Anyone who has seen the serene, peaceful white stone monuments of Washington D.C. against blue sky or amid the cherry blossoms will not soon forget it. But … perhaps they are … too white.
A panel formed by the militantly Democratic mayor of Washington D.C. is recommending that the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial be “removed, relocated or contextualized,” Taliban-style, and that mayor has set herself up as the arbiter of what she calls “DC values,” as if these are automatically the values of the entire nation.
When the committee was formed in July, Mayor Muriel Bowser said their job was “evaluating public spaces to ensure the namesake’s legacy is consistent with DC values.”
On Aug. 31 the 34 members of the working group delivered their report, which will now be reviewed for possible implementation by the mayor.
The “DCFACES” committee listed nine federal monuments in Washington that they feel need to be looked at:
• Christopher Columbus Fountain
• Benjamin Franklin Statue
• Andrew Jackson Statue
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial
• George Mason Memorial
• Francis Griffith Newlands Memorial Fountain
• Albert Pike Statue
• Washington Monument
• George Washington Statue
The committee said it considered five factors when evaluating whether something should be renamed or taken down: Did the honoree take part in slavery; was the honoree racist; did the person support oppression; was the person involved in “supremacist” activities; and did the honoree violate the city’s human rights law.
