As for the lawsuit: "The case turns on language in the federal law that says artists can seek to prevent modification of their work if the change would harm their 'honor or reputation.' The law school says that covering the murals, even permanently, is not a modification if it leaves no mark."
The murals are, of course, anti-slavery, but they are intended to make viewers feel bad. Should the students have more control over when they need to think about disturbing things? It's one thing to teach about slavery, another to have a big slavery mural always on view. But it seemed like a good idea to the people in power at the law school in 1993.
A second-year student, Yanni DeCastro said, "If someone is saying to you, 'How you’re depicting me is racist,' for you to live in your own ignorance, and further aggravate the situation — now you’re showing us who you are."
"Live in your own ignorance" — it's what we all do, one way or another.
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46 comments:
Should the students have more control over when they need to think about disturbing things?
Nope. There’s a word for it: “education “
Why do law schools attract such nuts?
Will Rogers said it well: Everybody is ignorant---only on different subjects."
""Live in your own ignorance" — it's what we all do, one way or another."
That's nice as a philosophical insight, but not relevant to the actual political situation: the issue is who has the power to decide what to do about other people's "ignorance." Progs can safely wallow in their own ignorance while tarring non-progs are ignorant racists, as they please.
Would the school be allowed to paint over it? Does the law require them to leave it up forever, or at least until the artist dies? How can the school not have the right to simply not show a work they no longer want to show?
The cookie-cutter, completely predictable, small-minded stupidity of the students aside, I think it would be outrageous of the artist to win this one.
Those students get an A for arrogance and an F for self-awareness. This just in: no one currently alive in the US was a slave or a master under chattel bondage.
The oppression industry chugs along, producing nothing valuable or useful.
The root of "ignorance" is...."ignore"? Don't get it.
Anyway, ignoring the paintings and discussions and what anybody thinks about the whole thing might be "ignorance" but without the pejorative. Good idea, in fact.
"What is real to me..."
She was a slave?
Is the right term here "Heckler's veto"?
"Live in your own ignorance" — it's what we all do, one way or another.
Some of us do so blissfully.
As long as there is a sign that proclaims slavery in the U.S. as a 99% democrat institution, I see nothing wrong with reminding people of the uncomfortable history of the South...
I don't understand the impulse to cancel this kind of art. Obviously, ANY depiction of slavery is going to portray blacks in a way that "reinforces historical stereotypes" and makes them appear "subservient." So the choice is either to depict slavery through art, film, etc., and thus propagate those kinds of negative images, or don't show it at all. It seems to me that, if you're trying to point to slavery in the U.S. as the main reason for racial inequities in the 21st century, you'd want to have as many visual and other reminders of the horrors of slavery as you can possibly get.
"...it's not his history to depict." No one needs permission to paint any subject, talk about any matter, or hold any opinion. The contrary position is simply an attempt to shut down conflicting opinions.
1993 wasn't very long ago either.
Dartmouth College, which was founded as an Indian school, had "Indian murals" in a room off the dining hall. Way back in the 1980s they got covered as politically incorrect. I don't know if they still exist.
The lawsuit should be thrown out. The "obscure federal law" -- The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 -- is mostly applicable to paintings, statues, and other unfixed artworks. Murals are mentioned in the Act, but treated separately, and create much weaker artist rights. Essentially, if the owner informs the artist 90 days in advance that it intends to destroy the mural, the artist may instead remove it at his own expense, if he wants to try to keep it (and if its removal is even possible).
American history isn't yours to represent!
Well, no, this is Black history, not American history.
Sometimes they're different; sometimes Black history IS American history (the only real American hiatory, even).
Anyone pointing out that this is inconsistent and illogical is a racist.
The murals are uglier than a New York City doorway.
Artist Kerson made other paintings depicting the covering up of the murals.
The people in those images who are shown painting over the murals are Black. Those images are reminiscent of racist propaganda that has been used in the past.
Mr. Kerson looks to be somewhat bitter and disappointed that African Americans do not appreciate his paternalism.
Also, he makes giant puppets, so, he deserves whatever he gets.
Pro-Choice, Inclusive, and Equitable (PIE)
Sounds like the propaganda is past its pull date.
"She was a slave?"
I'm guessing she's no slav.
They should paint over it because it's hideous crap.
What if the artist is Roald Dahl and it's his own descendant changing the work and damaging his reputation? Who sues then?
Should the students have more control over when they need to think about disturbing things?
I am confused over what the disturbing part of the mural is - that blacks were slaves in America? That Vermonters contributed to blacks being slaves in America? That the slaveowner with a whip in one hand appears to have a pistol in the other pointed directly at the viewer? That the mural suggests that current Vermont Law students are morally guilty despite having been born more than 100 years after the end of slavery to a state that came out against slavery upon joining the country and having never had slaves? That someone subjectively thinks the slaves' eyes appear "surprised?" That the artist was (presumably) white?
"If someone is saying to you, 'How you’re depicting me is racist,' for you to live in your own ignorance, and further aggravate the situation — now you’re showing us who you are."
Said by a black or white person?
Can Yanni DeCastro be thrown out of the law school for arrogance stupidity? I am absolutely 100% certain that this student is not, in fact, depicted in that mural.
Unknown said...I don't understand the impulse to cancel this kind of art. Obviously, ANY depiction of slavery is going to portray blacks in a way that "reinforces historical stereotypes" and makes them appear "subservient.
Uh, it's called doublethink, sweety.
This group is simultaneously the most oppressed, most downtrodden, most victimized group to have ever existed AND the greatest, most accomplished, most respected group so any depiction counter to that is self-evidently racist (even, or especially, if that depiction is historically accurate).
Maybe downtown Madison can plywood the murals to small shop owner's windows to replace the George Floyd "art of terror and submission."
There are things that have been done ...
That are so horrible ...
That we must never forget ...
Lest we do them again.
Never forget.
But we will.
Forget.
And do them again.
"The artist was depicting history, but it’s not his history to depict."
But art is supposed to be transgressive.
Even murals that depict some green-skinned Orions lording over some other unknown dark-skinned humanoid species.
"Will Rogers said it well: Everybody is ignorant---only on different subjects."
Or, as the band Sparks sang back in the 70s, "Everybody's stupid, that's for sure!"
The murals are, of course, anti-slavery, but they are intended to make viewers feel bad.
Normally, I would expect the intent of an "anti-X" work of art be to arouse the ire of the viewer to be against "X", not make them feel bad. If it was intended to make them feel bad, I would consider that primarily agitprop, not art.
So, no empathy, no sympathy?
No dignity. No agency. No equality. Only diversity [dogma]? Class-disordered ideologies?
Only Hutu vs Tutsi. Only Xhosa vs Zulu. Only elite vs deplorables. Only albinophobia. Only transhumanity. Only Choice.
Would removing the mural offend masochists? Or Sadists? And what colors are their stripes on the flag?
You have a right to be offended. I'm offended by many things. I was offended today as three of my students showed off and compared their $300 dollar shoes. I am offended that they would spend their money that way, and even more offended they would then wear them to school.
What you do not have is a right to not be offended. I don't have the right to ban $300 tennis shoes, no matter how good an idea it is.
That said, the school has the right to do what it wants with the mural, and the student has the right to advocate for a preferred outcome.
Do those murals accurately depict that the slavers were Democrat? Joe Biden's recent ramble about lynching still being on the minds of Americans reflects the effects his "mentor", Robert Byrd, had on his democrat roots.
Law school argument is bogus. If it permanently obscures the art, that is de facto destruction —certainly it is de facto abandonment— and should trigger the artist’s statutory right to remove the art (if possible and promptly).
Law school is also foolish and cowardly to cave to whatever half-wits are demanding that their precious consciousness be shielded from these shocking depictions. How can the half-wits stand to live in a world where anybody, anywhere, might harbor (or God forbid, express) a thought unapproved by the half-wits?
Instead of getting rid of the murals, the school should use them as a centerpiece in its application process. Every candidate must visit the school, study the murals (and their lengthening history) and produce a 5,000 word essay on the issues presented —issues such as who “owns” history, who is empowered to control (or overwrite) an historical narrative, whose competing interests need recognition, in what forum can these interests be arbitrated, what is the boundary between art and actionable assault, how and when does art violate that boundary, are any of these decisions binding on later generations, and are you —you pretentious child— even remotely ready for law school?
She says, "What is real to me is a painting to you. The artist was depicting history, but it’s not his history to depict."
No, honey, it is NOT real to you. It is a painting to you just as it is to everyone else. Even if some slave could be brought to life, it would not be real to him either, it would still be a painting. And likely that slave would tell you, "Honey, it is not real at all. No one can tell you better than I can." As to who gets to depict history, no one writes about "his" history. Unless he's writing an autobiography. History is not anyone's. And so it is anyone's to depict. Any history at all is anyone's to depict. What a solopsistic dead-end world you have to inhabit to think otherwise.
I agree with the student. Who wants to see a bunch of blacks painted on the wall every day?
The Simon LeGree character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is what probably caused the abolitionists to go to war behind Lincoln. But southern black Americans DO NOT want that told what actually happened to their ancestors. Those historic events wounds their pride, I suppose because they were ever so weak that they could have been treated like that. Even the mostly true movie Driving Miss Daisy highly offends southern blacks. It’s Taboo.
The art sucks, but the murals offend students because of the stereotype images of Africans. Have they ever seen actural African art from say Africa? It's cartoonish in the same manner. I see nothing that is historicaly not true in the Sam Kerson murals.
On the other hand the José Clemente Orozco's murals are revered. They also look cartoonish and stereotypical. Probably because he made his living as a newspaer cartoonist.
Why are murals of the 20th cencury cartoonish?
At times like these I wonder what it must be like to be Greek, raised in Greece. We have difficulty with just a few hundred years of our history; what must it be like to have thousands of years of history and be surrounded by people(s) who did you wrong during that time?
We have a fantastic guide during a trip to the Peloponnese a few years ago, former Greek Special Forces. On our travels, we passed through Sparta, where his family was from, and when I saw "was from," I mean as far back as, you know, Spartans vs Athenians. He had married an Athenian woman and it had bemused his family greatly.
We stopped at a statue of Leonidas and he told our kids the story. They're already-extant crushes on him became almost embarrassingly obvious.
Said Maia Young, a second-year student
Stopped reading there.
To say history is not yours to depict is anti-humanity. Things like this and people who use the phrase "the wrong side of history" make me grit my teeth.
I went to VLS back when the school's main objective was to provide students with a good solid legal education. The goal now is to crank out woke activists. So sad.
I have GOT to wear my readers when commenting here!
“We need to stop protecting white fragility,” said another student, Anisa
Rodriguez, from Orange, N.J.
I find myself interpreting accusations of "white fragility" to be symptoms of "Black fragility" or whatever type of fragility might apply to the speaker.
Another intellectually useless term from the hallowed halls of wokeness...
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