“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” 

George Orwell, 1984

A statue of George Washington, the first president of the United States, was toppled and draped in a burning American flag by protesters in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday evening.

The monument and its base were covered in vandalism, including the phrases: “Murder,” “Big Floyd,” “1619,” “Fuck Cops,” “BLM,” “Land Back,” “White Fragility,” and “You’re on Native Land.”

A statue of Thomas Jefferson, the United States’ third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, was defaced and torn down on Sunday evening outside a high school in Portland, Oregon.

“We’re taking this city back,” the organizer added. “One school at a time. One racist statue at a time.”