On the 4th of July I attended a protest in Sacramento that (to my surprise but certainly not my displeasure) resulted in the toppling of the Junipero Serra statue on the Capitol Grounds. I have always been a proponent of direct action, and It was a pleasure to see such well-organized and passionate direct action at work.

One of the striking things about this moment is how much figures that have long been (undeservingly) venerated as moral or spiritual leaders are finally receiving the critical attention that is long overdue. Junipero Serra (the leading pioneer of the California Mission system which, contradictory to the whitewashed history taught in California schools, systematically abused native peoples--abuse Serra presided over), Mohandas Ghandi (largely responsible for the split between India and Pakistan, deeply racist and classist, and whose legacy has been whitewashed and used in recent years to further propagandistic narratives by the totalitarian Indian government) are finally getting their due.