Churchill bust ‘not on display’ in ‘woke’ Joe Biden’s Oval Office
Joe Biden has kicked off his presidency by ditching a bust of Winston Churchill as part of an Oval Office makeover that fans claim cements the new US leader’s “woke” status.
The Jacob Epstein bust of Churchill was on display throughout the reign of Donald Trump, who reinstated the effigy of the British wartime leader after Barack Obama replaced it with one of Martin Luther King Jr.
But the Churchill bust – initially given by Tony Blair to President George W. Bush – was nowhere in sight this week when news outlets including The Washington Post were invited to take a first look at the newly redecorated Oval Office.
“Instead, Mr Biden has chosen busts of iconic civil rights leaders, founding fathers and former presidents,” ITV News reports.
The defacement of a statue of Churchill in London’s Parliament Square during a Black Lives Matter protest last summer shone a fresh spotlight on the legacy of Churchill, who critics have claimed was a “racist warmonger”.
And now the removal of his effigy from the Oval Office has fuelled debate over whether Biden is “woke” – a term used to describe the new president by UK shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy in an interview published in The Guardian yesterday.
“Joe Biden – he’s a woke guy, he appointed an amazingly strong woman of colour who is also pro-choice as his running mate, he mentioned the trans community in his victory speech, he stood up for the Black Lives Matter protesters, he spoke out about the policing of that movement, and he’s never shied away from standing up for his values,” the Labour MP said.
Boris Johnson was asked later on Sky News whether he agreed with that assessment. The surprised-looking prime minister replied: “I can’t comment on that.”
Having collected himself, Johnson added: “There’s nothing wrong with being woke, but what I can tell you is that I think it’s very, very important for everybody to… I certainly put myself in the category of people who believe that it’s important to stick up for your history, your traditions and your values, the things you believe in.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines woke as “originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice”. The term is most frequently traced to an essay by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley that was published in The New York Times in 1962.
~ https://www.theweek.co.uk/951738/winston-churchill-bust-not-on-display-joe-biden-oval-office
6 replies on “Biden ditches Churchill in snub to UK”
What’s so disappointing, though hardly surprising, is that the Biden administration obviously thinks that it should undo every last thing that the Trump administration did. There isn’t the slightest consideration going on as to whether perhaps Trump was right about anything.
Obama’s removal of the Churchill bust was an intentional slight of England presumably because of colonialism (which Barry O likely blames for the difficulties in life that his Kenyan father faced). Why does Biden, who has no personal grudge against England, feel the need to repeat the slight? Answer: because Trump undid it. This is not thoughtful…
It’s been commented on over here that our reaction has been more muted than it was during the previous games of Churchill musical chairs.
I think the right over here is pretty well resigned to this sort of posturing from the Kamala Biden/Joe Harris administration. We’ve become used to being snubbed by modern Democrats and we know it’s them, not the USA, snubbing us. I’m sure this is only the start.
It is worth noting though that Chruchill is not just a symbol of Britain, he is a symbol of Anglo-American friendship and cooperation. He not only worked closely with Roosevelt and the US during WWII, but he was himself the British son of an American mother. He’s also a world wide symbol of the fight against totalitarianism, he’s a symbol of feedom. It comes as no surprsie that he’s been removed again.
Time for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch instructions:
“And the Lord spake, saying, First shalt
thou take out the Holy Pin.
Then, shalt thou count to three, no more,
no less.
Three shalt be the number thou shalt
count, and the number of the counting
shalt be three.
Four shalt thou not count,
nor either count thou two, excepting that
thou then proceed to three.
Five is right out.
Once the number three,
being the third number, be reached, then
lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of
Antioch towards thy foe, who being
naughty in my sight, shall snuf it.”
🤣Love it – The Holy Grail – one of the greats!
Churchill puts me on mind of President Trump. He started by rallying the people to defend themselves against the tyranny of the Nazis, got the job done, then was removed after it was over.
Ain’t we been here before.
I recall the kerfuffle in 2016 being smaller than it started.