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Undeserving of prize
In response to Darryl Wellington s column Black Lives Matter deserves recognition of a Nobel Prize, I assume the writer doesn’t know the definition of peace: freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.
While I m sure at the beginning stages of this movement it was to protest unfair treatment of African Americans, this movement has morphed into one of the most violent, unlawful and immoral groups we ve seen. How can looting, bodily harm, destruction of property and demanding all police be defunded possibly represent the outcry of the violence of a race? That s a contradiction to their cause.
Photography by Don J. Usner
When Indigenous Peoples’ Day arrived, the sun cast a low, warm light on the obelisk. The Soldiers’ Monument, as it’s officially known, was already looking somewhat besieged as a crowd began to gather around it for a third day of demonstrations. The tip of the 33-foot structure a presence in the Santa Fe Plaza for 152 years had been removed months earlier by contractors in the middle of the night. There was still the vague silhouette of red spray paint marks left by protesters that couldn’t be scrubbed from one of its four sides. And one of the marble tablets at the obelisk’s base was entirely busted. It had once read: “To the heroes who have fallen in the various battles with savage Indians in the territory of New Mexico.” In the 1970s, an Indigenous man chiseled out the word “savage” in broad daylight. In its place, others had written new adjectives like “resilient.” Now, the entire inscription was illegible.