A San Francisco school board’s decision to spend $600,000 to paint over a George Washington mural depicting the founding father as a slave owner is causing a feud among Democrats, with some who say moves like this are the reason President Donald Trump could win re-election in 2020.
“I think of myself as liberal, progressive, and have been all my life— but I’m just sort of stunned by this,’’ veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum tweeted Sunday. “We have a little more important things to do— like defeating Donald Trump — than to whitewash a mural.”
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown noted in a recent column that the protesters against the mural are “clearly traumatized” and “no different” from most of “President Trump’s supporters.”
“They’re clearly traumatized by something,’’ he wrote. “They’d be horrified by the comparison, but they’re really no different from the most boorish of President Trump’s supporters.”
Democratic strategist Mike Semler— an adviser to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)— took his anger about the mural and turned it into action.
He sent out a broadcasted email alert seeking enough support from people to back a ballot measure called the Coalition to Protect Public Art to save the mural. The measure would set aside public funding for the mural to protect its destruction.
San Francisco’s board of education voted unanimously in June to paint over 13 panels of a historic New Deal-era mural at George Washington High School depicting President George Washington as a slave owner after several protesters condemned its portrayal of dead Native Americans and slaves.
“This is reparations,” Sanchez told KQED when asked about why the school decided to cover the mural with paneling.
The high school’s “Life of Washington” mural was created in 1936 by Stanford University art professor Victor Arnautoff, a Communist and a painter who considered Mexican muralist Diego Rivera as his contemporary.
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