There are Depression Era murals on the walls of courthouses and other public buildings all over America, many of them done by reds of various sorts or others more than a little friendly toward them and their views.
Some of the scenes depict blacks and Indians as victims of the young American republic, and implicate Washington, himself.
So you might have guessed this was a decision made by white Republicans or other contemporary whites more than a little tired of politically weaponized history aimed specifically at them.
Nope.
It was actually snowflakes - grandchildren of Zinn, as we might say - and their elder protectors who saw in these murals exactly the opposite of what the artist intended and what decades of viewers have seen.
What was painted and understood for so long as a condemnation was and is perceived, so they say, by the snowflake generation as a glorification of white supremacy, racism, slavery, and even genocide.
And so, of course, they have to be destroyed.
San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History
And so, of course, they have to be destroyed.
San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History
By now stories of progressive Puritanism (or perhaps the better word is Philistinism) are so commonplace — snowflakes seek safe space! — that it can feel tedious to track the details of the latest outrage.
But this case is so absurd that it’s worth reviewing the specifics.
Victor Arnautoff, the Russian immigrant who made the paintings in question, was perhaps the most important muralist in the Bay Area during the Depression.
Victor Arnautoff, the Russian immigrant who made the paintings in question, was perhaps the most important muralist in the Bay Area during the Depression.
Thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, he had the opportunity to make some enduring public artworks.
Among them is “City Life” in Coit Tower, in which the artist painted himself standing in front of a newspaper rack conspicuously missing the mainstream San Francisco Chronicle and packed with publications like The Daily Worker.
Arnautoff, who had assisted Diego Rivera in Mexico, was a committed Communist. “‘Art for art’s sake’ or art as perfume have never appealed to me,” he said in 1935.
Arnautoff, who had assisted Diego Rivera in Mexico, was a committed Communist. “‘Art for art’s sake’ or art as perfume have never appealed to me,” he said in 1935.
“The artist is a critic of society.”
This is why his freshly banned work, “Life of Washington,” does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.
This is why his freshly banned work, “Life of Washington,” does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge.
Instead, the 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural, which was painted in 1936 in the just-built George Washington High School, depicts his slaves picking cotton in the fields of Mount Vernon and a group of colonizers walking past the corpse of a Native American.
“At the time, high school history classes typically ignored the incongruity that Washington and others among the nation’s founders subscribed to the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ and yet owned other human beings as chattel,” Robert W. Cherny writes in “Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art.”
In other words, Arnautoff’s purpose was to unsettle the viewer, to provoke young people into looking at American history from a different, darker perspective.
“At the time, high school history classes typically ignored the incongruity that Washington and others among the nation’s founders subscribed to the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ and yet owned other human beings as chattel,” Robert W. Cherny writes in “Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art.”
In other words, Arnautoff’s purpose was to unsettle the viewer, to provoke young people into looking at American history from a different, darker perspective.
Over the past months, art historians, New Deal scholars and even a group called the Congress of Russian Americans have tried to make exactly that point.
“This is a radical and critical work of art,” the school’s alumni association argued.
“This is a radical and critical work of art,” the school’s alumni association argued.
“There are many New Deal murals depicting the founding of our country; very few even acknowledge slavery or the Native genocide.
Of course, there wasn't a native genocide, though there was widespread ethnic cleansing, some of it egregiously and undeniably motivated by unabashed racism, such as the Cherokee Removal.
Of course, there wasn't a native genocide, though there was widespread ethnic cleansing, some of it egregiously and undeniably motivated by unabashed racism, such as the Cherokee Removal.
"The Arnautoff murals should be preserved for their artistic, historical and educational value.
"Whitewashing them will simply result in another ‘whitewash’ of the full truth about American history.”
Such appeals to reason and history failed to sway the school board.
Such appeals to reason and history failed to sway the school board.
On Tuesday, it dismissed the option to pull an Ashcroft and simply cover the murals, instead voting unanimously to paint them over.
One of the commissioners, Faauuga Moliga, said before the vote on Tuesday that his chief concern was that “kids are mentally and emotionally feeling safe at their schools.”
One of the commissioners, Faauuga Moliga, said before the vote on Tuesday that his chief concern was that “kids are mentally and emotionally feeling safe at their schools.”
Thus he wanted “the murals to be painted down.”
Mark Sanchez, the school board’s vice president, later told me that simply concealing the murals wasn’t an option because it would “allow for the possibility of them being uncovered in the future.”
Mark Sanchez, the school board’s vice president, later told me that simply concealing the murals wasn’t an option because it would “allow for the possibility of them being uncovered in the future.”
Destroying them was worth it regardless of the cost, he argued at the hearing, saying, “This is reparations.”
These and other explanations from the board’s members reflected the logic of the Reflection and Action Working Group, a committee of activists, students, artists and others put together last year by the district.
These and other explanations from the board’s members reflected the logic of the Reflection and Action Working Group, a committee of activists, students, artists and others put together last year by the district.
Arnautoff’s work, the group concluded in February, “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, Manifest Destiny, white supremacy, oppression, etc.”
The art does not reflect “social justice,” the group said, and it “is not student-centered if it’s focused on the legacy of artists, rather than the experience of the students.”
. . . .
“In my entire life, no one has ever, ever accused me of being a ‘white supremacist,’” Lope Yap Jr., a filmmaker and the vice president of the alumni association, told me.
. . . .
“In my entire life, no one has ever, ever accused me of being a ‘white supremacist,’” Lope Yap Jr., a filmmaker and the vice president of the alumni association, told me.
But if you buy into the expansive notion of “white supremacy” put forward by Alison Collins, one of the board commissioners, that is exactly what Mr. Yap, who is Filipino, is.
“One of the earmarks of white supremacy culture is valuing (white) property over (Black & Brown) ppl,” Ms. Collins recently wrote on Twitter.
“I think about this when I read comments from folks arguing to ‘protect’ the ‘Life of Washington’ murals.”
Mr. Sanchez, the board vice president, told me:
Mr. Sanchez, the board vice president, told me:
“A grave mistake was made 80 years ago to paint a mural at a school without Native American or African-American input.
"For impressionable young people who attend school to have any representation that diminishes people, specifically students from communities that have already been diminished, it’s an aggressive thing.
"It’s hurtful and I don’t think our students need to bear that burden.”
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