Bill de Blasio has done some pretty outrageous things since becoming mayor of New York, not the least of them throwing the city’s police department under the bus in reaction to the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Not everything hizzoner has done has been reactive. One of his proactive measures was to insist that his new security guard be black. Another that occurred just yesterday is more symbolic than anything else, but no less galling for that.
Via the Daily Caller:
According to the New York Post, the Big Apple’s mayoral family junked a handful of paintings depicting George Washington and other unspecified founding fathers from the historical Yellow Parlor in the Gracie Mansion for more diverse artifacts that will reportedly better represent the history of America.
The Yellow Parlor, where guests of New York’s mayor have been entertained for centuries, will now showcase a tomahawk given by colonialists to the chief warrior of the Iroquois in 1797, pictures of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former slave Pierre Toussaint and a proof of sale for a slave named Maria.
The changes were made by the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray, who felt the historical house desperately lacked diversity. The Wall Street Journal reported McCray wants the house to better represent the 1700s and 1800s.
In the report, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City disputed the part of the NBC report that said they were ditching George Washington to make room for Touissaint.
NBC however, has been all over the portrait story, reporting a year ago that the administration feels “there are plenty of white men adorning the walls of City Hall.”
NBC also noted at the time that storing the portraits of the founding fathers would cost $100 per day for each painting, something we’re sure the de Blasio family isn’t paying for out of pocket.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
