FL Republicans urge D.C. mayor to remove Black Lives Matter mural
By Mitch Perry
On October 31, 2023
Claiming that the Black Lives Matter movement has demonstrated support for Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israel, six Florida Republicans, including U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Miriam Bowser to rename Black Lives Matter Plaza in the nation’s capital and remove the street mural that bears the organization’s name.
As protests broke out against police brutality and racial inequality in the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in June 2020, a mural featuring the words “Black Lives Matter” in 50-foot-tall capital yellow letters was painted alongside two blocks of 16th Street NW, just outside of the White House. The area was renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza NW” by Bowser, according to Washington.org, the city’s official tourism website.
Now, 25 GOP members of Congress have written a letter to Bowser, urging her to “immediately” rename Black Lives Matter Plaza and erase the mural “due to that movement’s celebration of violent antisemitic terrorism.”
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Along with Rubio and Scott, four Florida House Republicans – Scott Franklin from Polk County, John Rutherford from Jacksonville, Gus Bilirakis from Pasco County, and north central Florida’s Michael Waltz – all signed the letter.
As proof of that sentiment, the Republicans cite a now deleted tweet sent out by the Chicago BLM chapter which showed an image of a Palestinian terrorist paragliding into Israel to kill Jews with the caption, “I stand with Palestine.”
They also say the D.C. chapter of BLM posted that Israel was guilty of apartheid, “while sharing posts that cast doubt on the atrocities that took place on Oct. 7, including the beheading of babies.” And they wrote that BLM Grassroots, which they claim is “the ideological leader of BLM right now, also threw its support behind these murderous attacks.”
“These posts are meant to delegitimize Israel and rationalize brutal attacks on the Jewish people,” the Republicans write in their letter. “It is hard to escape the conclusion that these statements are motivated by an ugly animus against the Jewish people. BLM Grassroots said the Hamas attack ‘must not be condemned but understood’ as resistance to ’75 years of settler colonialism and apartheid.’ Those 75 years account for the entire existence of the Jewish state.”
“You stated after the attacks that you ‘reject terrorism in all its forms’ and that ‘antisemitism has no place in our institutions, our country, our world, or our hearts,’” the letter to Bowser continues. “We wholeheartedly agree with this statement. We further believe that movements that celebrate violent antisemitism should not be honored by the government with a plaza, especially one located directly outside of our nation’s White House.”
The idea of removing the BLM mural rankles some in the Black community, however.
“The mural was put up there at a moment when African Americans and the nation were going through a lot of stress at the time,” said Yvette Lewis, the Hillsborough County chair of the NAACP. “It sounds like politicians are using this as an excuse to get rid of it and justify their means.”
This piece was republished from the Miami Times.