Justice

“Why Don’t You Do Something?”

Goddess/Sculpture:

The goddess Dike, is the goddess of justice, the spirit of moral order and fair judgments established by custom and Law. She severely punishes all wrong and drives the sword into the heart of the unjust. Dike is typically represented carrying a sword in the right hand, a scale in the left, wearing a laurel wreath and in America is often depicted wearing a blindfold.

Feature 2

Here Dike has been transformed to represent the fight against injustice at Stonewall, the catalyst of the LGBTQI “Gay” Rights movement. This representation of Dike casts her in a different light, a depiction of a drag queen, where she transcends custom and Law. Instead of a sword, she holds a triangle-shaped concrete stone in her right hand. In her left hand, she holds a scale with the printed words, “TRANSCEND JUSTICE”. Behind the statue are high heels, resembling the infamous Ruby Red slippers that Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz. Dike has been painted half black and half white purposefully to consider the complexities around sexuality, identity, race, and right from wrong. Light emanates from behind Dike’s blindfold; the light represents the ideal that power cannot blind justice.

Feature 3

Protest/Movement: Stonewall -  “That night, the gay men, lesbians, drag queens and drag kings who hung out there decided to fight back.” —Washington Post

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Stormé DeLarverie was a butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to Stormé and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall riots. She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. Stormé has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman, (but accounts vary), who sparked the crowd to fight after she refused to move, when a police officer yelled at her, “I said, move along, faggot”, according to DeLarverie. She was struck in the face with a billy club and she punched the officer back. She turned to the crowd with, “Why Don’t You Do Something?” In many accounts this evoked enough indignation and anger to spur the crowd to action.

Key Symbols: Ruby Red Slippers - The Ruby red slippers is a reference to Judy Garland. Judy Garland was a well-known supporter of Gay rights; her death coincides with the Stonewall riots. There is no proof that this was a direct correlation, but in any case, it is widely accepted as being factual, but may actually be a myth.

A stone - The day of scanning the models, the artist found a concrete stone in the shape of a triangle on the ground; it is used here to symbolize civil rights disobedience and is a reference to Stonewall Inn.

Colors from the Tran Flag Colors are used on the words Transcend Justice. The Transgender Pride Flag was created by American trans woman Monica Helms in 1999, and was first shown at a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona, United States in 2000. The flag represents the transgender community and consists of five horizontal stripes: two light blue, two pink, and one white in the center.