The first school I attended was George Washington Elementary in Compton, California, which may be why I feel drawn to the controversy at Washington High in San Francisco. More important, Washington is the local high school near my talented granddaughter. (I'm hoping she gets into SOTA.)
The high school has a mural that is exactly as old as I am, a set of 13 panels illustrating the good and bad deeds of George Washington. The Depression-era artist was Victor Arnautoff, a Marxist and a friend of Diego Rivera. Arnautoff was careful, in his depiction of the life of Washington, to include scenes of Washington's enslaved black people working for no pay and a dead Amerindian to represent certain genocides.
Those, according to the school board, are the bad scenes in the mural, harmful to students. The idea is that students of color find these depictions troubling. That may be true. That might provide a start for an education in social justice. But the school board would spare students the experience. They have voted to spend $600,000 in legal fees and whitewash and then to paint over the art. They don't like troubling art.
Art experts have protested, but the board is deaf.
Let me just say this about the school board. They appear to be ignorant in matters relating to art, psychology, education, history and reality. I'm just saying they don't deserve to wear shoes.
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