A woman in Texas told her local city council the Black Lives Matter movement and an ongoing national debate about Confederate monuments are a “distraction” from more pressing issues facing minority communities.
“It’s just a rock, it’s not good, not bad. It does not have the ability to be racist. It does not control anything,” Cathy Dodson, a black woman who has lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, for more than four decades, said of a rock placed at Memorial Auditorium in 1934 by the then-local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
The local council in Wichita Falls was soliciting public comment as it considers removing the rock, the Wichita Falls Times Record News reported.
Critics of the monument say it is performatively racist and should be taken down as the United States addresses a renewed conversation about systemic racism and equal justice under the law.
“There is no question that this glorifies a racist and treasonous cause,” said Nathan Jun, another local resident.
But Dodson disagrees, saying she was able to string together a successful business career as a black woman despite the monument’s presence in the city.
“One of my proudest moments was when I walked into that welfare office and said I don’t need food stamps anymore,” Dodson said, calling Black Lives Matter supporters and others who have called for the toppling of Confederate symbols “terrorist young folks.”
“If BLM (Black Lives Matter) wanted to help black people in the area, they could help with their needs, like paying the rent, putting food on the table,” she said of the movement, whose co-founder has described herself as a “trained Marxist.” “That would be more beneficial.”
The council elected to table a motion on removing the monument, telling activists if they wished to have the monument taken down, they can circulate a petition and get the issue place on the November ballot.
“I do not want to destroy history, but we have the opportunity for a fresh start. An opportunity to cleanse society of the hurt and pain of the last 155 years,” said council member Michael Smith. “It could truly be a new beginning.”
