The Racist Object Menace

A little under a decade ago, the New York Times became highly concerned about the Racist Object Menace, running articles like “Confronting Racist Objects” and “Confronting My Racist Object.”

Some objects, you see, have bad juju and should be destroyed by good people.

But other objects have good juju, which is why bad people want to hurt them. From the New York Times last winter:

Statue of Jackie Robinson Stolen From Kansas Park

A bronze life-size statue of the baseball player who broke racial barriers in 1947 was cut at its ankles, leaving behind just its shoes and the statue’s base.

… Robinson became a symbol of hope for racial equality in the country… The Wichita police chief, Joe Sullivan, said during a news conference on Friday that he was “frustrated by the actions of those individuals who had the audacity to take the statue,” noting that the theft occurred just before February, which is Black History Month.

Now, from the New York Times news section:

Kansas Man Who Stole Jackie Robinson Statue Is Sentenced to Prison

By Hank Sanders and Amanda Holpuch

Aug. 4, 2024

A man who stole and destroyed a statue of Jackie Robinson that stood outside a youth baseball field in Wichita, Kan., was sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison on theft and other charges on Friday. …

Ricky Alderete, a homeless drug addict who has neck tattoos and a criminal record, appears to be Latino.

… There were concerns that the statue’s destruction had been a hate-motivated crime, but investigators said in February that there was no evidence to support this. “Instead, we believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal,” Lt. Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department said at the time. …

The life-size bronze statue of Robinson, who integrated Major League Baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, was valued at $75,000, according to League 42. After the theft, an online fund-raiser to support League 42 raised nearly $200,000. M.L.B. also donated $100,000 to the nonprofit. League 42 announced a plan to unveil a new statue on Monday.

Looking at headlines, it appears the typical sentence for stealing copper infrastructure is around one to two years.

What about damaging statues?

Over the last decade a whole lot of people have damaged a whole lot of statues. Their punishment, if any, seems to correlate inversely with the current sanctity of the person represented by the monument.

For example, during the Floyd Fever of 2020, a woke mob in Portsmouth, VA toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier onto the head of Chris Green, leaving him with severe brain damage:

I went to look up what kind of sentences the vandals who vegetablized Green got.

See the next post, “What Happened to the Statue Vandals?” to find out.