There’s one thing telling about how unsurprised many people have been.
When the huge “Black Lives Matter” lettering on that stretch of sixteenth Road NW was painted over in early March, it didn’t shock many people — not as a result of we didn’t care, however as a result of we at all times knew it was performative. The mural was by no means meant to final as a result of it was by no means about lasting change.
Mayor Muriel Bowser defended the choice, saying, “We’ve larger fish to fry.” Her rationale was financial and political, a gesture of survival underneath a newly re-empowered Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress threatening D.C.’s already-limited autonomy. However when “larger fish” are being fried, who precisely is being cooked? And who decides what—or who—is expendable?
Let’s be clear: Black Lives Matter Plaza was by no means designed to be everlasting. That a lot was apparent when the yellow paint first hit the pavement in 2020. It was a daring aesthetic transfer to “stick it” to Trump in 2020, not a sustained dedication to Black D.C. residents or systemic change. So when it disappeared underneath political stress, it felt much less like a loss and extra like affirmation. It was at all times symbolic, a modern PR response within the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, whereas behind closed doorways, our metropolis’s funds instructed a special story.
Within the fiscal yr 2021, there was a proposed $578 million working funds for the Metropolitan Police Division (MPD), representing a 3.3% enhance over the earlier yr’s funds of $559 million. Bowser aimed to develop the pressure to 4,000 officers by 2021 — regardless of citywide calls to defund the police and reinvest in housing, training, and psychological well being providers throughout the District.
Even because the streets erupted with calls to dismantle systemic racism, Black males and boys like Deon Kay and Karon Hylton-Brown have been killed by MPD officers inside months of one another in 2020.
On June 24, 2020, 18-year-old Deon Kay was shot and killed by an MPD officer in Southeast D.C. Later that yr, on Oct. 23, 2020, 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown died after a police pursuit led to a deadly collision. Two officers have been later charged in connection together with his loss of life. The identical system that painted the phrases “Black Lives Matter” on a road nook continued to sanction the violence we have been protesting within the first place.
So no, I wasn’t outraged when the mural was erased. I used to be reminded.
I used to be reminded that symbolism, with out substance, is at all times the very first thing to go when energy shifts. That performative acts, whereas emotionally resonant, provide no safety within the face of authoritarianism. That what feels highly effective within the second may be undone with a single political calculation.
Mayor Bowser’s “larger fish” framing is revealing. It implies triage. Prioritization. However it additionally means that defending the individuals and rules behind Black Lives Matter is now not definitely worth the threat. It was a calculated sacrifice, however when Black individuals, poor individuals, queer and trans individuals, and immigrants are so typically the primary on the chopping block within the title of political technique—what does survival truly appear to be for us?
This query feels much more pressing as D.C. prepares to host WorldPride 2025 from mid-Might to early June. On paper, it’s a monumental event: a worldwide celebration of LGBTQ+ rights held throughout Satisfaction Month within the nation’s capital. However behind the scenes, the identical pressures that erased BLM Plaza are threatening the way forward for this occasion, too.
A number of company sponsors, together with Booz Allen Hamilton, have already pulled out, citing the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-DEI govt order. These firms, as soon as fast to wrap themselves in rainbow logos every June, are actually folding underneath white supremacist scrutiny. And whereas some activists may really feel vindicated—we warned for years that company Satisfaction was hardly ever about actual solidarity—it’s nonetheless sobering to see how briskly “assist” can vanish when it’s now not politically handy.
Some are asking if the District ought to nonetheless host it. Others, just like the African Human Rights Coalition, marvel if D.C. is even secure underneath the new regime. However the query I hold circling again to is: if we are able to’t advocate for our personal progress within the metropolis we name dwelling, the place can we go? If we are able to’t defend symbols and areas that we fought for, how can we battle smarter, deeper, and longer?
The reply isn’t easy. However it does begin with readability: we should cease mistaking illustration for liberation. The presence of murals, parades, and “historic firsts” doesn’t at all times imply we’re shifting ahead. In actual fact, it’s typically used to pacify us whereas the techniques that hurt us stay untouched. We should demand greater than visibility—we’d like transformation.
That transformation begins domestically. D.C. could also be a federal enclave, nevertheless it’s additionally our group. We should proceed preventing for D.C. statehood not simply as a political situation, however as a justice situation. Our metropolis’s means to manipulate itself is crucial to defending its most marginalized. It means defending our budgets, our faculties, our healthcare, our trans youth, and our immigrant neighbors from federal overreach.
And if the mayor gained’t advocate for that fiercely or doesn’t imagine it’s definitely worth the threat primarily based on the dimensions of the fish, then we should arrange round her.
We should additionally defend WorldPride — not simply the occasion however what it represents. We are able to’t enable it to be gutted within the title of threat administration.
We should present up, host community-centered programming, assist queer and trans Black and brown artists, put money into native LGBTQ+ organizers, and create security on our personal phrases. Satisfaction was by no means meant to be secure within the conventional sense — it was born out of rebel. And perhaps that’s what this second calls for once more.
If we’re certainly selecting our battles, we should be certain that the communities traditionally left behind aren’t the primary ones deemed expendable. That features Black residents whose lives weren’t centered within the metropolis’s response in 2020. That features LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly these dealing with intersecting threats of transphobia, racism, and poverty. That features intercourse staff, the unhoused, returning residents, and younger individuals struggling in under-resourced faculties. This isn’t the time to reduce. It’s the time to recommit.
We’ve to prepare, vote, defend our neighbors, construct mutual support, fund grassroots work, and push establishments to do greater than situation statements. We should proceed to ask ourselves: What does security appear to be with out counting on techniques that kill us? What does pleasure appear to be with out company sponsorships that abandon us the second it’s inconvenient? And what does energy appear to be when it’s not simply symbolic however structural, collective, and unafraid?
If Mayor Bowser and different metropolis leaders imagine they’ll select which “fish” to fry on this new political period, then we—Black individuals, queer and trans of us, individuals with low incomes—should be vigilant about not turning into the meal. The mural was at all times going to go as a result of it was by no means meant to remain. However our calls for for justice, security, and actual change? These stay.
As a result of if the symbols fall—and they’ll—it’s what we construct subsequent that determines whether or not we survive this second or remodel it.
And transformation is lengthy overdue.
Preston Mitchum is the founding father of PDM Consulting, primarily based in Washington, DC. His work focuses on racial justice, gender fairness, LGBTQ+ liberation, and the pursuit of insurance policies that transfer past symbolism to create lasting change.
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