The Kalaupapa National Historical Park in Hawaii honors the life of Father Damien, a Christian missionary who arrived in the islands when Hansen's disease – leprosy – was rampant.
The NPS explains that when Joseph De Veuster, his real name, arrived, leprosy victims were rounded up and shipped to Molokai to die. Damien learned of the need for a priests for Molokai's 700 residents and volunteered. Through the influence of his teaching and his life, it became a place to live "rather than a place to die."
"Assisted by patients, he built houses, constructed a water system, and planted trees. He also organized schools, bands, and choirs. He provided medical care for the living and buried the dead. He expanded St. Philomena Catholic Church," the NPS said.
He died there, at age 49, of Hansen's disease.
It is this life that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has blasted as an artifact of "patriarchy and white supremacist culture."
The Washington Examiner reports her attack on the missionary came because of the statue of him in the Capitol building, one of two representing the state of Hawaii.
"Even when we select figures to tell the stories of colonized places, it is the colonizers and the settlers whose stories are told — and virtually no one else. Check out Hawaii's statue," she wrote on Instagram.
The Examiner said: "Ocasio-Cortez said that she would prefer a statue memorializing Lili'uokalani, the indigenous queen who ruled Hawaii until being overthrown in an 1893 coup backed by the Dole fruit company. Ocasio-Cortez said she was using the statue of Damien, who is considered a 'martyr of charity,' to point out 'the patterns that have emerged' in which people are honored in the Capitol: 'virtually all men, all white, and mostly both.'"
She charged, "It's not radical or crazy to understand the influence white supremacist culture has historically had in our overall culture and how [it] impacts the present day."
Hawaii's other statue in the Capitol is of King Kamehameha I, who unified the islands in the 1810s.
Ocasio-Cortez is perhaps the best-known member of the highly influential "squad" of four freshmen Congress members who have helped shift the Democratic platform to the left.
She has accused Christians of "weaponizing" the Bible to support "bigotry."
In a House committee hearing she stated: "It's very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using Scripture and weaponizing and using Scripture to justify bigotry," she said. "White supremacists have done it. Those who justify slavery have done it. Those who fought against integration did it."
See her remarks:
"I am tired of communities of faith being weaponized and being mischaracterized because the only time religious freedom is invoked is in the name of bigotry and discrimination," she said.
She also has declared "the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don't address climate change" and has insisted the government spend trillions of dollars on her radical "Green New Deal."
She demanded subpoenas for certain members of the Trump administration with security clearances because she feared they will be "putting nuclear codes in Instagram DMs."
Ocasio-Cortez' career in Congress has been littered with issues, including including a tax warrant issued in 2017 against a children's books publisher she launched.
She also has compared her election victory to a moon landing, vowed to "run train" in Congress, was fined for campaign-finance violations, was accused by Whoopi Goldberg of "pooping on people," accused President Trump of being "racist" and announced she needed a break to take care of herself.
And she said she wanted more money than her $174,000 salary provides.
She also was schooled by an FBI agent on domestic terrorism and accused by Twitter social-media aggregator Twitchy of knowing so much "that's not right."
Once, during a hearing, she demanded that Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan explain why his company was involved in caging children.
He patiently explained the company wasn't engaged in any such activity.
She's also wondered whether it's OK "to still have children" in light of the world "ending in 12 years."
And she convinced Amazon to cancel its plan for a second headquarters, in New York City, that would create 25,000 jobs.
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