On Tuesday night, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Education met to decide on how to address the controversial depictions of African-Americans and Native Americans painted by WPA artist Victor Arnautoff in the Life of George Washington mural series that covers 1,600 square feet of the school’s walls.
Two of the thirteen panels in the mural series have come under fire since the 1960’s for their controversial depictions of African-Americans and Native Americans. In one panel entitled “Mount Vernon”, African-American slaves are depicted working in fields. In another mural entitled ‘Westward Vision”, a dead Indian lies in the foreground of the mural.
Due to the offensive depictions of Native Americans and African-Americans that many feel have no place in a San Francisco school, the Board of Education was weighing three options for how to address the imagery. One option was to leave the murals as is and install educational components to contextualize the artist’s depictions. Another option was to install panels or curtains to cover up the murals, while the third option was to paint over the murals. All three options would apply to the entire mural series, not just the “Mount Vernon” and “Westward Vision” panels.
Passionate pleas from both sides
At Tuesday night’s meeting, roughly 150 people attended, causing an overflow into the lobby of the SFUSD building at 555 Franklin where they could watch the hearing on a screen (including this reporter). One group was there to support leaving the murals intact and visible to public viewing, and advocated for the installation of educational tools to contextualize them. The other group was advocating for “painting down” the mural, and completely removing all of the panels from the school’s walls.
Each side was allowed 30 minutes of public comment period, with a limit of 1 minute per speaker. Both sides were passionate about their arguments for their preferred solution, with preservationists arguing that removing the murals would amount to censorship, and that the school was missing the opportunity to teach students about why Arnautoff, a left-wing, socialist artist had chosen to depict the racist and genocidal aspects of U.S. history in a mural about its first president.
Some that spoke on behalf of preservation were George Washington High School alumni, including teachers, along with art advocates. One woman held a sign saying “Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice” while she spoke in support of preserving the murals. San Francisco State University Professor Robert Cherney, who authored a book about the artist Victor Arnautoff, also testified in support of preservation and demanded that the Board of Education provide an environmental report if they were considering removal of the murals.
Those who called for the mural to be painted over were passionate, emotional and personal. The group included former students of SFUSD high schools like George Washington and Galileo, current and past parents, as well as Asian, Native American and African-American representatives from Bay Area action groups.
Many stated that they felt already marginalized students deserved positive images of themselves in a school environment, rather than ones of their ancestors as victims of slavery and genocide. One 2017 George Washington graduate said “I was never taught the purpose or message of these murals when I was in high school”. Another who spoke summed up the need for action felt by many in the room – “We will bring the paint, we will bring the brushes. It won’t cost you a penny.”
Another speaker compared painting over the murals to making reparations for the groups that had been damaged by the harmful imagery, and the negative impressions and stereotypes they had perpetuated for decades among the school community. “Let’s meet at the dead Indian” was a phrase quoted from a 1960’s newspaper article about the school.
After hearing an hour’s worth of testimony, Board commissioners began deliberating the issue based on the SFUSD Facilities staff recommendation that was made at the meeting: to cover the mural with panels.
While several Board members expressed a desire to paint over the murals, discussion made it clear that the quickest path to removing the offensive artwork from public view was to install panels to cover them up. So while the Board did ultimately vote, unanimously, to paint over the murals, they will most likely cover up the murals initially in the interest of an expedient solution to removing them from public view.
If the Board does pursue painting over the murals, it will require an Environmental Impact Review (EIR), a process that would take a minimum of one year, likely two.
Just covering up the murals is estimated to cost $645,000 – $825,000 depending on the materials and method they employ for the panels. The painting option was costed out at $600,000+ with no upper limit, an amount meant to represent the cost of an environmental review and potential legal defense that might arise from groups who would seek legal action to stop the destruction of the murals.
It was not clear at the meeting how long it would take for panels to be installed over the mural in the school, which covers 1,600 square feet of wall space. The 2019-2020 school year begins on August 19, 2019.
Sarah B.
Thank you for the detailed reporting.
Sad to say, I’m among those offended by people being offended.
Let’s call focussing on the two offensive panels the “fig leaf solution”.
It worked for the popes?
G.W. grad, 1996, and we never found these murals offensive. This is an issue now as a sign of the times and I think its a disgrace that this mural is being covered up, 20 years from now no one will care about this again. Why are we contributing to the vanillafication of our country where anything that may be perceived as remotely offensive must be covered, destroyed, and erased from history. If we are going to these lengths we may as well take the statue down and eliminate all the founding fathers, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, etc… from history make it like they never existed since they all owned slaves and promoted a westward expansion which led to the deaths of Native Americans. Instead, we should be using this as a teaching tool for all out future generations so that these types of acts do not happen again. Humans have done some amazing things on this earth as well as some horrible things to each other and when we are not reminded of those horrible acts, we are setting ourselves up for a repeat of those acts. This is a very short sighted solution by the SFUSD board who caved because a few people think that their feelings are more important than the education of our children. Shame on the School Board for not having a spine and shame on all those with “hurt feelings” who cant deal with the real history of our country. Our neighborhood just became a lot more bland and our kids lost out on a great educational opportunity, but at least your feelings were acknowledged and that’s what’s really matters to you.
Another who spoke summed up the need for action felt by many in the room – “We will bring the paint, we will bring the brushes. It won’t cost you a penny.”
This seems like the best solution — take them up on the offer.
At some point they’ll consider teaching History to be offensive.
Uncomfortable history? Nothing to see here kids, now move along…
Poll every Single student at wash right now, I guarantee about 90% do not care. This is just a waste of tax payer dollars, whiny adults causing a problem trying to pretend students are offended when they are.
I don’t think that this is just an isolated occurrence. There seems to be a concerted effort underway in this nation to try to keep young people ignorant of their history and western cultural heritage. One can speculate about the motives for all of this, or who is behind it, but it obviously goes way beyond just the San Francisco Board of Education. All over the country historical artifacts are destroyed, art is censored and famed individuals from the past are “purged” from memory, always using specious arguments for justification, and always by unanimous vote. It is reminiscent of what went on in the earlier years of the former Soviet Union. As Fergus Bordewich of the Wall Street Journal observed in an April 26 Commentary about the GWHS mural controversy:
“It’s not the business of democracies but of tyrannies to airbrush people from history or, in San Francisco’s case, to obscure the savage repression of blacks and Native Americans. The censors’ intentions—good, bad or ignorant—are almost beside the point.”
Is the United States headed the same way as the Soviet Union?
Even if only 1 student experiences this mural as a microaggression, we should be considerate of their feelings and take it down. There is more to lose by keeping it up than there is to gain.
because someone wasnt taught what the murals represented is not the fault of the artist or the art…it is the fault of the former school administration and board of education…so i demand that they be painted over…not the mural
and those who spoke out for painting over the mural may be passionate…but their passion comes from ignorance and they too should be painted over
Should censorship prevail if an artist’s imagery in a historic fresco mural causes distress in some individuals? Is it perhaps in the eye of the beholder who yet understands the mural’s message? If the logic to abolish displeasure is applied to other instances in which student encounter distress should polynomial equations be removed from Algebra or Chemistry tossed from the curriculum? Honestly, consider the vast array of visual and aural media young people are intentionally marketed, gravitate towards, and exposed to everyday.
Destroying the mural doesn’t correct the egregious legacy of injustices and oppression that is our nation’s history. Destroying or hiding the mural capitulates to trends of ‘diminished expectations’ for students entering a world that’s always been messy and full of ambivalences and contradictions. Where does ‘meeting in the middle’ end up if the scope and range of ideas and issues aren’t exposed and analyzed fully for what they are?
In an educational setting, if ideas, actions or art that make people uncomfortable are censored, where is intellectual, emotional and social resilience supposed to germinate?
What kind of society does this lead to?
what kind of society does this lead to?
one that bans vape cigs but allows public shooting galleries
If you buy into the concept of Micro-Aggression then the inevitable outcome is that anything that generates such aggression must be removed, destroyed, and disposed of.
I for one do not believe in it. From the trauma of birth to death we all have to deal with things that are not pleasant on the one end of the spectrum to things that are down right terrifying on the other.
Just like the body “learning” from an invading organism to put up a fight against it in the future, our micro aggression exposure gives us the tools to take on what may come in life.
What the school board is doing is setting the stage for young people to think they can get through life without having to fight and struggle. That is the world of Magical Thinking.
There is a 50-50 chance that in the lifetime of the current crop of High School Students that the challenges of the world will become serious. It is possible that changes in both the climate and political systems around the world could lead to large scale social conflict over food and regional or world wars over it. The perfect storm of food shortages and authoritarian societies is converging— for anyone who is looking ahead with a clear head.
The school board is ducking its real responsibility which is to prepare the children for a world which can be unfair, ugly and a dangerous place.
The school boards “Normalcy Bias” seems to be worrying about the kids “feeling” disrespected by looking at a painting by a socialist radical showing the truth in what was at the time a white wash of history. All in the face of what is likely coming in their future. Like most Generals preparing for war, the school board is preparing these kids to fight the last problem, not the one that is coming.
How ironic will it be when the coddling of these kids comes home to roost and they are not mentally prepared to withstand real hardship while fighting for their children’s and grand children’s life when crops fail due to global weather changes in a few decades.
The ability to coddle children was aberration of history in the later half of the 20th century. Not available to the masses before that and likely to be able to be done again for a long time.
Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Purple, Green, Red and the rest need to realize that we are genetically 99.99 percent the same. History is not about white people against others. It is, and always was, about one group trying to extract resources from another group. That is the lesson of the murals and one these kids need to learn now or face the consequences.
#1 That mural is poorly done. Its really an eyesore regardless the subject matter. I have seen many school murals, this is poorly rendered and really doesn’t have anything to do with the actual school. As an artist, this just doesn’t do anything for me.
#2 The subject matter is grim. White settlers with white horses grasping phallic objects abound and struggling to raise a truncated flagpole. The indians are portrayed as beasts of burden, dead or lazy, and blacks are uncle toms or slaves in the act of being sold. White gangs are brandishing firearms and look to be preparing to wipe out an indian village. The mural is women free.
#3 The mural depicts the worst aspects of early american culture. While this shouldn’y be swept under the rug, the mural magnifies and glorifies it. This is what you choose to study or not, something to be discussed in history class, not something forced on every student in the school.
How about a mural depicting the act of procreation and the development of the fetus to baby? This would arguably be more constructive, to show human cooperation and the mystery of life. The school has a class on human biology it but its not appropriate to force the entire student body to view a pile of guts or nudity when they are simply trying to get from class to cafeteria.
So yeah the mural is a pile of garbage, an embarrassment to all involved.
#4 Give me $5,000 and I will paint it over. Anything over 10g to paint a wall is a scam for sure.
#5 Better yet have the students design several different murals and let them paint them over this monument to mans swinging d!ck.
They will do it for free and gain some actual skills useful in the real world, and they will have bettered their environment.
herman’s dog
your statements dont fit what the artist intended
you are the right to your own opinions…but not your own facts
and its clear that you are another “i wanna control women anti-abortion wingnut”…so im 100 percent sure that you dont live in sf and are not an alum of the sf school system…so begone
Kovacs…
#1 Its Herriman’s dog. Apparently you are not a Krazy Kat fan.
#2 What does the artist intend?
#3 I have my facts and opinions, and its a fact that the mural depicts…
White settlers with white horses grasping phallic objects and struggling to raise a truncated flagpole. The indians are portrayed as beasts of burden, dead or lazy, and blacks are uncle toms or slaves in the act of being sold. White gangs are brandishing firearms and look to be preparing to wipe out an indian village. The mural is women free.
These are the images, its a fact. My opinion is that these images show white people in control of non whites based on the facts. The mural may appeal to whites who are in control but not to any people(white black indian) who are being controlled.
#4 There’s no way you could determine my opinion on womens abortion from this post or any other post I have made. This is an example of your narrow prejudging mentality.
#5 Guess what…I printed t-shirts with “US out of our uterus” back in the 90’s.
25 years later I still support womens right to choose.
#6 Born and partially raised in SF. Where I live now doesn’t change the fact that its an old eyesore of a mural, except for those who embrace its white power themes while ignoring its artistic stylistic and technical shortcomings.
im a huge crazy kat fan…but i could care less what your nick is referring to. you dont seem to care what the artist’s intent was. i would suggest you google Victor Arnautoff.
the scenes do not glorify slavery or the slaughter of native americans in the name of manifest destiny…they note the reality of the founding of the country and its expansion.
you do know the school is named after our first president…right?
would you prefer murals that ignore the darker aspects of our history?
in my opinion, a mural should be added showing how this city treated its chinese citizens…and one showing what the city looked like before the western addition.
i dont know how long you lived in the city or when you went to school, but i attended sf schools at a time when we were given a version of us history that wasnt based on fact…and the point of these murals was to expose the kids attending washington that what they were learning was a whitewashed version of history
and i have no idea what phallic symbols you are referring to..
Can’t paint over history. And as stated by an earlier reply… Yes, we are dumbing down the next generation. Our forefathers learned Latin and Greek, and did not have to take 12 years. That included their college years also.
Grow up Herriman’s Dog, or at least do what everyone else here had the guts to do when putting forward your argument, and that is, use your REAL NAME you cowardly, make-up-your-own-facts, know-it-all.
As you still have no clue about what Victor Arnautoff’s intentions were, I suggest you go check out the murals at Coit Tower before they paint over those as well.
I posted a satirical comment illustrating the absurdity of silencing people on the basis of someone’s feelings and my comment was removed. What a world!