Extra-mural studies: why students should not look away from uncomfortable art

The case of George Washington high school in San Francisco is mirrored by the covering of harsh images in Harlem. But such images must be seen

Even urging a “truer history”, Paloma Flores, a member of California’s Pitt River tribe, questions the validity of showing an image of a murdered Native American. She’s disturbed by the message of a mural at George Washington high school in San Francisco, where she works, that has been in place for 84 years.

Related: A school’s mural removal: should kids be shielded from brutal US history?

Washington and Jefferson, like most of the founding fathers, were complicated people with contradictory outlooks

Exploitation of Labor and Hoarding of Wealth is an unvarnished and now deteriorating version of America the Beautiful

Related: Never mind the quality, feel the ‘woke’ – Green Book, The New Negro and white guilt

I knew how to respond to it … But why would we believe that young minds are expected to discern better? Washington high’s murals are disturbing and they do have dire consequences … I learned a lot, to be honest, from the artist’s perspective, but how are we to talk of what one’s intent or perspective would have been if that person’s not present? … It’s all interpretation, and even with the best intention, harm can be done …

Michael Henry Adams is an architectural-cultural historian and historic preservation activist who lives in, lectures on and conducts tours of Harlem. He is the author of Harlem, Lost and Found: An Architectural and Social history, 1765-1915 and the forthcoming Homo Harlem: and Gay Life in the African American Cultural Capital, 1915-1995

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