VA Supreme Court Says Dead White Men Do Not Rule: Remove the Damn Statue!

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VA Supreme Court Says Dead White Men Do Not Rule: Remove the Damn Statue! AOC Fashion

The statue of Confederate military leader, anti-United States successionist General Robert E. Lee has loomed six stories tall over Virginia’s state government and its citizens in Richmond since 1890. After a never-ending series of court battles, the VA Supreme Court ruled definitively last Thursday that the state of Virginia may now begin to disassemble the infamous, 12-ton statue.

The court ruled that "restrictive covenants" in the 1887 and 1890 deeds that transferred the statue to the state no longer apply. In June 2021

Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens argued before the court for less than a minute last June, regarding one of two cases seeking to block removal of the Lee statue that “no court has ever recognized a personal, inheritable right to dictate the content of poor government speech about a matter of racial equality, and this court should not be the first one ever to do so.”

"Those restrictive covenants are unenforceable as contrary to public policy and for being unreasonable because their effect is to compel government speech, by forcing the Commonwealth to express, in perpetuity, a message with which it now disagrees," the justices wrote.

Gov. Ralph Northam said upon the announcement of the court’s ruling: “Today it is clear—the largest Confederate monument in the South is coming down.”

In its own legal documents before the court, the current state of Virginia wrote:

“Symbols matter, and the Virginia of today can no longer honor a racist system that enslaved millions of people. Installing a grandiose monument to the Lost Cause was wrong in 1890, and demanding that it stay up forever is wrong now.”

Related: Virginia Museum Will Lead Efforts to Reimagine Richmond Avenue Once Lined With Confederate Monuments Smithsonian Magazine

Dead Men's Property Heirs Argue Confederate Statue Rights in New VA Court Move AOC Blackness

Humanrace 'Clean' Beauty Skincare Is Pure Pharrell Williams Philosophy

Humanrace 'Clean' Beauty Skincare Is Pure Pharrell Williams Philosophy

Pharrell Williams has launched an epic skincare brand at humanrace.com. Not only does the brand name Humanrace dovetail perfectly with the singer/rapper/designer/entrepreneur’s philosophical mindset. But because the two words are typically split in typography, searching for the single word brings up Pharrell Williams’ new venture in Google’s top position. Nice — and I doubt he paid much for it.

Yes, it helps that Humanrace’s November 25 launch covers the current issue of Allure magazine, lensed by Ben Hassett. All the relevant details of Humanrace’s DNA are covered in Brennan Kilbane’s interview Pharrell Dives Into the Beauty Business.

The chief sensations officer of Humancare is perfectly at home Zooming from his Miami kitchen about the super simple, skin-loving essentials developed with his longtime dermatologist, Elena Jones.

Eyeing the New South

It was an impactful, online New York Times ad recruiting artists to Virginia that first attracted me to Virginia Beach. That July 2017 midnight sighting was followed by the August 12, 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. That memorable weekend left me wondering if a move to Virginia was realistically in my destiny.

My cousin Jo and I spent several November 2017 days in Virginia three months later, and I remained positive about the move — highly impacted by the ‘truths’ about Jefferson that were openly-discussed in our tour at Monticello.

Looking out over a desolate, wintery Civil War battlefield was sobering post-Charlottesville, and I felt more strongly than ever that creating a New South was part of my older and wiser DNA.

I can say with total honesty, though, that news of Pharrell Williams’ 2019 ‘Something in the Water’ festival sealed the deal, removing any further hesitation about moving to Virginia. All systems became GO!

The beauty entrepreneur’s Allure interview with Brennan Kilbane delves into activism in a post George Floyd world.