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In North Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student Maya Little was found guilty of defacing the Confederate monument called Silent Sam that until recently stood on its perch on the UNC campus since its racist dedication ceremony in 1913. Little has never denied that she poured red paint and ink on the statue.
Little in the past has pushed the UNC administrators to add a plaque at the base of the statute to give it the proper historical context and its connection to pro-confederacy propaganda that encouraged the mistreatment of Black Americans. She only took action after her request fell on deaf ears.
“I went to Silent Sam. I poured my blood and red ink on the statue,” Little told The News & Observer last spring. “Without that context of what it was built on, which is violence toward black people, it is not a historical object. It is missing its history. It is sanitized.”
Orange County District Court Judge Samantha Cabe found Little guilty of a misdemeanor charge, but the judge did not hand down a sentence or punishment.
Little’s attorney, Scott Holmes, argued that Silent Sam is a form of “hate speech.” and that Little’s actions fell under the law of necessity.
While US citizens and cities across the United States work to remove the pro-slavery symbols of white supremacy, President Trump’s administration has been spending millions since 2017 to provide security for monuments to the enemies of the United States. For a man who says he only likes winners, Trump has gone out of his way to celebrate the losers of the Confederacy and their cause. Trump, the son of immigrants, has no family history connected to the American Civil War and is politicizing the issue as he continues to trafficking in white identity extremism as a way to retain support from what many deem to be a racist base of Confederate sympathizing voters.
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