This water fountain, thankfully, is a relic of the past on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, safely ensconced behind glass.
I would like to think that such a relic is so ancient as to not resonate with our times, but I am not so naive. Still, it is jarring to see it in person.
It is a pity that some words with no intrinsic pejorative meaning were co-opted for something so pernicious. The word "colored" without all of its accumulated baggage is kind of a nice word when thinks of all the hues and shades of skin that cover the family of man. That makes us, in my estimation, all colored and multi-hued in our own ways.
That said, the baggage is totally inescapable and the connotation unavoidable. Perhaps the fountain will need to remain on display for centuries to remind us of what we can be at our worst when mistreating our fellow men and reminding us what we ought to be at our best.
I hope that the sight of this artifact is arresting for everyone viewing it (or my image) as it is for me. It should make us all take pause.
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