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San Francisco school board votes to destroy murals by Victor Arnautoff

149 points by seapunk 7y ago

fredley 7y ago
I get that times change and what may once have been an acceptable work of public art may be less palatable. Certainly a mural showing the conquest of native Americans is perhaps not suited to a public space. However destroying it is totally bone headed. Move it to a gallery or museum so future generations can see the journey that's been taken.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  I would take issue with prominent display of artwork celebrating the conquest of Native Americans, I don't understand why showing it is necessarily a problem. The mural in question is essentially criticizing the way that schools have presented that part of US history.
  - neonate 7y ago
    The artist was a communist. Surely he wasn't celebrating it. In fact, unless I read the article wrong, it's clear that he was critiquing it.
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      Yes of course. I was explicitly qualifying what I said there because this is the internet.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Unfortunately it can be uniquely hard to move murals. God knows why it costs $600k to destroy one though; this job should actually cost $100 or less, paint and labor all-in.
  - koolba 7y ago
    It should cost either $0 (i.e. don’t do it) or the cost of materials (by having the students paint over it). Though it seems like even they don’t particular care about removing them: > And yet many of the school’s actual students seemed to disagree. Of 49 freshmen asked to write about the murals, according to The Times, only four supported their removal.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    I wonder who the bulk of that $600k will go to (certainly not the laborers!) and what their relationship is to the people who decided to spend that much.
    - krick 7y ago
      Obviously, whomever made the proposal.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I'd be perfectly happy to see high-res scans taken. To the extent that people want to preserve art that is now seen as unacceptably racist for children's schools, they can create a virtual museum that provides the proper contextualization. And we can do that for all art. Given that digital storage verges on free, there's little reason not to preserve every bit of art, from a kid's refrigerator drawings on up. It'd be fascinating to see Picasso's work from his first scribble, for example. And who knows what future generations will make of it.
  - fredley 7y ago
    High Res scans are good, but particularly for both a mural or an oil painting, a huge amount of information is lost with a scan, however high res. It's also the case for almost any other medium. To take oil painting for example: a painting is usually composed of layer upon layer of translucent paint. The way it alters light cannot be captured in a 2D scan, it is a very complex, 3D laminar object, before you even get to impasto technique. To see a Picasso in real life (or any painting) is vastly more rewarding than just seeing a picture of it. And incidentally you can see almost every scribble Picasso ever made, there's a museum in Barcelona containing much of his early work, including sketchbooks.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Seen as by who? Isn't that a large assumption about a seemingly tiny minority that generally takes issue with everything. The vast majority can see and understand the mural for what it is. Even if does have to be removed, it's also clear that moving and preserving it in a museum is both cheaper and far better than spending more to destroy it completely. Erasing history like this is no win for anyone.
- lobotryas 7y ago
  Why not? Now, more than ever, we can see this as a tragedy and great wrong. Would you consider that a “mural showing the Holocaust is perhaps not suited for a public space”? Of course you wouldn’t. This mural doesn’t glorify and we can add context around it to make it into a teachable situation instead of trying to erase history.
Jonnax 7y ago
"In one of the panels – which are displayed in the halls of George Washington High School in San Francisco – shows slaves working in a field. Another depicts white settlers stepping over the body of a deceased Native American." Why is this appropriate for a high school mural?
- nisuni 7y ago
  It was painted to denounce the hypocrisy of the founding fathers. So, to me, it’s appropriate as it encourages critical thinking.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Why not? I'm of the belief we shouldn't be afraid of our very dark history as a species - otherwise we can't learn from it. A high school is a place of learning first and foremost. Kids should be taught to never forget these things, or they'll eventually slip out of cultural memory all together.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  The article has some analysis: “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. I mean, gosh, the horror of young people confronting history.
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    Ah yes. That makes perfect sense. I think there's a lot of public art in America that seems to lionise slave owners but I posted too soon.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    The vanishingly few students who might actually have taken the time to confront the images, and come away somewhat disturbed by them, are the very ones most benefiting from it.
nisuni 7y ago
What is ironic is that the painting is a political, left-wing work of art, and it was created with the intent of denouncing the hypocrisy of the founding fathers. Are we doing a good service to the youth removing any kind of potentially disturbing imagery? I don’t think so. Reality can be disturbing at times, and still needs to be known.
ankalagon 7y ago
Explaining the meaning and history of this mural would be bettern. Couldn't they add a sign with a text and QR code with some encyclopedical knowledge about each "controversial" landmark? Something like this [1]. I think is the same with the Columbus statue removal there[2]. Art is a product of its time and if the times were racist/violent/whatever, the art will be so also. Indeed it would be a good way to learn History. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indiana_state_historical_markers#/media/File:Michigan_Road_historical_marker_near_Zionsville.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indiana_state_historic... [2] https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/columbus-grand-park-statue-removed/ https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/columbus-grand-park-statu...
zmix 7y ago
This is scandalous! And very depressing. One would think, that these topics have been understood in the meanwhile, especially in a community like San Francisco, which once was the stronghold of the 68ers. A society, that can't criticize itself is a weak society.
donatj 7y ago
This recent acceptance of art destruction disturbs me. The Minneapolis sculpture garden literally burned Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold after complaints.
- Retric 7y ago
  Unwanted art ends up in the trash. We venerated old art in large part because of this process. If every child’d Doodle from 1000 BCE was still around few people would look at them or care.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    It's a great point. And the reason we have a lot of pro-slavery art is that the anti-slavery art was destroyed, or never allowed to be created in the first place. I've recently been reading The Fiery Trial, a biography of Lincoln's ideas, and mobs would happily assault and sometimes kill white abolitionists just for speaking about the notion. And Kendi's Stamped From The Beginning makes clear how eager the greater portion of American whites were to keep black people from having opinions at all. Art has pretty much always been subjected to a pretty ruthless collaborative editing process. In San Francisco's alleys, art is continually being put up and painted over. The good pieces last longer than the random squiggles, but very few reach the level where somebody like Precita Eyes [1] will preserve it past its natural lifespan. For something to survive across generations, it has to fit the standards of multiple generations, and that's how it always has been. Predictably, Bari Weiss isn't upset about that ongoing loss of San Francisco art. Gosh golly, why is losing this specific set of unexceptional murals important to her? [1] http://www.precitaeyes.org/ http://www.precitaeyes.org/
    - povertyworld 7y ago
      Since you like to read books, try this one: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/95xxn2fm9780252040788.html https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/95xxn2fm978025...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
mc32 7y ago
Are they also going to go through all kinds of expressions of art and looking for unacceptable views in their libraries? Movie catalogues, books and destroy them too? We used to make fun of authoritarian regimes and how they were week for trying to stamp out art and thought they didn’t like, but it’s like we’ve become them. I’m a bit surprised they haven’t revived Gore’s PMRC to ensure music lyrics represent correct orthodoxy. I mean, I can understand renaming streets. Streets are renamed for various reasons, and some commemorate dubious people, but the street remains. I wonder... ...Will one day all the Mission cities get renamed because they were named by Evangelizing Spanish Missionaries. Is that where we’re headed? We can name them after tribes or chiefs, perhaps. I propose Ohlone for San Francisco.
- deleted 7y ago
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- throw20102010 7y ago
  This is basically the same argument that southern right-wingers use to defend keeping their confederate statues, but oddly enough many internet commenters seem to have no problems with ripping down those pieces of art since they represented something they didn't like. I'm not accusing you (mc32) of being hypocritical since I haven't seen you make any comments saying that we should rip out old confederate statues because they represent slavery. However, (let me reiterate that this isn't an attack on you, mc32), I think we as a collective internet need to rethink how we feel about removing artwork if it represents something bad. It is not okay for us to be okay with ripping out some untasteful art but not others, simply because some bad art is "left" and other bad art is "right." Before you go jumping on me about how slavery is different than communism, remember that communism is responsible for nearly a hundred million deaths, which puts it near the level of slavery in terms of harm it has done to humanity (even if they aren't directly comparable).
  - BeeOnRope 7y ago
    I mean there is the slight difference that the statues intend to glorify the figures they represent, while this mural does the opposite - it's a pointed commentary on slavery and colonialism.
dgzl 7y ago
Who is surprised? Certainly not me.
arkades 7y ago
An expression I came across recently in one of my circles was “free speech extremist.” As in, if you think free speech trumps censoring all possible offensive communication, you are a free speech extremist. Man, I remember the days when being PC was basically “don’t be a d*”, and censorship was the Right’s shtick.
- 0815test 7y ago
  Well, they aren't wrong as far as that goes. I would simply remind them that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me add also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
  - rebuilder 7y ago
    I'm not sure what those statements imply. I read them to mean that anything is justified if it can be said to protect "liberty" in any way, however small. And the same for "justice".
    - humanrebar 7y ago
      It's a Barry Goldwater quote.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Hey remember when Al Gore was running for President and liberals and libertarians could agree on a lot of things.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  A mural painted by a communist depicting Washington and his slaves walking over indian corpses wouldn't have lasted five seconds in any place dominated by the right, and anybody publicly defending it would probably have had their house burned down.
  - mc32 7y ago
    It probably would have been nixed. But now that it exists I don’t think we should go about erasing things because they’re uncomfortable.
lilsammy 7y ago
I'm fine if we want to erase history...As long as the understanding is that I'm also allowed to say it never happened.
mrosett 7y ago
The group supporting its removal alleges that it “glorifies slavery.” If you read the description of the painting, that’s just false and makes me skeptical of the quality of the minds involved. This would be appalling even if it were free to remove the mural. With all the literal and figurative shit San Francisco has to deal with, it’s borderline criminal to waste more than half a million dollars.
- BeeOnRope 7y ago
  Another question is how painting 1,600 sq ft which is maybe half the area of the walls in a small house, costs $600,000. I'll gladly do it for a cool half million, and you can use the $100,000 saved to remove any other awkward signs of the past that might pop up in the future.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Sometimes people get so caught up in defending whatever side of some political argument that pragmatic matters such as price go right out the window. They stop thinking practically. The only thing that matters becomes their ideology or what have you. I, personally, have the exact same questions as you. Come on, 600 G's? I'll fly out and paint it for half that if you guys really want it done.
    - sslayer 7y ago
      I would like to believe that the steep cost is due not to destruction, but actual removal and preservation of the murals. To destroy these pieces of art is an outright atrocity.
      - Dangeranger 7y ago
        Unfortunately, it seems that removal and preservation are not the intent here, the aim is to destroy the art so that it cannot be recovered in the future.
    - brd529 7y ago
emiliobumachar 7y ago
Cue the British Museum to the rescue. If I recall correctly, back in the 90's, when the Taliban decided to destroy those giant Buddhas, the BM pleaded to be allowed to dismantle them and take them to Britain instead, at its own expense. The Taliban refused. This art doesn't seem nearly as important, but, I wonder if they could do the same in this case. The PR alone may be worth it. This sort of thing is the best conterargument they can possibly have against contestation of their legitimacy to hold foreign art.
- masonic 7y ago
  Meanwhile, they continue to refuse to return the Elgin Marbles.
tnolet 7y ago
As someone with an MA in Art History, this is simply astounding and unbelievable. None of the people on that school board seem to have any historical perspective: - Rivera, his work and his pupils like the mentioned painter were left wingers actively denouncing white privilege, slavery etc. - The work is meant to be critical and through being uncomfortable evoke discussion and reflection - Destroying art because “it doesn’t fit what we think is right” has many really bad examples in history. I really can’t believe this is happening. Totally sickening and it makes me despair for the education of the kids under this school board.
pessimizer 7y ago
This has nothing to do with unacceptable views and everything to do with middle-class people wanting to cover up anything unpleasant. It's unpleasant to teach your children that the US forefathers were people to be admired when they have seen him with his slaves walking over dead Indians every day.
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  Absolutely untrue. The uncomfortability ship as an excuse has long since sailed. This is 100% about either fearing about any claim of racism or actually believing that it's better to destroy art because it shows something that doesn't fit the narrative. It's' about making history criminal.
  - drngdds 7y ago
    >it shows something that doesn't fit the narrative. ??? The (correct) narrative promoted by the left is that the US was founded by terrible slave-owning racists, and this art promotes that viewpoint. Also, no one is making anything illegal here.
- Josteniok 7y ago
  From the article it doesn't sound like the people who want to erase the mural believe that the forefathers are people to be admired: 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.” 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. 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.”
rayiner 7y ago
I’m going to go against the grain and argue that some erasure of history is a good thing. If we want people to integrate into one polity, it may well be better to focus on disparities that exist in the present instead of dwelling on what happened in the past. The British are the product of invasion and brutal repression of the Anglo Saxons by the Normans. But you don’t really see public art dedicated to that.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  I'd be fine if this was being stashed somewhere or at least put to auction and painted over if no one bought it for the price of removal. They are making extra sure it gets destroyed. FTA: 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.”
- pvg 7y ago
  But you don’t really see public art dedicated to that. The Bayeux tapestry is one of the most recognizable artworks in the world (yes, it's not a mural in the tube or even in the UK but it doesn't need to be). Norman castles, Norman cathedrals...
- icebraining 7y ago
  But do you see public art glorifying the Normans? Because as far as I know, art glorifying George Washington is common. Shouldn't that be erased too?
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    > "But do you see public art glorifying the Normans?" Of course, why shouldn't there be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_William_the_Conqueror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_William_the_Conquero...
    - emiliobumachar 7y ago
Hoasi 7y ago
Aside from the ridiculous price tag, it would set a dangerous precedent. It's not so much about the value of the art itself, which is debatable, but rather how appropriate removing a historical testimony is. Just because an interpretation no longer fits with today's view doesn't mean people should forget the history behind it nor the mentality surrounding it at a particular time. Erasing remnants of a past you disagree with doesn't erase the facts, but it makes people less inclined to remember or learn about a not so glorious history. It raises questions about the exact motives at stake here.
the8472 7y ago
like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children Or its forbears in this case.
ravenstine 7y ago
> The notion of erasing art has an American pedigree. Was this a poor choice of words from a hastily written article, or does the author think that erasing art is uniquely American? Changing history, destroying art, etc., have existed since time immemorial. Anyone who honestly thinks that America invented evil is delusional.
briga 7y ago
Leave it to California to figure out how to spend 600k to get rid of a mural. Doesn't this city have more pressing problems to fix?
StreamBright 7y ago
What a nice government project, cheap, meaningful, helps a lot of people.
l00sed 7y ago
https://l-o-o-s-e-d.net/public-domain https://l-o-o-s-e-d.net/public-domain I wrote about another situation in which public art created a stir in the community. This mural wasn't on the wall of a building, so it's removal was cheap. What's interesting to me is two things: it's initial anonymity (nobody recognized it for what it is until recently), and how it forces a consideration of collective traumatic memory.
buboard 7y ago
Non paywalled source : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisco-high-school-murals-painted-over https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisc... Couldnt they just paint over the offending parts of the mural? Sounds more conciliatory
baggy_trough 7y ago
San Francisco school board reveals that it is manifestly unfit to serve in any kind of educational role.
trophycase 7y ago
Busybodies with nothing better to do
gok 7y ago
I think a lot of people here seem to be missing the staggering part of this: the mural is overtly, pointedly anti-slavery, anti-colonialism, anti-George Washington, but it's being destroyed because the school board is claiming it's the opposite.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Yup. I'm not sure if people are missing it, or just got used to it. This isn't the first time an action or proclamation in the name of "social justice" twists reality into a Klein bottle.
- makomk 7y ago
  It's not just the school board that's claiming that. If you look at the Guardian article, for example, it presents the claim that the mural is pro-slavery and pro-colonialism as simply and indisputably correct, and claims to the contrary as a rebutted error of a few wrong-thinking people: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisco-high-school-murals-painted-over https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisc... Remember, any right-thinking leftwing supporters of social justice wouldn't be caught dead reading or believing an article by right-winger Bari Weiss. Doing so would instantly mark them out as a supporter of the enemy. As far as they're concerned (or at least can admit to in public), it will be the people who think this artwork means what the artist created to mean who are ignoring reality.
- ndarwincorn 7y ago
  And on top of that they have the gall to call it 'reparations'. Truly Orwellian.
- Fins 7y ago
  But realizing this about the mural would require being able to see past the immediate thing that is depicted, or, God forbid, doing some research. Neither is something the radical fringe (left or right) feeding on outrage is either interested in or, quite likely, capable of. I wouldn't be too surprised though if SF turns out to be the first place to burn books this century.
giaour 7y ago
Was the mural featured in the article the inspiration for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camel_(Parks_and_Recreation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camel_(Parks_and_Recreat... ?
krick 7y ago
$600,000 to re-paint a wall? I am too distracted by thinking how can I participate, to argue against "erasing history" and stuff.
rdtsc 7y ago
> unanimous decision on Tuesday night to spend at least $600,000 of taxpayer money not just to shroud a historic work of art but to destroy it. I wonder what they can do for the homeless population with that money. With the numbers they have, probably not much, but it's also not nothing either. > 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.” Thinking back at being an impressionable young person, seeing homeless people on the streets, in pain, yelling at passers by, or defecating in the streets would have been a lot more "hurtful" than seeing a mural. There is nothing wrong to worry about the message a mural sends, but it signals that they've solved all the other problems, and now, with nothing else left to do, to keep busy, they are taking care of repainting murals. It just doesn't make them look very competent.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
It's a friggin high school. For people aged 14-18. They can not only deal with such content, they can actually learn from it. (Isn't high-school curriculum full of literature that could be more disturbing anyway?) It all sounds like a stupid exercise in virtue signalling at the cost of $600k to taxpayers + loss of a historical artifact + setting a dangerous precedent.
- Fins 7y ago
  It's a high school in frigging San Francisco. Leaving around anything that might make kids actually think for themselves rather than toeing the party line is quite obviously unacceptable and must be destroyed at all costs.
krick 7y ago
Seriously, though, this pisses me off much more than 600k and appalling 1984-ishness of the act: > And yet many of the school’s actual students seemed to disagree. Of 49 freshmen asked to write about the murals, according to The Times, only four supported their removal. I mean, these are the only people who's opinion on the school exterior should actually count.
apo 7y ago
> 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.” There's enough horror in American history, and depictions of them, to keep these committees busy for a long time. Washington, Jefferson, the confederacy, westward expansion, and slavery were not very controversial historical topics just 60 years ago. Think about all of the events/figures likely to offend at least one vocal group maybe not now, but in the future: - Andrew Jackson (purveyor of genocide) - Theorore Roosevelt (bloodthirsty militarist) - WWI (unjust war) - Transcontinental railroad (genocide's superhighway) - Texas war of independence (slavery) - Moon landing (cold war publicity stunt) - The Manhattan Project (America's WMD program) - Albert Einstein and FDR (for kickstarting the world's nuclear nightmare) - Lyndon Johnson (genocidal maniac) - George W Bush (bloodthirsty militarist and torturer) - Barack Obama (architect of America's robotic warfare system) - Donald Trump (basically everything he ever did) - The Republican Party (for supporting Donald Trump) Some of these events/figures seem like a stretch. Maybe they are, but a lot can change in 60 years. The point is that we now have ample evidence for very vocal groups calling for, and getting action on, suppression of vast swaths of American history in the form of artwork and symbols.
tlear 7y ago
Story of the author is quite interesting. Fought against the reds, then became one. This criticism of US was created as communists in USSR were in process of murdering millions. He did not have much to say about that. In fact he went back to USSR in 1960s If he was in any way useful he would have been recruited in 30s, but I guess NKVD did not think him to be of any consequence. It is absolutely hilarious that his ideological descendants are now destroying his work. He would get it quite well, after all Soviets wiped as much culture as they could that preceded them. Blew up churches and all that good stuff. I wonder when SF will get to that stage, they are basically there now, just couple more steps. San Francisco not even once.
povertyworld 7y ago
Apparently this isn't the first time people have attempted to destroy these murals. The first time was in 1966. https://archive.org/details/communitymuralsp00barnrich/page/150 https://archive.org/details/communitymuralsp00barnrich/page/...
fdye 7y ago
So here is an idea, why don't they ask the SFMOMA experts if there is any way to remove the entire wall and donate it to their collection? I have seen Banksy pieces where they cutout the entire external wall an office building and displayed it in an art gallery for sale (granted not this large). Seems like a win win, the school district gets the mural down and a new wall to paint however they like. SF MOMA gets a critical piece in their collection and I'm sure all the controversy will spike its total worth. Granted cost would probably be substantially more, but perhaps the SF MOMA can help with that since they have a large endowment and would be receiving the piece.
- LocalH 7y ago
  It appears that the explicit desire is to destroy the work. I think they will resist any efforts that don't result in the work's complete destruction.
nec4b 7y ago
Reminds me of Buddhas of Bamyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban, who probably didn't realize that they have same minded allies in SF school board.
- m0llusk 7y ago
  That is really a stretch. The Buddhas were large sculptures that were present for a long time and had deep religious meaning. San Francisco has a great many murals from the 20s through the 40s and often finds them in the way of remodeling or rebuilding of structures. Maybe after a few hundred years of adoration these works might compete, but as it stands they are large, misunderstood, and largely unloved. The driving need to misinterpret and destroy art is disturbing, but the history lost in this case is less than a hundred years of modest impact.
  - nec4b 7y ago
    They both want do destroy (not remove) art for ideological reason. This is not a an artistic value judgement. Anyway i feel sorry for kids that have no choice but to visit that school or live in a place where they form revolutionary committees whose job is to destroy non conformant art. I think we had enough of that in history.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      On the bright side, the children have had a front row seat to an important lesson about society. But I wonder how many were truly paying attention. Almost 15 years ago I saw a similar situation unfold in Dover PA. I know at least some of the kids in that school district learned from the dumb shit those adults were up to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_Schoo...
      - nec4b 7y ago
        I sincerely hope that they do learn and when they do, they do not give up.
pyuser583 7y ago
This is straight out of Parks and Rec. https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Pawnee_City_Hall https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Pawnee_City_Hall
lorcan 7y ago
The left has become like the Taliban or ISIS. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-n315451 https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-n315451
- archagon 7y ago
  Don’t be stupid.
  - threezero 7y ago
    That’s pretty rude.
    - archagon 7y ago
      Comparing the left to ISIS seems pretty obnoxiously rude to me.
      - threezero 7y ago
        I think they were comparing the fact that both ISIS and the people in this article (leftists) were bent on destroying art that they didn’t like. And you were directly rude to that person.
      - LocalH 7y ago
        Plenty of people on the left compare the right to Nazism, which is equally obnoxious and rude. Not saying you did, but those types of generalizations aren't really conducive to proper discussion.
nullwasamistake 7y ago
This reminds me of the destruction of Confederate statues recently. We lament ISIS destroying historical sites they don't agree with, then we do the same thing. There's nothing to be gained from erasing history. Those that suggest it are just a different flavor of fascists
mnm1 7y ago
> 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.” And there I was, a naive idiot who thinks that schools are about learning. I guess we have given up that concept completely now as a nation and embrace schools simply as glorified babysitters. It sure shows in our nation's stupidity and hate of anything intellectual. And we still have ambitions to colonize the moon or even Mars while most of our citizens can barely afford food and shelter and the country is quickly turning from developed to developing. Of course we are a nation of dumbasses if the people teaching our kids are this dumb and anti-intellectual. Let's arm these idiots while we're at it so we can get a glimpse of the amazing future America has with this kind of "education."
archagon 7y ago
I hate that articles like this get posted to HN just for people to feel outraged. On the order of nobody here has heard of this mural before today. I guess this sucks. I wish the mural went to a museum instead. There are more important things to care about.
js2 7y ago
This piece isn’t argued in even remotely good faith. Among other things, I don’t know why the writer tries to drag one of the current presidential candidates into it. In any case, here’s a piece which seems to stick to the facts. Form your own opinion. https://richmondsfblog.com/2019/04/09/historic-wpa-murals-at-george-washington-high-school-are-facing-destruction-due-to-controversial-depictions-of-native-americans-and-african-americans/ https://richmondsfblog.com/2019/04/09/historic-wpa-murals-at...
pyman 7y ago
Article behind paywall wtf
ohiovr 7y ago
Were there protests when it was originally completed or were people more able to accept social commentary then vrs now? High school was considered a place of higher learning. But now they dislike any kind of critical thinking. The school board should not white wash history. They should enforce the teaching of it.
andy-x 7y ago
And don't forget to burn the books.

149 points by seapunk 7y ago

I get that times change and what may once have been an acceptable work of public art may be less palatable. Certainly a mural showing the conquest of native Americans is perhaps not suited to a public space. However destroying it is totally bone headed. Move it to a gallery or museum so future generations can see the journey that's been taken.

maxerickson 7y ago
I would take issue with prominent display of artwork celebrating the conquest of Native Americans, I don't understand why showing it is necessarily a problem. The mural in question is essentially criticizing the way that schools have presented that part of US history.
- neonate 7y ago
  The artist was a communist. Surely he wasn't celebrating it. In fact, unless I read the article wrong, it's clear that he was critiquing it.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    Yes of course. I was explicitly qualifying what I said there because this is the internet.
CydeWeys 7y ago
Unfortunately it can be uniquely hard to move murals. God knows why it costs $600k to destroy one though; this job should actually cost $100 or less, paint and labor all-in.
- koolba 7y ago
  It should cost either $0 (i.e. don’t do it) or the cost of materials (by having the students paint over it). Though it seems like even they don’t particular care about removing them: > And yet many of the school’s actual students seemed to disagree. Of 49 freshmen asked to write about the murals, according to The Times, only four supported their removal.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  I wonder who the bulk of that $600k will go to (certainly not the laborers!) and what their relationship is to the people who decided to spend that much.
  - krick 7y ago
    Obviously, whomever made the proposal.
wpietri 7y ago
I'd be perfectly happy to see high-res scans taken. To the extent that people want to preserve art that is now seen as unacceptably racist for children's schools, they can create a virtual museum that provides the proper contextualization. And we can do that for all art. Given that digital storage verges on free, there's little reason not to preserve every bit of art, from a kid's refrigerator drawings on up. It'd be fascinating to see Picasso's work from his first scribble, for example. And who knows what future generations will make of it.
- fredley 7y ago
  High Res scans are good, but particularly for both a mural or an oil painting, a huge amount of information is lost with a scan, however high res. It's also the case for almost any other medium. To take oil painting for example: a painting is usually composed of layer upon layer of translucent paint. The way it alters light cannot be captured in a 2D scan, it is a very complex, 3D laminar object, before you even get to impasto technique. To see a Picasso in real life (or any painting) is vastly more rewarding than just seeing a picture of it. And incidentally you can see almost every scribble Picasso ever made, there's a museum in Barcelona containing much of his early work, including sketchbooks.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Seen as by who? Isn't that a large assumption about a seemingly tiny minority that generally takes issue with everything. The vast majority can see and understand the mural for what it is. Even if does have to be removed, it's also clear that moving and preserving it in a museum is both cheaper and far better than spending more to destroy it completely. Erasing history like this is no win for anyone.
lobotryas 7y ago
Why not? Now, more than ever, we can see this as a tragedy and great wrong. Would you consider that a “mural showing the Holocaust is perhaps not suited for a public space”? Of course you wouldn’t. This mural doesn’t glorify and we can add context around it to make it into a teachable situation instead of trying to erase history.

Jonnax 7y ago

"In one of the panels – which are displayed in the halls of George Washington High School in San Francisco – shows slaves working in a field. Another depicts white settlers stepping over the body of a deceased Native American." Why is this appropriate for a high school mural?

nisuni 7y ago
It was painted to denounce the hypocrisy of the founding fathers. So, to me, it’s appropriate as it encourages critical thinking.
cameronbrown 7y ago
Why not? I'm of the belief we shouldn't be afraid of our very dark history as a species - otherwise we can't learn from it. A high school is a place of learning first and foremost. Kids should be taught to never forget these things, or they'll eventually slip out of cultural memory all together.
maxerickson 7y ago
The article has some analysis: “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. I mean, gosh, the horror of young people confronting history.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Ah yes. That makes perfect sense. I think there's a lot of public art in America that seems to lionise slave owners but I posted too soon.
- zaroth 7y ago
  The vanishingly few students who might actually have taken the time to confront the images, and come away somewhat disturbed by them, are the very ones most benefiting from it.

nisuni 7y ago

What is ironic is that the painting is a political, left-wing work of art, and it was created with the intent of denouncing the hypocrisy of the founding fathers. Are we doing a good service to the youth removing any kind of potentially disturbing imagery? I don’t think so. Reality can be disturbing at times, and still needs to be known.

ankalagon 7y ago

Explaining the meaning and history of this mural would be bettern. Couldn't they add a sign with a text and QR code with some encyclopedical knowledge about each "controversial" landmark? Something like this [1]. I think is the same with the Columbus statue removal there[2]. Art is a product of its time and if the times were racist/violent/whatever, the art will be so also. Indeed it would be a good way to learn History. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indiana_state_historical_markers#/media/File:Michigan_Road_historical_marker_near_Zionsville.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indiana_state_historic... [2] https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/columbus-grand-park-statue-removed/ https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/columbus-grand-park-statu...

zmix 7y ago

This is scandalous! And very depressing. One would think, that these topics have been understood in the meanwhile, especially in a community like San Francisco, which once was the stronghold of the 68ers. A society, that can't criticize itself is a weak society.

donatj 7y ago

This recent acceptance of art destruction disturbs me. The Minneapolis sculpture garden literally burned Sam Durant’s sculpture Scaffold after complaints.

Retric 7y ago
Unwanted art ends up in the trash. We venerated old art in large part because of this process. If every child’d Doodle from 1000 BCE was still around few people would look at them or care.
- wpietri 7y ago
  It's a great point. And the reason we have a lot of pro-slavery art is that the anti-slavery art was destroyed, or never allowed to be created in the first place. I've recently been reading The Fiery Trial, a biography of Lincoln's ideas, and mobs would happily assault and sometimes kill white abolitionists just for speaking about the notion. And Kendi's Stamped From The Beginning makes clear how eager the greater portion of American whites were to keep black people from having opinions at all. Art has pretty much always been subjected to a pretty ruthless collaborative editing process. In San Francisco's alleys, art is continually being put up and painted over. The good pieces last longer than the random squiggles, but very few reach the level where somebody like Precita Eyes [1] will preserve it past its natural lifespan. For something to survive across generations, it has to fit the standards of multiple generations, and that's how it always has been. Predictably, Bari Weiss isn't upset about that ongoing loss of San Francisco art. Gosh golly, why is losing this specific set of unexceptional murals important to her? [1] http://www.precitaeyes.org/ http://www.precitaeyes.org/
  - povertyworld 7y ago
    Since you like to read books, try this one: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/95xxn2fm9780252040788.html https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/95xxn2fm978025...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

mc32 7y ago

Are they also going to go through all kinds of expressions of art and looking for unacceptable views in their libraries? Movie catalogues, books and destroy them too? We used to make fun of authoritarian regimes and how they were week for trying to stamp out art and thought they didn’t like, but it’s like we’ve become them. I’m a bit surprised they haven’t revived Gore’s PMRC to ensure music lyrics represent correct orthodoxy. I mean, I can understand renaming streets. Streets are renamed for various reasons, and some commemorate dubious people, but the street remains. I wonder... ...Will one day all the Mission cities get renamed because they were named by Evangelizing Spanish Missionaries. Is that where we’re headed? We can name them after tribes or chiefs, perhaps. I propose Ohlone for San Francisco.

deleted 7y ago
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throw20102010 7y ago
This is basically the same argument that southern right-wingers use to defend keeping their confederate statues, but oddly enough many internet commenters seem to have no problems with ripping down those pieces of art since they represented something they didn't like. I'm not accusing you (mc32) of being hypocritical since I haven't seen you make any comments saying that we should rip out old confederate statues because they represent slavery. However, (let me reiterate that this isn't an attack on you, mc32), I think we as a collective internet need to rethink how we feel about removing artwork if it represents something bad. It is not okay for us to be okay with ripping out some untasteful art but not others, simply because some bad art is "left" and other bad art is "right." Before you go jumping on me about how slavery is different than communism, remember that communism is responsible for nearly a hundred million deaths, which puts it near the level of slavery in terms of harm it has done to humanity (even if they aren't directly comparable).
- BeeOnRope 7y ago
  I mean there is the slight difference that the statues intend to glorify the figures they represent, while this mural does the opposite - it's a pointed commentary on slavery and colonialism.

dgzl 7y ago

Who is surprised? Certainly not me.

arkades 7y ago

An expression I came across recently in one of my circles was “free speech extremist.” As in, if you think free speech trumps censoring all possible offensive communication, you are a free speech extremist. Man, I remember the days when being PC was basically “don’t be a d*”, and censorship was the Right’s shtick.

0815test 7y ago
Well, they aren't wrong as far as that goes. I would simply remind them that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me add also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  I'm not sure what those statements imply. I read them to mean that anything is justified if it can be said to protect "liberty" in any way, however small. And the same for "justice".
  - humanrebar 7y ago
    It's a Barry Goldwater quote.
rayiner 7y ago
Hey remember when Al Gore was running for President and liberals and libertarians could agree on a lot of things.
pessimizer 7y ago
A mural painted by a communist depicting Washington and his slaves walking over indian corpses wouldn't have lasted five seconds in any place dominated by the right, and anybody publicly defending it would probably have had their house burned down.
- mc32 7y ago
  It probably would have been nixed. But now that it exists I don’t think we should go about erasing things because they’re uncomfortable.

lilsammy 7y ago

I'm fine if we want to erase history...As long as the understanding is that I'm also allowed to say it never happened.

mrosett 7y ago

The group supporting its removal alleges that it “glorifies slavery.” If you read the description of the painting, that’s just false and makes me skeptical of the quality of the minds involved. This would be appalling even if it were free to remove the mural. With all the literal and figurative shit San Francisco has to deal with, it’s borderline criminal to waste more than half a million dollars.

BeeOnRope 7y ago
Another question is how painting 1,600 sq ft which is maybe half the area of the walls in a small house, costs $600,000. I'll gladly do it for a cool half million, and you can use the $100,000 saved to remove any other awkward signs of the past that might pop up in the future.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Sometimes people get so caught up in defending whatever side of some political argument that pragmatic matters such as price go right out the window. They stop thinking practically. The only thing that matters becomes their ideology or what have you. I, personally, have the exact same questions as you. Come on, 600 G's? I'll fly out and paint it for half that if you guys really want it done.
  - sslayer 7y ago
    I would like to believe that the steep cost is due not to destruction, but actual removal and preservation of the murals. To destroy these pieces of art is an outright atrocity.
    - Dangeranger 7y ago
      Unfortunately, it seems that removal and preservation are not the intent here, the aim is to destroy the art so that it cannot be recovered in the future.
  - brd529 7y ago

emiliobumachar 7y ago

Cue the British Museum to the rescue. If I recall correctly, back in the 90's, when the Taliban decided to destroy those giant Buddhas, the BM pleaded to be allowed to dismantle them and take them to Britain instead, at its own expense. The Taliban refused. This art doesn't seem nearly as important, but, I wonder if they could do the same in this case. The PR alone may be worth it. This sort of thing is the best conterargument they can possibly have against contestation of their legitimacy to hold foreign art.

masonic 7y ago
Meanwhile, they continue to refuse to return the Elgin Marbles.

tnolet 7y ago

As someone with an MA in Art History, this is simply astounding and unbelievable. None of the people on that school board seem to have any historical perspective: - Rivera, his work and his pupils like the mentioned painter were left wingers actively denouncing white privilege, slavery etc. - The work is meant to be critical and through being uncomfortable evoke discussion and reflection - Destroying art because “it doesn’t fit what we think is right” has many really bad examples in history. I really can’t believe this is happening. Totally sickening and it makes me despair for the education of the kids under this school board.

pessimizer 7y ago

This has nothing to do with unacceptable views and everything to do with middle-class people wanting to cover up anything unpleasant. It's unpleasant to teach your children that the US forefathers were people to be admired when they have seen him with his slaves walking over dead Indians every day.

emilfihlman 7y ago
Absolutely untrue. The uncomfortability ship as an excuse has long since sailed. This is 100% about either fearing about any claim of racism or actually believing that it's better to destroy art because it shows something that doesn't fit the narrative. It's' about making history criminal.
- drngdds 7y ago
  >it shows something that doesn't fit the narrative. ??? The (correct) narrative promoted by the left is that the US was founded by terrible slave-owning racists, and this art promotes that viewpoint. Also, no one is making anything illegal here.
Josteniok 7y ago
From the article it doesn't sound like the people who want to erase the mural believe that the forefathers are people to be admired: 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.” 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. 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.”

rayiner 7y ago

I’m going to go against the grain and argue that some erasure of history is a good thing. If we want people to integrate into one polity, it may well be better to focus on disparities that exist in the present instead of dwelling on what happened in the past. The British are the product of invasion and brutal repression of the Anglo Saxons by the Normans. But you don’t really see public art dedicated to that.

emiliobumachar 7y ago
I'd be fine if this was being stashed somewhere or at least put to auction and painted over if no one bought it for the price of removal. They are making extra sure it gets destroyed. FTA: 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.”
pvg 7y ago
But you don’t really see public art dedicated to that. The Bayeux tapestry is one of the most recognizable artworks in the world (yes, it's not a mural in the tube or even in the UK but it doesn't need to be). Norman castles, Norman cathedrals...
icebraining 7y ago
But do you see public art glorifying the Normans? Because as far as I know, art glorifying George Washington is common. Shouldn't that be erased too?
- darkpuma 7y ago
  > "But do you see public art glorifying the Normans?" Of course, why shouldn't there be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_William_the_Conqueror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_William_the_Conquero...
  - emiliobumachar 7y ago

Hoasi 7y ago

Aside from the ridiculous price tag, it would set a dangerous precedent. It's not so much about the value of the art itself, which is debatable, but rather how appropriate removing a historical testimony is. Just because an interpretation no longer fits with today's view doesn't mean people should forget the history behind it nor the mentality surrounding it at a particular time. Erasing remnants of a past you disagree with doesn't erase the facts, but it makes people less inclined to remember or learn about a not so glorious history. It raises questions about the exact motives at stake here.

the8472 7y ago

like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children Or its forbears in this case.

ravenstine 7y ago

> The notion of erasing art has an American pedigree. Was this a poor choice of words from a hastily written article, or does the author think that erasing art is uniquely American? Changing history, destroying art, etc., have existed since time immemorial. Anyone who honestly thinks that America invented evil is delusional.

briga 7y ago

Leave it to California to figure out how to spend 600k to get rid of a mural. Doesn't this city have more pressing problems to fix?

StreamBright 7y ago

What a nice government project, cheap, meaningful, helps a lot of people.

l00sed 7y ago

https://l-o-o-s-e-d.net/public-domain https://l-o-o-s-e-d.net/public-domain I wrote about another situation in which public art created a stir in the community. This mural wasn't on the wall of a building, so it's removal was cheap. What's interesting to me is two things: it's initial anonymity (nobody recognized it for what it is until recently), and how it forces a consideration of collective traumatic memory.

buboard 7y ago

Non paywalled source : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisco-high-school-murals-painted-over https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisc... Couldnt they just paint over the offending parts of the mural? Sounds more conciliatory

baggy_trough 7y ago

San Francisco school board reveals that it is manifestly unfit to serve in any kind of educational role.

trophycase 7y ago

Busybodies with nothing better to do

gok 7y ago

I think a lot of people here seem to be missing the staggering part of this: the mural is overtly, pointedly anti-slavery, anti-colonialism, anti-George Washington, but it's being destroyed because the school board is claiming it's the opposite.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Yup. I'm not sure if people are missing it, or just got used to it. This isn't the first time an action or proclamation in the name of "social justice" twists reality into a Klein bottle.
makomk 7y ago
It's not just the school board that's claiming that. If you look at the Guardian article, for example, it presents the claim that the mural is pro-slavery and pro-colonialism as simply and indisputably correct, and claims to the contrary as a rebutted error of a few wrong-thinking people: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisco-high-school-murals-painted-over https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/27/san-francisc... Remember, any right-thinking leftwing supporters of social justice wouldn't be caught dead reading or believing an article by right-winger Bari Weiss. Doing so would instantly mark them out as a supporter of the enemy. As far as they're concerned (or at least can admit to in public), it will be the people who think this artwork means what the artist created to mean who are ignoring reality.
ndarwincorn 7y ago
And on top of that they have the gall to call it 'reparations'. Truly Orwellian.
Fins 7y ago
But realizing this about the mural would require being able to see past the immediate thing that is depicted, or, God forbid, doing some research. Neither is something the radical fringe (left or right) feeding on outrage is either interested in or, quite likely, capable of. I wouldn't be too surprised though if SF turns out to be the first place to burn books this century.

giaour 7y ago

Was the mural featured in the article the inspiration for https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camel_(Parks_and_Recreation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camel_(Parks_and_Recreat... ?

krick 7y ago

$600,000 to re-paint a wall? I am too distracted by thinking how can I participate, to argue against "erasing history" and stuff.

rdtsc 7y ago

> unanimous decision on Tuesday night to spend at least $600,000 of taxpayer money not just to shroud a historic work of art but to destroy it. I wonder what they can do for the homeless population with that money. With the numbers they have, probably not much, but it's also not nothing either. > 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.” Thinking back at being an impressionable young person, seeing homeless people on the streets, in pain, yelling at passers by, or defecating in the streets would have been a lot more "hurtful" than seeing a mural. There is nothing wrong to worry about the message a mural sends, but it signals that they've solved all the other problems, and now, with nothing else left to do, to keep busy, they are taking care of repainting murals. It just doesn't make them look very competent.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

It's a friggin high school. For people aged 14-18. They can not only deal with such content, they can actually learn from it. (Isn't high-school curriculum full of literature that could be more disturbing anyway?) It all sounds like a stupid exercise in virtue signalling at the cost of $600k to taxpayers + loss of a historical artifact + setting a dangerous precedent.

Fins 7y ago
It's a high school in frigging San Francisco. Leaving around anything that might make kids actually think for themselves rather than toeing the party line is quite obviously unacceptable and must be destroyed at all costs.

krick 7y ago

Seriously, though, this pisses me off much more than 600k and appalling 1984-ishness of the act: > And yet many of the school’s actual students seemed to disagree. Of 49 freshmen asked to write about the murals, according to The Times, only four supported their removal. I mean, these are the only people who's opinion on the school exterior should actually count.

apo 7y ago

> 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.” There's enough horror in American history, and depictions of them, to keep these committees busy for a long time. Washington, Jefferson, the confederacy, westward expansion, and slavery were not very controversial historical topics just 60 years ago. Think about all of the events/figures likely to offend at least one vocal group maybe not now, but in the future: - Andrew Jackson (purveyor of genocide) - Theorore Roosevelt (bloodthirsty militarist) - WWI (unjust war) - Transcontinental railroad (genocide's superhighway) - Texas war of independence (slavery) - Moon landing (cold war publicity stunt) - The Manhattan Project (America's WMD program) - Albert Einstein and FDR (for kickstarting the world's nuclear nightmare) - Lyndon Johnson (genocidal maniac) - George W Bush (bloodthirsty militarist and torturer) - Barack Obama (architect of America's robotic warfare system) - Donald Trump (basically everything he ever did) - The Republican Party (for supporting Donald Trump) Some of these events/figures seem like a stretch. Maybe they are, but a lot can change in 60 years. The point is that we now have ample evidence for very vocal groups calling for, and getting action on, suppression of vast swaths of American history in the form of artwork and symbols.

tlear 7y ago

Story of the author is quite interesting. Fought against the reds, then became one. This criticism of US was created as communists in USSR were in process of murdering millions. He did not have much to say about that. In fact he went back to USSR in 1960s If he was in any way useful he would have been recruited in 30s, but I guess NKVD did not think him to be of any consequence. It is absolutely hilarious that his ideological descendants are now destroying his work. He would get it quite well, after all Soviets wiped as much culture as they could that preceded them. Blew up churches and all that good stuff. I wonder when SF will get to that stage, they are basically there now, just couple more steps. San Francisco not even once.

povertyworld 7y ago

Apparently this isn't the first time people have attempted to destroy these murals. The first time was in 1966. https://archive.org/details/communitymuralsp00barnrich/page/150 https://archive.org/details/communitymuralsp00barnrich/page/...

fdye 7y ago

So here is an idea, why don't they ask the SFMOMA experts if there is any way to remove the entire wall and donate it to their collection? I have seen Banksy pieces where they cutout the entire external wall an office building and displayed it in an art gallery for sale (granted not this large). Seems like a win win, the school district gets the mural down and a new wall to paint however they like. SF MOMA gets a critical piece in their collection and I'm sure all the controversy will spike its total worth. Granted cost would probably be substantially more, but perhaps the SF MOMA can help with that since they have a large endowment and would be receiving the piece.

LocalH 7y ago
It appears that the explicit desire is to destroy the work. I think they will resist any efforts that don't result in the work's complete destruction.

nec4b 7y ago

Reminds me of Buddhas of Bamyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban, who probably didn't realize that they have same minded allies in SF school board.

m0llusk 7y ago
That is really a stretch. The Buddhas were large sculptures that were present for a long time and had deep religious meaning. San Francisco has a great many murals from the 20s through the 40s and often finds them in the way of remodeling or rebuilding of structures. Maybe after a few hundred years of adoration these works might compete, but as it stands they are large, misunderstood, and largely unloved. The driving need to misinterpret and destroy art is disturbing, but the history lost in this case is less than a hundred years of modest impact.
- nec4b 7y ago
  They both want do destroy (not remove) art for ideological reason. This is not a an artistic value judgement. Anyway i feel sorry for kids that have no choice but to visit that school or live in a place where they form revolutionary committees whose job is to destroy non conformant art. I think we had enough of that in history.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    On the bright side, the children have had a front row seat to an important lesson about society. But I wonder how many were truly paying attention. Almost 15 years ago I saw a similar situation unfold in Dover PA. I know at least some of the kids in that school district learned from the dumb shit those adults were up to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_Schoo...
    - nec4b 7y ago
      I sincerely hope that they do learn and when they do, they do not give up.

pyuser583 7y ago

This is straight out of Parks and Rec. https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Pawnee_City_Hall https://parksandrecreation.fandom.com/wiki/Pawnee_City_Hall

lorcan 7y ago

The left has become like the Taliban or ISIS. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-n315451 https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-n315451

archagon 7y ago
Don’t be stupid.
- threezero 7y ago
  That’s pretty rude.
  - archagon 7y ago
    Comparing the left to ISIS seems pretty obnoxiously rude to me.
    - threezero 7y ago
      I think they were comparing the fact that both ISIS and the people in this article (leftists) were bent on destroying art that they didn’t like. And you were directly rude to that person.
    - LocalH 7y ago
      Plenty of people on the left compare the right to Nazism, which is equally obnoxious and rude. Not saying you did, but those types of generalizations aren't really conducive to proper discussion.

nullwasamistake 7y ago

This reminds me of the destruction of Confederate statues recently. We lament ISIS destroying historical sites they don't agree with, then we do the same thing. There's nothing to be gained from erasing history. Those that suggest it are just a different flavor of fascists

mnm1 7y ago

> 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.” And there I was, a naive idiot who thinks that schools are about learning. I guess we have given up that concept completely now as a nation and embrace schools simply as glorified babysitters. It sure shows in our nation's stupidity and hate of anything intellectual. And we still have ambitions to colonize the moon or even Mars while most of our citizens can barely afford food and shelter and the country is quickly turning from developed to developing. Of course we are a nation of dumbasses if the people teaching our kids are this dumb and anti-intellectual. Let's arm these idiots while we're at it so we can get a glimpse of the amazing future America has with this kind of "education."

archagon 7y ago

I hate that articles like this get posted to HN just for people to feel outraged. On the order of nobody here has heard of this mural before today. I guess this sucks. I wish the mural went to a museum instead. There are more important things to care about.

js2 7y ago

This piece isn’t argued in even remotely good faith. Among other things, I don’t know why the writer tries to drag one of the current presidential candidates into it. In any case, here’s a piece which seems to stick to the facts. Form your own opinion. https://richmondsfblog.com/2019/04/09/historic-wpa-murals-at-george-washington-high-school-are-facing-destruction-due-to-controversial-depictions-of-native-americans-and-african-americans/ https://richmondsfblog.com/2019/04/09/historic-wpa-murals-at...

pyman 7y ago

Article behind paywall wtf

ohiovr 7y ago

Were there protests when it was originally completed or were people more able to accept social commentary then vrs now? High school was considered a place of higher learning. But now they dislike any kind of critical thinking. The school board should not white wash history. They should enforce the teaching of it.

andy-x 7y ago

And don't forget to burn the books.