Caltrans, the public transit agency connecting San Francisco to the South Bay, has removed the statue of St. Junipero Serra along the I-280 freeway.
The agency gave technical reasons for taking down the statue, claiming that it did not meet current Transportation Art Program requirements and was a frequent target of vandalism. Of course, the second rationale begs the question of why the vandals' actions were rewarded.
According to Caltrans, there are no plans to rebuild or replace the statue at this time. This is similar to the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in San Francisco, back in 2020. Then-Mayor London Breed ordered that it be taken down before rioters planned to topple it.
Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was blasé about the idol-smashing mania of the time, saying in response to the toppling of a different Columbus statue in Baltimore, "people will do what they do."
This is the pattern of tacit support San Francisco Bay Area leaders have given anti-American rioters since 2020. Any important historical figure who doesn't align with modern liberal values is a target to be erased and condemned.
The Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, a nonprofit representing the Ohlone tribe in the Bay Area, had previously written to Caltrans in 2020 that the Junipero Serra statue should be removed because it "violates the separation of church and state." This is absurd, of course: the Constitution prohibits the United States from establishing a state religion, not from honoring a Catholic missionary who had an outsized impact on California history. Liberal organizations have regularly attempted to expand this meaning, though, arguing that the Constitution essentially calls for the forced secularization of America.
None of this matters to the Bay Area authorities who have continually sided with statue-smashing rioters and vandals since 2020, though. In their version of history, old white men are bad, Indians are noble savages, and there isn't much thought put into it beyond that. Preserving regional and national history is less important them than performative liberalism and sucking up to the most anti-white left-wing elements of their base.
Like much of the left-wing cultural mania that peaked in 2020, this ideology has continued to wane in influence nationwide. President Donald J. Trump recently issued a proclamation commemorating Columbus Day, and condemning "left-wing arsonists" who dishonored his legacy. Hopefully in the future, fewer Bay Area leaders side with the vandals and arsonists.
