This week, the “Black Lives Matter” street mural that stretched two city blocks near the White House in Washington, D.C., is being taken down. This comes as Republican Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde introduced a bill into the House demanding the removal of the phrase “Black Lives Matter” from the plaza, or else the District of Columbia will be denied “certain apportionment funds.” This doesn’t totally come as a shock. A large swath of goodwill towards marginalized communities, as of late, has been rescinded with the threat of losing federal dollars.
Now, for a specific segment of the U.S., the mural was considered inspirational and galvanizing. But for others, the mural, which echoed a movement to end the racial inequality Black people experienced, was simply a performative measure—just one of the many wobbly building blocks of allyship that came from a post-George Floyd era. When the plaza was commissioned in June of 2020 by Mayor Muriel Bowser, Black Lives Matter D.C. wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “This is a performative distraction from real policy changes. Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.” In fact, when it was announced last week that the street mural was being destroyed, one of the founding members of Black Lives Matters D.C., Nee Nee Taylor, maintained the stance on X, writing, “@MayorBowser you never cared about Black Lives Mattering. You painting those words were performative, you were in a pissing match with Trump.”
Tyrone Turner/WAMU
Perhaps the construction of the street mural was a stunt at best, and a hollow victory at worst. But, so is the mural’s demise. Bowser told NPR's Morning Edition that the plaza is "going to evolve," but she did not clarify what it will actually look like in the future. She did say on social media that the plaza’s evolution will be part of a citywide project to commemorate the country's 250th birthday.
Another stipulation of Rep. Clyde’s bill requires that the plaza’s name be changed to "Liberty Plaza" and that the BLM phrase be removed “from each website, document, and other material under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia.” It’s now become just a nebulous theater of politics where no one is happy, and more money is being spent.
But, then again, what does active politics actually look like? So far under the current administration, for the Democratic party, it looks like standing in front of a blocked door at the Department of Education and filming it, holding up paddles during President Trump’s address to Congress, and singing “We Shall Overcome” after the House voted to censure Democratic Texas Rep. Al Green for protesting during President Trump’s address. None of it has improved American lives. But, you know, at least they got to post about it.
Probably the most infamous display of performative politics was the 2020 image of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others in Congress taking a knee while wearing kente cloth around their necks. It was done to help Rep. Karen Bass introduce the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which passed in the House along a party-line vote of 220 to 212. The bill tried to address police reform but not Black Lives Matter's fundamental request — defunding the police. Ultimately, the Democratically-controlled Senate’s negotiations with Republicans failed, and the legislation died, but the picture has become a meme for insincere allyship.
So, the destruction of the Black Lives Matter street mural may sting because, at least, it was something. But advocates wanted something more substantial—something that couldn’t just be taken away by a bulldozer.
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ON THE POD
Author Betty Shamieh next to the cover of her new novel, Too Soon. (Photo by Lisa Keating)
This week, we dig into the Palestinian-American 'Sex and the City'. In her debut novel, Too Soon, Betty Shamieh shares the story of three generations of Palestinian women trying to find love, purpose and liberation.
In a previous newsletter, I wrote about the now Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, and how it still has no U.S. distribution. I was even on It’s Been a Minute recently to discuss the idea of soft censorship behind the treatment of the film. Well, this week, the mayor of Miami Beach has introduced legislation to terminate the lease of a local independent movie theater and all its city funding for simply showing the film. To say the least, this is not beating the soft censorship allegations.
Written by B.A. Parker and editedby Veralyn Williams
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