Blame, shame and re-name game caps the summer of discontent

After America’s BLM summer of discontent, a committee charged with identifying toxic memorials delivered a sweeping verdict.

A boy flies his kite by the Washington Monument during the annual Blossom Kite Festival in March 2018. Picture: AFP

In the feverish atmosphere of Washington’s summer of Black Lives Matter protests, a committee charged with identifying toxic memorials delivered a sweeping verdict: Muriel Bowser, the District of Columbia mayor, was urged to “remove, relocate or contextualise” eight landmarks, including the Washington Monument and a fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus.

The bluntness was a gift to President Trump as he ramped up his crusade against “cancel culture” in the election campaign. “Christopher Columbus is in big trouble,” he told a rally in Pennsylvania. “How about this one: the Democrats came out with a plan, did you see it? The DC Democrats, they want to change the name of the Washington Monument, perhaps take it down,” he said. “They want to take down all statues, all monuments in Washington.”

The clumsy summary document produced by the “Facilities and Commemorative Expressions Task Force” was quickly recalled and reissued by Mrs Bowser to remove all references to federal monuments over which her office has no control. A spokeswoman said that proposals for the federal monuments were about “contextualising, not removing”; in other words, putting up plaques describing the misdeeds of America’s flawed heroes.

The remaining proposals are still extensive: we are still waiting for the final report to be published giving the reasons behind calls to rename 21 schools, 16 other buildings, 12 public spaces and 78 streets.

Protesters drag a statue of Christopher Columbus to a nearby pond duringthe height of BLM protests in June. Another statue of Columbus was beheaded in Boston.

It amounts to a re-drawing of the city map, should the mayor accept all the recommendations. It is unclear why the Bell high school, named after Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, is on the list. Campaigners argue that he was a eugenicist who opposed the marriage of deaf people to prevent children being born with the condition. This brought him under the task force remit, which “focused on key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of colour, women and LGBTQ communities and violation of the DC Human Right Act”.

As a parent I was relieved to see that my kids’ school was not one of those rated “red” for renaming, but not so the road it is on: Van Ness street, named after John Peter Van Ness, a 19th-century philanthropist - who owned slaves. When he died in 1846, his “human chattels” included Julius, 25, and George, 32, each valued at dollars 550; Simon and Sally, both in their 60s and valued at dollars 100 and dollars 75 respectively, and, according to his estate inventory, “Betty - quite old, no value”.

Several schools named after presidents are on the list, among them Jefferson Middle, named for the main author of the Declaration of Independence, and Woodrow Wilson High, whose name was removed from the public policy school at Princeton this year.

Barbara Lang, former chief executive of the DC chamber of commerce, was one senior figure who voiced unease. “The mayor usually has very good political instincts. I was just surprised that this came out now, quite frankly,” she told The Washington Post.

The Times