It’s time to revisit the Washington Murals debate.
I firmly stand behind my vote to paint down the Life of Washington Murals. I don’t need white (and Asian) alumni, many of whom graduated from the school before it was even integrated as a result of Brown v. Board of Education, to tell me what those murals represent.
The Black children and families that walk into the school each day seeing their ancestors picking cotton and kneeling before a slave master, know what those paintings represent. Native American and Indigenous children and families don’t need false histories of scalping and “Indian attacks” and true histories of “Dead Indians” to know what those paintings represent. That history is a part of them.
As Caroline Randall Williams states in her NY Times article titled “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument”:
“My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate.”— Caroline Randall Williams
When I voted to paint over the Life of Washington Murals, I did so because I know what it feels like to see your history marginalized and erased. I know CONTINUE READING: It's time to revisit the Washington Murals debate. - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM
