Alaskans ponder fate of Captain Cook statue
HE was one of Yorkshire’s most famous sons and the world’s greatest explorers.
But the legacy of Captain James Cook, who grew up in Great Ayton on the edge of the North York Moors, has become more complex and a statue of the navigator is the latest around the world to be challenged following protests sparked by the murder of American George Floyd.
The mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, has asked the local indigenous people to decide the fate of the city’s statue of Cook, who with his crew was the first European to set foot in the region in 1778. A letter by mayor Ethan Berkowitz and Native Village of Eklutna president Aaron Leggett said “the statue is but one symbol among many that fail to fully and fairly recognise Anchorage’s First People”.
The letter was written in response to the Anchorage Sister Cities Commission, which suggested modifying the monument to reflect the history of Alaska’s indigenous people.
Mr Leggett said he would like to see modifications at the statue site that represent the history and voice of the Dena’ina people.
THE ONLY black member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet has said racial prejudice in the US is not as bad as it used to be, and pointed out that “rogue” people also work in professions other than the police.
Ben Carson did not go as far as to say he is happy with how Mr Trump is dealing with the crisis, but said it is “an area of ongoing discussion”.
Black Lives Matter protests have taken place around the world, sparked by the May 25 killing of black man George Floyd, when a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Asked about the Black Lives Matter movement, Mr Carson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “I would much rather see the focus on places like Chicago, you know, where we frequently have a dozen or two dozen black lives snuffed out in one weekend, and nobody seems to care.”
Asked if that was because it is “black people killing black people”, he replied: “I don’t know exactly why no-one cares. I care a lot about it. It seems to me that it doesn’t really matter, you know, who’s committing the crime. We’re losing a lot of precious lives and that’s what we need to be concerned about.”
He went on: “We also need to recognise that there are rogue policemen, there are rogue doctors, there are rogue politicians, there are even rogue reporters, and it doesn’t mean that the whole profession is rotten and needs to be changed. It means you need to put in place those kinds of safeguards to make sure that you weed out those rogue individuals.”