While city officials across the country rush to remove Confederate momuments in the wake of Charlottesville, some citizens aren’t in the mood to wait for them to be unseen. On Thursday, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway Monument in Gold Canyon, Arizona, was found tarred and dressed in feathers.
It remains unclear who is responsible for the vandalism off, but tarring and feathering is a wide-known symbol of punishment and injustice that has its roots in a barbaric 18th-century American war practice.
https://twitter.com/DStermonfox10/status/898295392726417409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D305892%26action%3Dedit
I'm sorry did they tar and feather this
— Thaddeus Curly Gammelthorp (@angelaliz_) August 17, 2017
Arizona y'all too real for me https://t.co/ZbJRPDs1sd
Some local residents, however, are upset and worried about the expense to restore the monument.
“Somebody had to put a little thought into it, but this is going to cost a lot of money to clean up,” Arizona resident John Rogers said, the New York Daily News reports.
Someone tarred and feathered the Jefferson Davis Confederate monument on US 60 east of Phoenix near Gold Valley. #Fox10phoenix pic.twitter.com/CLO2kJZg8f
— Steve Krafft (@stevekrafft7) August 17, 2017
Arizona Rep. Reginald Bolding (D-Phoenix) has previously worked toward removing Confederate monuments on state property, criticizing them as honoring a legacy of slavery and racism in the South. However, he condemned the vandalism, calling it “short-term action” that prevents a public discussion on the statues’ role in the state’s future.
“Vandalizing these monuments is not productive. This will not lead to the civil discourse and debate that we have been calling for,” Bolding said, according to the Daily News.
This isn’t the first time that a Confederate monument has been defaced in the wake of white supremacy protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Earlier in the week, the Confederate Troops Memorial in the Arizona Capitol was spray-painted white. In Durham, North Carolina, protesters toppled a statue dedicated to Confederate soldiers. And one woman turned a Confederate monument into a gigantic participation trophy in Phoenix, pointing out how Confederate monuments honor the fact that the Confederacy lost the Civil War.
H/T Death and Taxes