Statue-toppling and writing new narratives are acts of abolition against inherited Islamophobia.

Evidence

Tearing them down offers a new symbolism and opens the door to renewed possibilities for beheading the generational lies cast against people targeted by old racisms and new crusades. … After they fall, the door is open to the more salient revolution of penning new histories. New narratives that overwrite the stacks of Orientalist and Islamophobic texts that drive the violent crusades against Muslims all over the world today. … Toppling statues is an act of abolition, and abolishing histories inked with the lies of the victor and the blood of the victimized is that first step, that first ferocious step, toward writing new ones. … Pens are the mightiest swords. And in these new crusades, where the onslaught against Muslims is inflicted as much through the fury of words as the firing of guns, a weapon that must be lifted and wielded until the War on Terror meets the same fate as that Christopher Columbus statue, standing headless, in Boston. … Writing as writing. Writing as rioting. Writing as righting. On the best days, all three. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1165

Categorization

• SEED: The Columbus-in-Boston statue-toppling and Zinn’s ideological-choice framing could anchor an essay on historical commemoration as narrative infrastructure.