doesn’t have apparent value.
I’ve written about swastika imagery so many times before, it’s worth mentioning a few details about the Herschel Walker variety used in his Senate campaign. Here it is:
This is without question meant to look like a Nazi swastika, and it came from a Twitter profile calling itself resistance to “Hollywood” (e.g. Nazis really hated Hollywood).
A bayonet shoves Hitler’s book in front of a prisoner and says “Here, improve your mind!”. Source: “Donald in Nutziland”, Disney 1943.
Historian protip: if someone asks why you use a swastika in your public campaign invoking Nazism and hatred for “Hollywood”… then there’s a really high probability you are in fact using a swastika.
The subtext obviously is that if someone puts up a swastika in America for a political campaign, they in fact expect to get money donated as a result.
Walker, perhaps as expected, tried to cover this fact with a laughably dumb official explanation that attempted to deny it being a swastika:
A spokesperson for the campaign said the image was not a swastika… Walker, who is being backed by former President Donald Trump, has not commented on whether or not he has been vaccinated against COVID-19.
At least they didn’t follow up their “not a swastika” comment by saying “everyone calm down, we’re obviously just using an anti-Jewish graphic”.
I wonder if next they will be telling us the former White House occupant should not be called a Nazi because he prefers being called big conflict loser?
…being on the losing end… is something Herschel knows a little bit about…
Maybe the more insightful version of that, taken from his actual life story, is this part:
So I take a bullet, put it in the cylinder, spin it and tell you to pull it. People would say “Herschel, you’re nuts.” I would take that gun, put it to my head, and snap it. That is what it was. I was so fired up that I could overcome anything.
When you think about it, refusing to get vaccinated is intentionally lowering your chances of survival. Weirdly consistent to both refuse vaccination and to put a gun to your own head; unnecessarily taking dumb risks that can easily kill you…
And that is a real quote from Herschel’s view of the world. Perhaps I should point out here that Hitler was similarly fired up, put a gun to his own head, yet didn’t overcome?
So who looks forward to the next Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, holding a panel on swastikas that tries to argue they’re just a harmless old religious symbol?
Even worse, the reason for using swastikas goes beyond just being an easy way to raise money on American campaigns for public office.
A false claim the swastika represents only being “anti-vaccination” is an encoded reference to fascism tactics: stoke rage, inflame tensions using incendiary imagery (as reported in Italy, which knows a thing or two about fascism).
The protesters smashed union computers, ripped out phone lines and trashed offices after first trying to use metal bars to batter their way in through CGIL’s front door, then breaking in through a window.
In other words, the Walker senate campaign used a swastika both to raise money as well as fan hatred to perpetrate mob violence against the government, while feebly trying to deny a swastika is a swastika.
