San Francisco intends to remove more than 100 monuments and statues for representing ‘white supremacy, patriarchy and colonialism’

San Francisco is evaluating at least 100 statues and monuments with the goal of determining which ones should be removed for not being representative of the city.

The initiative, dubbed "Shaping Legacy," was discussed last week at a meeting of the Arts Commission. At the meeting, the project's director, Angela Carrier, claimed that many of the monuments in the city display values that, in her view, are linked to white supremacy and patriarchy.

The program targets monuments that show a “concentration that talks about power, privilege, white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism. ... These monuments no longer represent the values that we say the city stands for,” Carrier said in remarks reported by the The San Francisco Chronicle.

Back in 2018, a sculpture was removed from the Civic Center for alleged racism.

According to the news outlet, "The survey of San Francisco’s civic art collection — funded by a $3 million Mellon Foundation grant — will be conducted by an outside firm and should be completed by January."

The vision put forth by Angela Carrier is reinforced by the official page of the Arts Commission which highlighted that the project came about because "Many of the monuments and memorials in the collection do not reflect the diversity of San Francisco, ignore stories of communities of color, and reinforce inequities in race, gender, and culture."

In addition, the commission explained that it will "engage communities that have historically been excluded from discussions, produce an Equity Audit report, create opportunities for artist-led activations in public space and support temporary installations that reimagine future monuments and memorials in our city."