Bob Woodson: Targeting Washington Monument stems from 'dangerous impulse'

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DC committee recommends changes to Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial

Committee created by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser released a report asking the federal government to 'remove, relocate or contextualize' monuments; reaction from Bob Woodson.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser's new commission studying whether to "remove, relocate or contextualize" various monuments, schools and other infrastructure, in pursuit of their stated goal to align with "DC Values," is a dangerous proposition that doesn't actually help underprivileged communities, civil rights leader Bob Woodson said Tuesday.

Woodson shared his views during an appearance on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

In July, Bowser tasked the DCFACES [District of Columbia Facilities and Commemorative Expressions] Working Group to "evaluat[e] public spaces", and it recently released guidance on fixing systemic problems with certain infrastructure in the district.

"Of all of the challenges facing, particularly Black residents of Washington, D.C., why is this mayor spending and energy and money talking about tearing down statues?" Woodson asked host Tucker Carlson, noting that the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, and a statue to Pennsylvania's Benjamin Franklin were being targeted by the commission.

"They are flirting with a very dangerous impulse when they start doing this, Tucker, because you think about, in the French Revolution, what they tried to do was rewrite history and destroy the symbols of history -- and what you are seeing around the country are guillotines being established because in the French Revolution, what they did, of course, is wipe out the people in the church and also the aristocracy, and tried to even change the calendar -- and as a consequence, it took us into a dark period."

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poliCarlson noted that some of the "systemic problems" being talked about are real, but that Black Lives Matter's solution to them doesn't make sense or appear to empirically aid the situation.

"This summer, BLM activists decided maybe we should destroy statues of a bunch of people who have been dead for centuries -- maybe that will make life better for Americans," he said.

Woodson said those incidents were indeed unproductive, and that people like Bowser don't understand the "redempt[ive]" quality of America.

"None of us should be defined by the worst of what we were, but it is very dangerous for them to be flirting with the -- the Russian Revolution, the same thing happened there -- they wanted to rewrite history," he said. "We are reaching a level of depravity when rioters in Portland are locking people in buildings and trying to burn them down -- and also, people are cheering when a Trump supporter is shot to death. I've never seen that level of depravity before."

"People are cheering when a Trump supporter is shot to death. I've never seen that level of depravity before."

— Bob Woodson

Bob Woodson, civil rights leader.

Woodson noted that Black-on-Black violence continues at all-time highs, while left-wing protesters direct their attention elsewhere.

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Bowser's commission also takes offense to a school named after Alexander Graham Bell, an inventor of the telephone, as well as George Mason, a prominent Founding Father from Virginia who crafted the state's Declaration of Rights -- from which the U.S. Bill of Rights was partially crafted.

Mason is already ubiquitous across the Washington, D.C., area, with the prominent George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the Interstate 395 bridge over the Potomac River linking the Pentagon and Washington, as well as a separate memorial bearing his name.