The left-wing campaign to pull down Confederate monuments has gone pop, as more than 10,000 people have signed a petition to replace the Confederate monument in Olde Towne Portsmouth, Virginia, with a statue of rapper Missy Elliott.
The author of the petition, Nathan Coflin, says Elliott “encapsulates the culture and spirit of the city.”
“Hailing from humble beginnings as the only child of a power company dispatcher and a welder at Portsmouth’s lauded naval shipyard, she rose to become a platinum recording artists with over 30 million albums sold. All this without even once owning a slave,” the petition reads. “Together we can put white supremacy down, flip it and reverse it.”
Missy Elliott performs at the FYF Fest on Friday, July 22, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
First Lady Michelle Obama and Missy Elliott speak on stage during the SXSW Keynote: Michelle Obama during 2016 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival at Austin Convention Center on March 16, 2016 in Austin, Texas. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for SXSW)
“Missy is all of us. Missy is everything the Confederacy was not,” it adds. Coflin plans to deliver the petition to City of Portsmouth Mayor John L. Rowe, Vice Mayor of Portsmouth Paige Cherry, Councilman Bill Moody Jr., and other locally elected officials.
The four-time Grammy-winning singer has not commented on the petition.
The debate over historic statues and Confederate monuments intensified following the violent Charlottesville, Virginia, protests last week. During a press conference Tuesday, President Donald Trump condemned the neo-Nazis and white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville.
Left-wing activist have ramped up their demands and nationwide protests, calling on elected officials to remove historic memorials from public spaces.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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