The effort to reinterpret history has gained momentum of late with the much overdue inclusion of voices long silenced by the forces of power. One noteworthy aspect of this is exemplified by the emergence of “cancel culture”.
The actions and oeuvre of figures both past and present deemed culturally significant are being examined in the context of current mores and attitudes. Many instances seen as within the contemporaneous norm are now viewed with disgust. Rather than portraying them as relics of a “simpler past”, efforts are ongoing to relegate them to the “dustbins of history”.
No better example exists than the long-standing effort to remove statues of the “heroes” of the Confederacy. Leaving aside the issue of whether the generals’ actions represented true heroism, a dialogue has focused on the propriety of honoring them in the public space.
A world-wide discussion is ongoing involving museums, publishing houses and other purveyors of popular culture evaluating their relationships with artists, sports figures & heroes. The entire ethnosphere examined in novel granular ways. “Woke-ness”.
Speaking as an affluent, Caucasian, cis-gender, heterosexual, non-vegan male residing in a nation of great wealth, is my voice even relevant in the dialogue?
A leavening of the issue arose for me while attending the annual meeting of volunteers with MSF-USA (Doctors Without Borders) held in the headquarters of the New York Academy of Medicine in NYC. Their building sits near the NE corner of Central Park on 103rd St. The immediate area represents the border between the tony upper East side and disadvantaged East Harlem.
Walking from the subway stop to the Academy building I paused to examine an imposing statue across the street. Atop a massive pedestal was a bronze representation of a major historical figure in American medicine: J. Marion Sims, long regarded as the father of modern gynecology.
Sims, a dyed in the wool Southerner, “practiced” in the mid-19th century. His development of a viable surgical repair for a long-standing scourge of prolonged, unattended labor: vesico-vaginal fistula boosted his repute. A highly regarded career in medicine culminating in an ascent to the pinnacles of the profession followed.
Sims perfected his technique in the backyard hospital of his South Carolina plantation. His initial patients were enslaved women brought to him by the owners of nearby plantations. All underwent multiple procedures without informed consent and without anesthesia.
Although anesthesia was available at the time of these surgeries, it was not widely adopted. In addition, slaves at the time were felt to not experience pain in a manner similar to whites.
Sims’ reputation suffered as details of his modus operandi gained wider attention in the current century.
On that early summer morning in 2012, I observed that the statue had been defaced with the word “racist” in red paint and was walled off from close inspection with wooden barricades and crime tape. Community activists in East Harlem had struggled for years to have the statue removed by the city. Progress was slow and frustration was running high. City officials were reportedly committed to relocation of the offending bronze work.
Time passed and the issue faded from my consciousness. I returned to NYC in the winter of 2019 and was staying in a short-term rental in East Harlem. Walking the “Museum Mile” to the Museum of the City of New York, I searched for the statue again. It had been removed but the large pedestal remained, and the shielding barricades reinforced.
In the empty space where the statue once stood, a new plaque was visible.
Later that day, I updated my understanding of the controversy with an internet search. A new home for the statue had been identified in a New Jersey cemetery near Sims’ grave. Yet the statue remained out of public view, stored in a warehouse. Local objections had prevented placement of the statue in the cemetery. At the same time East Harlem residents were outraged that the pedestal remained in situ.
Current status: the city is moving forward with plans to demolish the pedestal and community activists are lobbying to commission and erect a memorial to women of color at the site.
The struggle to redirect our understanding of history presented in the public space continues.
Meanwhile the first statue honoring an American physician erected in the US remains in a warehouse, unviewed.
