Virginia Gets Today's Booby Prize
Sorry for the cheap shot -- but really, the jokes write themselves
Today’s article – on page six of the Virginia Gazette – could be titled “Much Ado About Nothing” or a “Tempest in a Teapot.”
The story’s lede is a classic: “There’s one state flag with a nipple.” This serves as an introduction to the recurring discussion of Virginia’s state flag – and in light of the current kerfuffle over what’s appropriate for display in public school classrooms, this issue is making yet another appearance. The discussion that is the basis for today’s article occurred in a school board meeting in Virginia Beach (about 60 miles southeast of Williamsburg), but, given the current climate, it could very well be repeated all over Virginia, so it’s worth mentioning.
The woman on the state seal shows the Roman goddess of virtue – Virtus – wielding a sword and spear and standing triumphantly over a slain tyrant. The Latin words “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” – “Thus always to tyrants” – appear below the recumbent body, next to his fallen crown. As you may or may not recall, these are the words John Wilkes Booth claims to have shouted after shooting Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Part of the reason he shouted this was the phrase’s association with the assassination of Julius Caesar. In Shakespeare’s play of the same name, this is the phrase Brutus yells when he assassinates Caesar. The Wilkes brothers (including John), were well known in Richmond for their theatrical roles and had appeared in this play.
Last month at the Virginia Beach school board meeting, the issue of the state seal was raised again, this time by a School Board member (Lisa Owens) who was asking for clarification of the district’s definition of nudity in the context of materials in elementary and middle school libraries. The school board policy under discussion was the part of the regulation that defined nudity as “any portion [of the female breast] below the top of the nipple.”
Lisa Owens was engaging in the logical fallacy of “reductio ad absurdum” which seeks to denigrate an argument by making absurd conclusions from the argument. But when a policy is absurd, this may be the only way to argue against it.
Owens’s comments are worth providing: “Are we saying any book that has the Virginia state flag in it will be removed from elementary schools? Because I can see, the top, the under, the left, the right.” She said. “You get all the nipple.” Perhaps the only time these words have been uttered in public debate in Virginia.
The last time the issue was raised publically was in 2010, when the state’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, made national headlines when he gave his staff new lapel pins featuring Virtus – altered to cover her chest by an armored vest plate. Jon Stewart (a William and Mary grad, for those of you who are interested in such things) ridiculed this on his nightly show, thus connecting the conflict with Cuccinelli forever. It’s not too much to conclude that this was part of the reason for the failure of his gubernatorial bid (against Terry McAuliffe) in 2013. Cuccinelli last received a lot of public attention as the (illegitimately appointed) Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security in the last year of the administration of TFG.
The seal was designed by the radical team of George Mason, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, and Robert Carter Nicholas in the summer of 1776, after the Virginia Convention created a committee with the sole purpose of designing a state seal. The Gazette article went into some detail about the reception of the seal by Thomas Jefferson, who didn’t like the design – but, as the article states, his objections had “nothing to do with the mammary glands . . . as the seal would not disrobe to its current form for over another century.” Virtus did not lose her modesty until 1901, when Secretary of the Commonwealth D. Q. Eggleston, concerned that the figure looked more like a man than a woman, sent it back to engravers for correction. His specific instructions were that engravers should add the breast to clarify her sex.
As the seal’s design has changed over the years, so too has its depiction on the flag. According to the Gazette article, “When Eggleston wanted a more voluptuous Virtus, the flag, like the seal, also grew boobs.”
NOTE: The article does not reveal the result of the “debate” over this topic in the Virginia Beach School Board meeting. I suspect that, following the chortles, the board did not decide to remove books containing images of the state flag. The journalist who wrote this article, however, deserves a Pulitzer.
This reminded me of one of the first times a student totally floored me in my classroom. This was in my first year of teaching, at Woodbridge High School in Prince William County, Virginia. We were talking about the First Amendment and how the free exercise of the rights it embodies is subject to changing interpretations. I mentioned the issue of sexually explicit materials in a schools and asked the students to explain why Playboy wasn’t in the library but the World History textbooks contained images like Michelangelo’s statue of David, a male figure exhibiting full frontal nudity.
One of my students (who shall remain nameless but is a reader of this newsletter so “Hi” if you recognize yourself) said something along the lines of “Well, if my ‘David’ looked like that, I would want to cover it up too.” It was a perfectly innocuous statement, but everyone knew what he meant – including me. We weren’t able to continue a serious discussion after that.
My "adopted" niece is an Asst. Attorney General and was awarded one of the lapel pins that were produced for the Atty. Genl. in 2010, in the "new and improved" design. Following the furor, the AG ditched the pins and returned to using the "old" ones with the seal image of the times, so there are only a few AAG's who have one. (I guess he was embarrassed to ask for them back.) It's one of her prized possessions!
Love this story. Also, David's!
Good grief. Michael made a related comment yesterday when we were in the Victoria and Albert Museum walking among almost countless bronze or marble sculptures of men and women completely in the buff, exhibiting all manner of buffiness. “You know, these would all be illegal in Florida.” If we insist of puritanizing everything, how will we ever appreciate art history, museums, or art in general, much less the Christian origin story. Without depiction of it all. I intend to vote the boobs out who think they are morally righteous in protecting us from partial nudity. They need to get on with real leadership and governance.