District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser announced this week that the Black Lives Matter mural that defaces what used to be called 16th Street NW leading up to the White House will be obliterated this summer. However, she did not commit to renaming the space or returning it to its previous condition. Any movement by Bowser away from official municipal endorsement of the radical and fraudulent BLM movement is welcome, but replacing one mural with another would be the wrong move. There are too many ugly and crude daubings already besmirching Washington, and one should be able to expect a dignified aesthetic, especially in the area around the White House.

Painted in the middle of the night just days after law enforcement officers were forced to use tear gas to disperse a violent crowd in front of the White House, the yellow block “BLACK LIVES MATTER” lettering on a black background, never satisfied anyone, least of all the BLM movement, which denounced Bowser’s theatrics as a “performative distraction from real policy changes.”