In one of the most absurdly cynical co-optations of racial justice politics imaginable, the CIA just unveiled a statue of Harriet Tubman at their HQ in Langley, "honoring" her as an "intelligence pioneer." https://t.co/cQmIfpKxTO pic.twitter.com/CpYrbMIwU7— 𝙂𝙐𝙈𝘽𝙔 (@gumby4christ) September 26, 2022
During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.
Its even more cynical in this instance. A fascist state like the US co-opting Tubman is even better optics than just neutering a revolutionary icon. Because of her work against the Confederacy (a great evil that our noble nation saw fit to destroy, something other nations just don't do because they aren't so moral) and all the myths and legends surrounding her, Tubman's profile is effectively tabula rasa for propaganda purposes. Any number of entities can draw on the canvass that is Harriet Tubman. From putting her face on the currency that dominates the world order, leaving in its wake nothing but death and destruction, to making statues for her at the HQ of an intelligence agency that has played a significant role in that aforementioned death and destruction. It further mythologizes the US as a nation that continues to progress morally in a grand Whiggish narrative
Its even more cynical in this instance. A fascist state like the US co-opting Tubman is even better optics than just neutering a revolutionary icon. Because of her work against the Confederacy (a great evil that our noble nation saw fit to destroy, something other nations just don't do because they aren't so moral) and all the myths and legends surrounding her, Tubman's profile is effectively tabula rasa for propaganda purposes. Any number of entities can draw on the canvass that is Harriet Tubman. From putting her face on the currency that dominates the world order, leaving in its wake nothing but death and destruction, to making statues for her at the HQ of an intelligence agency that has played a significant role in that aforementioned death and destruction. It further mythologizes the US as a nation that continues to progress morally in a grand Whiggish narrative