There is a public high school (secondary school) in San Francisco that is named for George Washington. A stairway therein features a large and IMO rather poorly painted mural executed by a Soviet Communist artist during the WPA period of FDR's attempt to spend the US out of the Great Depression. It is reminiscent of Orozco or Diego Rivera in a sadly inferior way. It focuses on the real or imagined defects of Washington's character and life. Some of it is nonsense. An example is the bit that shows Washington sending colonials to the West to settle the land over the bodies of slain aboriginals. Someone provide me a citation for G. Washington having created a program for that. The Left in San Francisco are divided over the issue of eradicating the mural. A white woman with a child of color screamed in a meeting at those who opposed her when she said that her child is traumatized by seeing the mural with its reminders of cruelty (irony) to people of color. Others want the mural to remain visible as a reminder of America's Original Sin (irony). Willy Brown, the former African American (AA) mayor of San Francisco is one of those. Brown himself is ironic in his insistence on his life of political oppression.
Pilgrims, Washington owned slaves. Slavery was a bad thing, much worse than living in Africa would have been (irony). Does this not make Washington a bad man (irony)?
If you peruse the lists below you will see that the evil (irony) descendants of the evil men (irony) who created the US named a multitude of places for the evil (irony) George Washington.
And then sadly, so many people of color bear the surname of the evil (irony) Washington. Actually I can recall having met only one White (evil) person with the surname Washington. But, sadly, senility (evil) may account for that.
Surely the memory of this evil (irony) man should be erased from any mention other than a list of history's villains (irony)
We should begin with the names of the state of Washington and the District of Columbia. Suitable names could be devised from among the stars in the pantheon of heroes revered by the Left. We could then proceed to eradicate the tyrant's (irony) name from American memory wherever it rears its unlovely head. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_and_slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(name)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memorials_to_George_Washington
Col. Lang
This is how the City Council of Berkeley spends their time. On identity politics rather than solve pressing issues like the vast homeless encampments or the poor quality of roads and other infrastructure.
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/17/20698146/berkeley-manhole-changes-name-maintenancehole-gender-neutral
Then of course to burnish their “green” credentials they have voted to ban natural gas.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-becomes-first-U-S-city-to-ban-natural-14102242.php
will they also stop spending 1 dollar bills?
We will have to replace him with someone more suitable to the times. It seems appropriate to ask the question “Shall Trayvon Martin Have a Statue”. It took the British 200 years to erect one to Cromwell. We surely shouldn’t wait that long, expecially since we know just whose lives we value and who should now be our children’s true roll model. I started to write a post to that effect, but never quit got past the writers block.
Pretty sad. Here’s an ex-Lefty’s (Diana Johnstone) take on it: https://www.unz.com/article/the-san-francisco-murals-and-the-suicide-of-the-left/
You can have Che, DC; no more of this ‘Washington DC’ rubbish.
However, that’s only the start when it comes to renaming things, because there is much more to be expunged in the name of progressiveness.
I suggest that a certain A. Ocasio-Cortez should dispense with the name of a degenerate Spanish mass murdering imperialist and rename herself A. Ocasio-Mandela or even A. Ocasio-Luther-King.
That would make a bold statement that she rejects all notions of colonialism, plus would add to her credibility in ways undreamed of.
Not only has the school board voted to destroy, not cover, destroy the paintings in question but the president of the school board and other progressives want to change the school’s name altogether, my alma mater.
I doubt that the students there were interested/noticed/traumatized by the paintings on the wall, high school kids have other things to worry about. This is coming from the parents of a small minority of aggrieved progressives.
I am still frustrated and baffled by the fact that they can’t seem to see the implications of destroying art. Totalitarians destroy art, but I guess I’m just not sensitive enough to plights of the youth of today.
They may not be an Orozco or Rivera but they are beautiful and I enjoyed seeing them throughout high school.
Here’s some info about Pres. George among the Indians. He offered them a deal they couldn’t refuse..
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2018/08/02/george-washingtons-tortuous-relationship-native-americans/ideas/essay/
Washington was a maternal relative. A great uncle X I forget how many generations. His mother, Mary Ball, was produced by my direct ancestors (my mother’s maiden name was Ball). The Ball family owned slaves too. When I was a boy my grandfather’s land near Weems, VA still had falling down shacks that I was told used to be slave quarters. I guess I am the fruit of an evil tree and should be erased too? Or perhaps turned into a slave who’s remaining life work will be to solely to earn money to pay restitution. Of course I work for an evil capitalist healthcare insurance company. So I don’t know if anyone would take my tainted money and I will be unemployed anyhow if one of the lefties wins the election and his or her way. Thus I think I should just be shot after suffering re-educated on the People’s Potato Farm.
No! I’m not a liberal. I don’t hate myself and my culture. Screw these people. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile – and they’re crazy power seekers. I won’t allow anyone to be my slave and. Since I count as much as anyone else, I refuse to be anyone’s slave; even if the chains are to be made of guilt and fear instead of iron.
The mural should stay on principle alone.
I first read about this over at the Naked Capitalism blog. The operating consensus among the bloggers and commenters came to “leave the mural undisturbed”.
Most people noted that it was not even an “aggrieved” group of parents and/or students who complained about the mural. It was the power-mad school board all on its own, deciding this just to show they have the power to do so.
A lot of commenters compared the San Francisco School Board to Nazi Book Burners, and in spirit that is exactly correct. A lot of commenters considered this vote to BookBurn the mural to be evil in principle, and also a sinister attack on our New Deal Era heritage of public art works in public places.
When viewed from up close, there are several lefts. There is the Western Orthodox Church of Marx Communist left and its many sects, branches and offshoots. Among the non-Marxist remains, there is a relatively small almost vestigial PE ( Political Economy) left which Sanders represents. And there is a relatively large, overbearing and dominant COW ( Coalition Of Wokeness) left represented by the college-campus type Social Justice Warriors
and represented in Democratic Primary 2016 by Clinton.
Sanders and a few lonely others are trying to bring a PE left back into relevant existence. The SJWs and Clinton and etc. are trying to make the COW left the only left left. An early debate between Sanders and Clinton illustrated that oppositional divide perfectly. I don’t have the computer capability at this machine to call up a recording of that debate but I remember it well enough to paraphrase the exchange. Sanders said something like ” we need to break up the Big Banks, Glass them and Steagall them and restore the New Deal era control we had over them to prevent them from creating yet another Crash of 2008 all over again.” And Clinton said something like “if we do that it would not do a THING about RAY! sizzum!”
Sadly, not every acorn gets to be an oak tree. Sooner or later, humanity is going to have to come to terms with reality.
The fact is the Native Americans were screwed over far worse than the African Americans. Without slavery they would be a far smaller percentage of the population. I guess it’s like being the child of a rape. If it hadn’t happened, it’s doubtful there would be more Africans today, so the benefits far outweigh the negatives.
“An example is the bit that shows Washington sending colonials to the West to settle the land over the bodies of slain aboriginals. Someone provide me a citation for G. Washington having created a program for that.”
Washington couldn’t stop the indigenous nations resisting the invasion of their lands so allowed the settler militias/rangers to terrorise a region so the land could be annexed and sold to settlers. The sale of this confiscated land was a primary source of revenue for the new government. See The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814 by John Grenier. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
PRC90,
how about A. Ocasio-Castro? Or A. Ocasio-Lenin?
I am genuinely curious, and the linked Wikipedia article did not have much of an explanation: What was the specific motivation of so many blacks to assume the name “Washington”? To signal US patriotism in a general sense as a freed slave because George Washington was the founder of the nation, even though he owned slaves?
Seems like the freed slaves in the 19th century understood much better than the woke SJWs of today that you cannot judge the actions of historical figures based on moral standards and conventions of today.
cirsium
there you go. What should we call DC?
Reagan DC, like the airport? ( technically , it’s Washington Reagan airport, but that’s not common usage).
Sounds like Millenbeck on the Corrotoman? The Northern Neck: God’s country!
‘Birthplace of Mary Ball Washington.’ By Paula S. Felder for the Freelance Star. Feb. 23, 2009.
https://www.fredericksburg.com/birthplace-of-mary-ball-washington/article_6e9e800
Col…It all sounds like tings I Read in a Manifesto ..That defines Progressive..
While other cities in California are converting their buses and garbage trucks to burn natural gas.
My concern is that some crazed leftist will firebomb Mt Vernon.
Tidewater,
Very close to Millenbeck. As a child and teenager, I spent my summers in Lancaster County. My mother and my Aunt were good friends with the Stephens, who owned the Tides Inn. We had a lot of family and multi-generational friends there. Good times water skiing, sailing and crabbing. My Aunt donated a lot of money to the Mary Ball Washington Museum and helped get the place looking good. There used to be a family tree in the museums foyer with her and my mother’s name included on a branch. My name is supposed to have been to it, but I never checked to see if it happened. If you ever look, it would be the Armenian name (I used a nom de internet here). The last time I was there, in 2012, for a funeral, I was going to look, but for some reason ultimately didn’t. All of that family are resting now around the cove at Christ Church, where I will too when it’s my time.
My brother and I inherited a piece of land right on the river, but it couldn’t be developed due to some strict ordinances pertaining to drainage (perking – sp?). So we sold it to my Aunt, who owned a piece right behind us. She built a nice house there that my cousins, I think, still own and use as a winter get away.
The Prophet and Imam Ali owned slaves.
Conveniently forgotten presently.
and, more recently, there was Pol Pot. Please, let’s un-PC ourselves and get back to normalcy.
My parent’s ashes are buried at Christ Church. Did you know that in the last twenty-five years or so some remarkable things have been happening at ‘Historic Christ Church.’ There is now a museum. It is very well done and there are historic lectures and enthusiastic support from a lot of folks. They are putting Christ Church on the map. It was always there, of course, a sleeper in a quiet and very pleasant river town of Virginia, but the church is, in my view, one of the finest examples of colonial architecture on the east coast of the US that still is standing.
It can be found on Wikipedia as Christ Church (Lancaster County) Virginia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_(Lancaster_County,_Virginia)
Also on google: Historic Christ Church and Museum, located in Weems, VA. I am having trouble linking items. If it fails, please just use google.
https://www.christchurch1735.org/
Swampland, USA
Antoinetta III
And it was these same Culture Revolutionaries who invented the Metric System of Measure in order to destroy all traces of traditional measuring culture. Those people who demand that America go “metric” should remember that about where “metric” came from.
Why not just admit that both populations were screwed, and that the complexity of determining appropriate remedies, and the potential cost of such remedies, have made the problem easier to ignore than to correct. In more recent years we are seeing the same with the Palestinians- with their rights forgotten, ignored, and/or rationalized away.
IMHO, the murals by Arnautoff (and Refregier – at the Rincon Annex) and are worth preserving, whether or not one agrees with their political message or historical narrative. They reflect the discourse of an artistic and political movement that existed at an important time of crisis in our nation – i.e., during the Great Depression. (People forget that the progressive movement was so strong at that time, that even the Republican Tom Dewey was courting the communist vote in the 1930’s when he was running for District Attorney, whether or not he bashed them 15 or 20 years later.) In the same way, it is ludicrous to remove statues of leaders like General Lee and others because they operated under a different set laws or societal norms.
Hi Tidewater,
Yes, I receive the Historic Christ Church news letter. I’m a donor in my will. My mother and Aunt were in on the ground floor. They were a couple of the folks that helped start the renovations back in 70s (late 70s I think it was). That’s when we all got our plots there. My parents, grandparents, Aunt +Uncle are all interred there. As well as a few generations before them.
I was there in 2012 and, yes, the place is looking fantastic. So much history.
btw – Mrs Lang would probably enjoy the wealth of genealogical resources available at the Mary Ball Museum and at Historic Christ Church.
”What should we call DC?”
Greater Israel
What! Babak has come back! That’s wonderful! We’ve needed you, man, and now more than ever!
Yes, and plenty of slave sellers on the African continent and in the new world before 1492. Welcome back, your insights have been missed. .
Sir,
so it should be done, since we all know ‘that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia’.
“Remorseful” DC. sounds a good name that won’t trigger anyone and it sounds like it’s a safe space.
What needs to be done but I think won’t be done, is to confront the past head on. The Germans and Poles have, I think done this at Auschwitz.
However to do this for Washington, Jefferson, etc. doesn’t work for the political agenda of the SJWs. They want breast beating, and reparations (aka money) all to be under their control of course, as they wish to dictate history.
My own, untutored guess is that an objective analysis of the behavior of Jefferson and Washington in the context of their times would show that the objections of the SJWs are baseless. The manufactured outrage would vanish like snow in summer..
Not a good reason not to go metric? Do you also wish to do away with arabic numerals for the same reason? What about Isaac Newton of laws of motion fame? He worked for the Government and tortured people. I guess we could go back to Roman numerals, but they crucified Jesus. Maybe scratches on clay tablets like Egyptians? Oh wait! Moses.
To be fair, once you have learned the AN system for aviation fasteners, sixteenths and thirty seconds of an inch make some sense.
I guess we could also go back to rods, perches, stadions, cubits and ells for measurements if we had to, but I’m not sure they are politically correct either.
Shhh ! No, no. Only the virtuous and pure examples, as I described.
This thread may be a bit old, but if anyone is still interested the school board reversed the vote to destroy the murals and will cover them….for now.