Some students and teachers from American educational institutions claim that murals on the walls of high schools should be whitewashed. Several schools in the United States are already in the process of removing paintings since they depict horrible truths about the history of the country, such as slavery and genocide. However, it is essential to keep the murals as a means of learning history and preserving art.
High schools claim that minority students and their parents are being emotionally affected by the degrading images. Various murals, portraying the life experience of George Washington, depict the scenes of slaves working on the fields of his Mount Vernon (Smith, 2019). Besides, several paintings show dead Native Americans, which upsets the feelings of emotionally unstable students (Smith, 2019). For this reason, their parents claim that their children’s reactions should be taken into account.
Nevertheless, it is crucial to understand that murals are a vital heritage of American history and should be perceived as a work of art. As mentioned by Smith (2019), in a democracy, it is unacceptable to destroy the creation of art even if it contributes to the appearance of negative emotions. Murals portray the reality of those times, and they remind about the problematic history of American society. Besides, students cannot state that they know everything about art and that the murals should be removed. Instead, they need to accept that opinions about art are a continual stream and that the best paintings should include various interpretations.
Overall, even though some murals can encourage the emergence of undesirable emotions, they should be kept on the walls of high schools. They are a form of art, and art should never be destroyed. People have to learn to live in harmony with their history and recreate it with the help of murals.
References
Smith, R. (2019). The case for keeping San Francisco’s disputed George Washington murals. The New York Times. Web.