Don’t call it “cancel culture.” It’s “disqualifying” culture.
In the name of battling racism, a committee reporting to Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser recommended that the city rename, remove, or “contextualize” dozens of monuments, parks, and public schools named after historical figures, including several of its key landmarks, such as the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.
At least 153 out of 1,330 historical individuals memorialized throughout the city are “persons of concern,” according to the committee. These figures include Benjamin Franklin, who co-founded the Abolition Society and actively worked to free slaves, Francis Scott Key, who wrote the national anthem, and George Washington, who was the only founding father to free every single one of his slaves.
The only solution, according to this committee’s 24-page report, is to change the narrative surrounding these figures or remove all traces of them entirely.
“Our decision-making prism focused on key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women, and LGBTQ communities, and violation of the D.C. Human Right Act,” the committee’s report states.
Unsurprisingly, the report attracted backlash from historians and concerned citizens alike who argued that America’s history deserves the honor these memorials provide, even if it is flawed. Perhaps it was this national attention, or perhaps she realized that the Washington Monument would be next to impossible to move, but Bowser quickly asked the committee to edit its report shortly after it had been published.
“I thought it was a good idea to understand the full breadth of issues of concern, people of concern, or markers of concern in the district,” Bowser said at a news conference. “It was not our intention to do anything with the federal monuments and memorials.”
Now, the report focuses only on local schools, parks, and statues and says nothing about the city’s well-known federal sites. But the point remains: Today’s iconoclasts would have us remove any symbol of America’s past, history be damned. It is particularly interesting that the committee suggested “contextualizing” certain figures, since it is that very context that vindicates almost all of them.
But this was never about the proper context, nor was this an honest attempt to wrestle with racism in America. Even Bowser, it seems, had to admit as much.
