US President Donald Trump is opposed to the removal of the statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside New York City’s Natural History Museum. He said that on Twitter on Monday.
The move was announced Sunday in the wake of anti-racism protests in the United States and beyond following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, during a May 25 police action in Minneapolis.
The statue shows former President Roosevelt on a horse, with a Native American and an African man at his side.
Many argue that the image symbolizes racial discrimination and colonial expansion.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday that the city was in favour of the museum’s request to have the statue removed because it “depicts black and indigenous people as subject and racially inferior.”
“Ridiculous, don’t do it,” Trump said in a tweet.
