When murals depict traumatic history, schools must decide what stays on the wall – OPB

Part of a nearly century-old mural at George Washington High School in San Francisco.Town DestroyerA mural in George Washington High School in San Francisco has been the subject of a bitter dispute.It includes the life-size image of a dead Native American, as well as a scene of George Washington and the people he enslaved. The city’s Board of Education voted to paint over the mural and later decided to cover it up. After three members of the board were recalled in an acrimonious election, the body rescinded the directive. It’s all chronicled in Town Destroyer, a new documentary streaming through October 16.”The intent of the artist matters to some degree but it’s the impact on the audience that matters just as much if not more,” said Deborah Kaufman, who co-directed the film with Alan Snitow.Jessica Young, a scholar who focuses on memory in the literature of genocide, told the filmmakers that the images in these controversial murals can be traumatizing over time.”The definition of trauma is that it is a repetition,” said Young. “Sometimes [it’s] the outright repetition of the violent event itself, sometimes it’s the way we see something again and again in our mind’s eye. It can seem…
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