A rigorous night course in the humanities at a community center in the…
Town Destroyer
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- Cataloging
- Transcript
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Town Destroyer explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: slaveowner, general, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called "Town Destroyer" after he ordered their villages destroyed during the Revolutionary War.
The murals, at San Francisco's George Washington High School, were painted in 1936 by leftwing artist Victor Arnautoff, a student of Diego Rivera. The murals both praise Washington and—rare for the time—critically depict him overseeing his slaves and directing the bloody seizure of Native lands. Most controversial is a provocative image of a dead Indian—life-size, eye-level, and at the center of the school.
Opponents of the murals, led by Native American parents, demand the School Board order them painted over. For them, the murals' graphic depictions of slavery and genocide are racist and harm students, Native students in particular. Defenders of the murals warn of the dangers of censoring priceless works of art, and urge the Board to `teach the murals.' Heated debates spill into the community and make national headlines. The fight—taking place in the wake of battles over Confederate monuments across the U.S.—becomes a catalyst for a national discussion about censorship, reparations, generational trauma, the ways in which America's history of genocide and slavery is taught and memorialized, and the differences between monuments built to further white supremacy and art that critiques racism.
How should a changing society deal with controversial works of art? Do the intentions of the artist matter? or just the impact on viewers? Is it censorship to destroy murals that show painful histories? What does our country owe people who have been historically wronged?
On our journey we meet with art curators Rick West Jr. (Cheyenne) and Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), artists Dewey Crumpler and Judith Lowry (Maidu-Pit River), UCLA Historian Robin D.G. Kelley, and others who speak to the difficulty and imperatives of listening to each other.
"Town Destroyer prompts a critical examination of the role and limits of provocation in art, especially in regards to who provokes whom." —Jonathan Cordero, Exec. Director, Assn. of Ramaytush Ohlone, the original peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula
"The response was fantastic in my 1930s American cultural history class. I actually had another topic planned for the third hour of class, but we skipped that entirely so we could continue the conversation sparked by the film. These were art school students very attuned to social issues, but they had never learned much about Native American history, especially from a non-white supremacist standpoint." —Kara Heitz, Dept. of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute
"An important contribution towards understanding contemporary generational perspective in relation to Native lived experiences, art, histories, and education." —John-Carlos Parea, Chair, American Indian Studies, San Francisco State University
"Town Destroyer stimulated one of the most engaging discussions we have had among the students in my course on modern American cultural history. The film helped them to articulate their own disparate views on controversial art and to respectfully discuss challenging issues of inclusion and diversity." —Kathy Peiss, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History, University of Pennsylvania
"Victor Arnautoff’s breathtaking masterpiece of muralism is illuminated in this thoughtful, balanced, and insightful film.” —Susan Kelk Cervantes, Founding Director, Precita Eyes Muralists Association
"Snitow and Kaufman are splendid, deeply thoughtful documentary filmmakers, and their film Town Destroyer about San Francisco's Washington High School murals is a work of real importance. At the heart of the film about the high school controversy are issues as pertinent - and complex - as artistic freedom, the politics of trauma, and the wages of historical accuracy. The discussion it inspired was spirited, memorable, and wonderfully congenial." —Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford University
"Town Destroyer makes you stop and think - which is a brave and even dangerous thing to do in today's America." —David Talbot, New York Times best-selling author of The Season of the Witch
"Fiery, Nuanced, Remarkable. Town Destroyer sheds new light on our first president. It also illuminates a work of art that roiled the city and the nation." —San Francisco Examiner
"Not to be missed." —San Francisco Chronicle
"A fascinating overview of a case that encapsulates many of the bitterest divisions of our era. After seeing the film, you will be jonesing to see Arnautoff's magnum opus in person because it looks quite stunning." —Dennis Harvey, 48 Hills
"A remarkable perceptive, insightful new documentary." —Kelly Vance, East Bay Express
"For a documentary to even-handedly and adroitly cover a complex, painful, and controversial subject requires not only talent, but a clarity of vision and cinematic compassion. Award-winning Bay Area filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman have accomplished just that in their timely Town Destroyer." —C.J. Hirschfield, Eat Drink Films
"A fascinating documentary about the debate between free speech and social justice through the lens of one controversial piece of art." —Raquel Stecher, Quelle Movies
"The fractious debate...is the foundation for a global discourse on what is art, what is history and what is no longer acceptable...[A] thorny and volatile issue." —Randy Myers, The Mercury News
"If you thought you could now talk calmly about Victor Arnautoff and his art, Americans Indians and George Washington, think again. Town Destroyer - an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist film - is likely to stir up all over again fundamental issues about censorship, trauma, genocide and ethnicity...Art can make viewers uncomfortable." —Jonah Raskin, Counterpunch
"A fascinating documentary about the debate between free speech and social justice told through the lens of one controversial piece of art." —Quell Movies
"This is an excellent film, sophisticated and rigorous in its attention to the multiple and deeply-felt perspectives on the Victor Arnautoff murals. With balance and sensitivity, it engages histories of erasure and brutality involving Indigenous, African American, and LatinX communities as well as of Left progressivism, past and present. It leaves viewers with no easy answers and should be of value to educators who seek to spotlight critical issues of art and social justice, public works and historical trauma.” —Steven Garabedian, Associate Professor of History, Marist College, Author, A Sound History: Lawrence Gellert, Black Musical Protest, and White Denial
Citation
Main credits
Snitow, Alan (film director)
Snitow, Alan (film producer)
Kaufman, Deborah (film director)
Kaufman, Deborah (film producer)
Other credits
Edited by Gregory Scharpen; original music by Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi; cinematography, Ulli Bonnekamp [and 5 others].
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
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(pensive instrumental music)
00:00:42.802 --> 00:00:45.552
(birds chirping)
00:00:55.108 --> 00:00:57.941
(kids chattering)
00:01:04.320 --> 00:01:05.940
- [Speaker 1] If you want your murals,
00:01:05.940 --> 00:01:08.070
I say, come and get them.
00:01:08.070 --> 00:01:09.450
We don't want them,
00:01:09.450 --> 00:01:11.040
but you don't own our schools.
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And you don't get to decide
what our kids see and learn.
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(crowd disagrees loudly)
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- [Speaker 2] Over 2,000
students have to go
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to this school every day.
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Students should never have to hear
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"I'll meet you at the dead Indian."
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- [Speaker 3] Those murals in that school
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are a national treasure.
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Art's role is to make us
uncomfortable with the status quo
00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:37.560
so that we can be about
the business of change.
00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:39.510
- [Speaker 4] Our children
deserve to come to a school
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where they feel honored and respected
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and they feel safe.
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- [Speaker 5] If you support this mural,
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you have a colonized mentality.
00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:50.310
- [Speaker 6] I didn't
appreciate being called
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a white supremist because I'm
for keeping those murals up.
00:01:54.300 --> 00:01:55.950
I'm speaking as an elder
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of a First Nation of peoples of Oklahoma.
00:02:00.137 --> 00:02:03.496
(pensive instrumental music continues)
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(pensive instrumental music continues)
00:02:18.723 --> 00:02:20.485
- That mural's up at the-
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(protesters drown out speaker)
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That was done during the WPA period.
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These are murals opposed to racism,
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opposed to imperialism.
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- The only reason the
microphone is on is to drown out
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the voices of the people down there.
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(protesters drown out speaker)
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(crowd chattering)
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- To portray a Native
person face down, dead,
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you are trapping their
spirit and their soul
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so they cannot move on.
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That is what this mural has done.
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It has trapped us in an era of the past
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where we are now invisible
and we no longer have a voice.
00:03:03.690 --> 00:03:05.400
- Now, this, this is a slippery slope.
00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:08.400
If you censor these murals,
what, where do we stop?
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There are other murals in the city
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which could easily be censored.
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- It's not a matter of censorship.
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It's a matter of human right.
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The right to learn without
hostile environments.
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Even the best intentions do harm.
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- We should be teaching about
the mural and what it means.
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I, as a half-Native American Indian,
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see no problem with the mural.
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It depicts what happened.
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Everything was whitewashed
when I went through school.
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- I'm a student at George
Washington High School,
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and I'm here to stand
up against the racist
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and demeaning "Life of Washington" murals.
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It's very hard to walk past these murals
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depicting the racist stories
of America's Founding Father,
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even if it is the truth.
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Generational trauma follows us.
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If our school district
seeks out social justice,
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then we will paint over
these murals or cover them.
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- It pains me
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that we would become complicit in a move
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to do a redaction of history.
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History is history.
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And I hope that this board
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would leave that mural alone.
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It tells the whole truth
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about Mr. Washington being
complicit in the slave trade,
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about what he did to the Native Americans.
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- My son always tells me
when we go into the school,
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"Mom, don't tell them I'm Native."
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(crowd responds with sympathy)
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And I can't imagine him
walking into that school,
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being told, "Meet me at the dead Indian."
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It's not right.
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Personal testimony.
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Right now, I feel, I feel so angry.
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Again, here we are
fighting, fighting, fighting
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for what's right for the kids.
00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:05.163
Paint it down.
00:05:18.877 --> 00:05:21.240
- "The Nation" invited me to write a piece
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about the "Life of Washington"
mural by Victor Arnautoff.
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And I began to just dig
into the story behind it.
00:05:30.330 --> 00:05:31.350
And I realized
00:05:31.350 --> 00:05:34.050
that most of the
complaints were not coming
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from the students,
00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:37.260
they were coming from
various groups, you know,
00:05:37.260 --> 00:05:38.640
some Indigenous groups,
00:05:38.640 --> 00:05:40.800
some African American groups.
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But then there's this other piece,
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we had to find out who's Victor Arnautoff.
00:05:44.940 --> 00:05:49.023
Like where'd he come from,
what are his politics?
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Victor Arnautoff has an
interesting colorful history.
00:05:57.780 --> 00:06:00.000
Russian emigre ends up coming
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to San Francisco to study art.
00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:04.303
And who does he study with?
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He studies with Diego Rivera,
the great left wing muralist.
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And that's how he becomes a muralist.
00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:24.090
And he begins to make these amazing murals
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that are consistent with
the times in the 1930s,
00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:30.690
that is Popular Front politics,
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leftist politics.
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He's making work about the
unemployed, about labor.
00:06:39.330 --> 00:06:42.450
And so by the time he is
selected to do this mural
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at George Washington High School,
he's a well-known leftist.
00:06:49.830 --> 00:06:51.720
You ask a question,
well, do we actually know
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what it means to be a
Communist artist in 1935?
00:06:55.950 --> 00:06:57.690
Well, when you start to
dig into that question,
00:06:57.690 --> 00:07:01.320
you discover that to be a Communist artist
00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:04.320
in the age of the Popular Front means
00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:08.940
to elevate the Founding
Fathers and to claim them
00:07:08.940 --> 00:07:13.050
as somehow representing a
radical democratic tradition.
00:07:13.050 --> 00:07:17.670
The other narrative is that
George Washington is our hero.
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You don't, you can't destroy (laughs)
00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:20.850
a mural of George Washington.
00:07:20.850 --> 00:07:22.525
He's the founder of the country.
00:07:22.525 --> 00:07:26.108
(reminiscent string music)
00:07:31.410 --> 00:07:33.840
- Everyone was telling
me as a child growing up,
00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:37.893
George Washington is like
a friend to the Indians.
00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:43.230
And you don't hear about the
breakup of tribal systems,
00:07:43.230 --> 00:07:45.063
the stealing of tribal land.
00:07:46.530 --> 00:07:48.150
During the Revolutionary War,
00:07:48.150 --> 00:07:50.520
George Washington ordered the destruction
00:07:50.520 --> 00:07:52.530
of Iroquois towns and crops,
00:07:52.530 --> 00:07:55.683
and therefore was known as the
Town Destroyer by the Seneca.
00:07:59.100 --> 00:08:01.350
When I first heard about
the mural controversy,
00:08:01.350 --> 00:08:03.210
it was sort of wrapped up in a lot
00:08:03.210 --> 00:08:05.220
of the other controversies we've had
00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:07.800
around Confederate monuments
and other racist monuments
00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:09.750
that have been taken out
00:08:09.750 --> 00:08:13.230
of the public domain.
(crowd cheering)
00:08:13.230 --> 00:08:14.490
And it turns out that
00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:17.130
it's a lot more complicated, obviously.
00:08:17.130 --> 00:08:19.500
What's complicated about these murals is
00:08:19.500 --> 00:08:22.740
that they do attempt,
00:08:22.740 --> 00:08:25.290
or as far as I know, a very early attempt
00:08:25.290 --> 00:08:27.030
to reframe our understanding
00:08:27.030 --> 00:08:30.030
of the infallible nature
of our Founding Fathers
00:08:30.030 --> 00:08:32.730
to say, this is who Washington was.
00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:34.140
He was a slave owner.
00:08:34.140 --> 00:08:37.380
He did participate and actively direct
00:08:37.380 --> 00:08:40.110
at times the genocide of Native Americans.
00:08:40.110 --> 00:08:43.740
And that is a hard image to reconcile
00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:45.720
with the image that we grow up hearing
00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:47.970
about our Founding Fathers.
00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:56.280
- Arnautoff wanted to make it clear
00:08:56.280 --> 00:09:01.280
that George Washington was
not without contradiction,
00:09:02.040 --> 00:09:04.470
and that the country itself was born
00:09:04.470 --> 00:09:07.510
through its great rhetoric
00:09:09.210 --> 00:09:10.750
of liberty and freedom
00:09:11.670 --> 00:09:14.070
in the contradiction of slavery
00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:16.473
and the genocide of Native Americans.
00:09:17.970 --> 00:09:21.420
But the idea of liberty
00:09:21.420 --> 00:09:23.640
is a great idea.
00:09:23.640 --> 00:09:28.640
The ideas that the Founding
Fathers articulated
00:09:29.880 --> 00:09:32.070
are some of the most important ideas
00:09:32.070 --> 00:09:35.013
that human beings have ever devised.
00:09:36.090 --> 00:09:38.490
- We had a young person come
00:09:38.490 --> 00:09:41.970
and give testimony at one
of the community meetings
00:09:41.970 --> 00:09:45.090
and her perspective when
she saw the mural is that
00:09:45.090 --> 00:09:48.390
it perpetuates three
stereotypes for Native people.
00:09:48.390 --> 00:09:49.770
You're either dead,
00:09:49.770 --> 00:09:52.560
you're a sellout or you're a savage.
00:09:52.560 --> 00:09:54.930
So on that level,
00:09:54.930 --> 00:09:57.660
that image of the dead Indian
perpetuates this concept
00:09:57.660 --> 00:09:59.371
that we no longer exist.
00:09:59.371 --> 00:10:04.140
(crowd chattering in the distance)
00:10:04.140 --> 00:10:06.660
- I don't have a strong
opinion towards it, frankly,
00:10:06.660 --> 00:10:10.380
but I do feel that
having the history there
00:10:10.380 --> 00:10:13.950
for everyone to see and to
know what Washington did
00:10:13.950 --> 00:10:17.130
from a realistic viewpoint
00:10:17.130 --> 00:10:20.400
would be good for really
any history class.
00:10:20.400 --> 00:10:21.540
- I was thinking that,
00:10:21.540 --> 00:10:24.360
but one of my friends is offended
00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:27.840
and I guess she cares more than I do.
00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:30.960
So I wouldn't really mind if
they were removed, you know,
00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.870
just to make life better for her, I guess.
00:10:33.870 --> 00:10:34.860
Yeah.
00:10:34.860 --> 00:10:35.693
Yeah.
00:10:36.540 --> 00:10:38.670
- [Newscaster] Today's
controversy is not new.
00:10:38.670 --> 00:10:39.900
In the mid-sixties,
00:10:39.900 --> 00:10:42.720
some African American students
spoke out against the murals.
00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.180
The school board then
refused to destroy them.
00:10:45.180 --> 00:10:47.640
Instead a 19-year-old
artist named Dewey Crumpler
00:10:47.640 --> 00:10:50.100
was commissioned to create
a new mural display,
00:10:50.100 --> 00:10:51.570
an alternative mural.
00:10:51.570 --> 00:10:53.317
- It was the students who said,
00:10:53.317 --> 00:10:56.610
"We want a Black person
to paint this mural."
00:10:56.610 --> 00:11:00.000
And I showed them some work I'd done.
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:01.983
And they said they wanted me to do it.
00:11:03.180 --> 00:11:06.270
I explained to the students
00:11:06.270 --> 00:11:09.270
that those murals that
Arnautoff painted was a critique
00:11:09.270 --> 00:11:11.310
on American history.
00:11:11.310 --> 00:11:14.730
So that's why murals were
extraordinarily important
00:11:14.730 --> 00:11:16.353
as teaching vehicles.
00:11:17.250 --> 00:11:18.850
Now, the West
00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:24.630
very often viewed them socio-politically,
00:11:24.630 --> 00:11:27.213
and so they were a bit too didactic.
00:11:28.140 --> 00:11:32.430
But Michelangelo was didactic as hell.
00:11:32.430 --> 00:11:34.443
I mean, this here,
00:11:36.570 --> 00:11:39.022
that's some didactic shit.
00:11:39.022 --> 00:11:42.540
(choir vocalizing angelically)
00:11:42.540 --> 00:11:45.363
One of my high school
teachers said, "Look,
00:11:46.350 --> 00:11:50.373
if you want to learn anything
about mural painting,
00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:53.350
you need to go to Mexico
00:11:55.410 --> 00:11:57.062
and check that out."
00:11:57.062 --> 00:12:00.395
(expressive jazz music)
00:12:07.410 --> 00:12:11.640
And that's when I went to all these places
00:12:11.640 --> 00:12:13.980
where these great murals were
00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:16.040
and I was so mesmerized
00:12:16.040 --> 00:12:17.400
it was crazy.
00:12:17.400 --> 00:12:20.100
So I saw this and I said,
00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.113
now this right here,
00:12:23.040 --> 00:12:25.980
this is mural painting
00:12:25.980 --> 00:12:28.080
in a way that
00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:30.510
that really is so overwhelming.
00:12:30.510 --> 00:12:32.520
This is what
00:12:32.520 --> 00:12:33.823
I want to do.
00:12:34.732 --> 00:12:35.665
This is it.
00:12:35.665 --> 00:12:39.832
(expressive jazz music continues)
00:12:47.740 --> 00:12:52.080
(expressive jazz music fading out)
00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:55.230
Once I got back from Mexico,
00:12:55.230 --> 00:13:00.230
I started studying the Arnautoff
murals much more closely.
00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:03.660
You can see Diego Rivera's influence
00:13:03.660 --> 00:13:05.927
all through those murals.
00:13:05.927 --> 00:13:10.510
(expressive jazz music)
00:13:11.640 --> 00:13:15.180
The organizing of my mural required
00:13:15.180 --> 00:13:17.940
a way to link those works together
00:13:17.940 --> 00:13:21.453
that could speak to Arnautoff's murals.
00:13:22.980 --> 00:13:25.270
I saw
00:13:26.340 --> 00:13:28.360
its form
00:13:29.910 --> 00:13:34.140
as the chains
00:13:34.140 --> 00:13:36.510
would be broken through heat,
00:13:36.510 --> 00:13:38.523
through the power of friction.
00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:50.340
At the time, Alcatraz was under siege
00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:54.813
by Native Americans making
a stance on that island.
00:13:56.130 --> 00:13:58.143
And to me, that was heroic.
00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:01.930
So I put that
00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:06.240
lifting of Turtle Island out of the earth,
00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:10.653
out of the waters of San
Francisco into the firmament.
00:14:16.410 --> 00:14:17.243
Let's see.
00:14:21.510 --> 00:14:26.510
A maker's role is to create
some sense of instability
00:14:26.760 --> 00:14:30.030
so that you can ask the question
00:14:30.030 --> 00:14:31.290
why,
00:14:31.290 --> 00:14:32.700
who,
00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:33.533
what.
00:14:34.830 --> 00:14:38.187
You can't do that making nice imagery.
00:14:38.187 --> 00:14:40.770
(uneasy music)
00:14:48.769 --> 00:14:52.186
(uneasy music continues)
00:14:59.435 --> 00:15:02.869
(uneasy music continues)
00:15:02.869 --> 00:15:05.619
(birds chirping)
00:15:13.565 --> 00:15:16.982
(uneasy music continues)
00:15:26.220 --> 00:15:28.410
- This is the site of the
Great Wall of Los Angeles.
00:15:28.410 --> 00:15:30.690
It's a half-mile long mural,
00:15:30.690 --> 00:15:34.020
which depicts the social,
cultural, political histories
00:15:34.020 --> 00:15:36.423
of Los Angeles and the
State of California.
00:15:38.610 --> 00:15:41.850
The Great Wall of LA was painted
by primarily young people
00:15:41.850 --> 00:15:43.200
who had been arrested at least once
00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:45.840
and were coming from the
juvenile justice system.
00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:46.980
A lot of the young people
00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:49.680
who worked on the mural were learning
00:15:49.680 --> 00:15:52.470
about their own histories
for the very first time.
00:15:52.470 --> 00:15:55.020
And of course those histories
are really traumatic.
00:15:56.070 --> 00:15:59.460
Just to my right, there's an
image of a Native American,
00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:02.850
an Asian American, and an
African American being lynched
00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:04.533
on a tree during the Gold Rush.
00:16:06.510 --> 00:16:08.250
When they were being painted
00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:09.450
these histories weren't being told.
00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:14.100
And I think that's been the
great trick of white supremacy,
00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:16.710
right, is to disappear itself,
00:16:16.710 --> 00:16:18.180
doesn't exist.
00:16:18.180 --> 00:16:20.820
Those atrocities never happened.
00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:22.830
And so when these histories
were being painted
00:16:22.830 --> 00:16:25.170
on the Great Wall of LA the fight wasn't
00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:27.150
to keep those histories
from being depicted,
00:16:27.150 --> 00:16:30.058
the fight was to tell those stories.
00:16:30.058 --> 00:16:35.058
(calm guitar music)
(birds chirping)
00:16:42.695 --> 00:16:46.528
(calm guitar music continues)
00:16:55.170 --> 00:16:56.880
- I use paint to tell my stories.
00:16:56.880 --> 00:16:57.813
I'm a storyteller.
00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:01.020
In other words, I'm not a dancer
00:17:01.020 --> 00:17:02.880
and I'm not a traditionalist
00:17:02.880 --> 00:17:05.160
in the sense that I don't weave baskets.
00:17:05.160 --> 00:17:07.290
I'm kind of an okay bead worker,
00:17:07.290 --> 00:17:08.730
but I don't have time.
00:17:08.730 --> 00:17:09.563
I paint.
00:17:09.563 --> 00:17:13.324
(calm guitar music continues)
00:17:21.207 --> 00:17:25.040
(calm guitar music continues)
00:17:27.023 --> 00:17:30.810
Before everybody was
telling our story for us.
00:17:30.810 --> 00:17:32.940
So to be part of a group of people
00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:35.070
that are telling our own stories,
00:17:35.070 --> 00:17:38.610
correcting misinformation about history,
00:17:38.610 --> 00:17:40.260
that's important
00:17:40.260 --> 00:17:44.850
and artists have their
place in that, always have,
00:17:44.850 --> 00:17:48.780
in the face of this resistance
that doesn't want to hear
00:17:48.780 --> 00:17:51.537
what really happened for instance
here during the Gold Rush.
00:17:51.537 --> 00:17:54.620
(somber violin music)
00:17:55.680 --> 00:17:57.870
Here was really bad.
00:17:57.870 --> 00:18:00.900
This is ground zero for
California Indians, I think.
00:18:00.900 --> 00:18:03.753
And some of the stories we've uncovered,
00:18:04.740 --> 00:18:06.060
just hideous,
00:18:06.060 --> 00:18:09.871
searing losses and families wiped out.
00:18:09.871 --> 00:18:13.788
(somber music continues)
00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:19.950
My first painting that had to do
00:18:19.950 --> 00:18:23.190
with my tribe was a painting
I did of Molly Lowry.
00:18:23.190 --> 00:18:25.233
She would've been a great aunt of mine.
00:18:26.190 --> 00:18:29.220
And I went to my father
00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:30.540
and he's the, to me,
00:18:30.540 --> 00:18:32.730
the ultimate authority on
what I'm permitted to do
00:18:32.730 --> 00:18:35.763
in terms of revealing stories
that are this painful.
00:18:37.980 --> 00:18:41.700
I asked him about telling
Molly's story in a picture.
00:18:41.700 --> 00:18:44.533
And he said, "I think you should."
00:18:48.330 --> 00:18:50.490
They have her age
somewhere between 8 and 11.
00:18:50.490 --> 00:18:51.570
We're not sure how old she was,
00:18:51.570 --> 00:18:53.550
but she ran away from the boarding school
00:18:53.550 --> 00:18:56.010
with some other girls, older girls
00:18:56.010 --> 00:18:58.530
in 1918, in December,
00:18:58.530 --> 00:19:00.080
in the Sierra, the High Sierra.
00:19:02.760 --> 00:19:04.983
And she froze to death,
00:19:06.060 --> 00:19:07.650
and another girl died, too,
00:19:07.650 --> 00:19:12.390
because she had to have her
frostbitten feet amputated.
00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:13.560
And you just gotta wonder
00:19:13.560 --> 00:19:15.660
what makes little girls
run away from the school
00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:17.883
in the dead of winter wearing sweaters.
00:19:21.510 --> 00:19:23.220
It turned out they had an abusive matron
00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:25.923
that was strapping them,
hitting them with belts.
00:19:27.570 --> 00:19:30.210
And right now the boarding school
00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:33.660
or what I like to call the
detention reprogramming centers
00:19:33.660 --> 00:19:35.373
that they sent our children to,
00:19:36.660 --> 00:19:40.470
they're starting to reveal
all these unmarked graves,
00:19:40.470 --> 00:19:43.650
these mass graves with
the little children.
00:19:43.650 --> 00:19:45.990
But we're very familiar
with stories like that
00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:48.090
from our elders who went to these schools.
00:19:49.470 --> 00:19:51.780
These are stories, some
of them very painful,
00:19:51.780 --> 00:19:53.430
from our family,
00:19:53.430 --> 00:19:56.550
but they chart the lives that we lived,
00:19:56.550 --> 00:19:58.560
how our lives were changed at contact time
00:19:58.560 --> 00:19:59.883
and on from there.
00:20:01.620 --> 00:20:04.020
And we honor that little girl now.
00:20:04.020 --> 00:20:05.400
We are able to cry for her,
00:20:05.400 --> 00:20:06.423
sing for her.
00:20:07.590 --> 00:20:09.090
You know what I mean? Our way.
00:20:14.040 --> 00:20:16.230
- My grandmother went to a boarding school
00:20:16.230 --> 00:20:17.640
when she was young along with all
00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:19.740
of her brothers and sisters.
00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:23.021
And I think that had a massive impact
00:20:23.021 --> 00:20:25.440
on a break in knowledge,
00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:29.580
between what her father
could have taught her
00:20:29.580 --> 00:20:31.680
and what she was able to teach me.
00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:35.730
And it introduced a lot of
silences into our family.
00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:38.490
So it's whatever was
filtering into pop culture,
00:20:38.490 --> 00:20:40.980
into mainstream American
consciousness was standing in
00:20:40.980 --> 00:20:43.380
to fill in the gaps of what I knew
00:20:43.380 --> 00:20:45.900
and what I didn't know about who I was.
00:20:45.900 --> 00:20:49.350
- Our school system doesn't
talk about the brutality of it.
00:20:49.350 --> 00:20:51.360
Children are only taught
about the Mission system
00:20:51.360 --> 00:20:53.520
as being a place of refuge,
00:20:53.520 --> 00:20:57.540
a place to save Native people,
to show them the word of God.
00:20:57.540 --> 00:20:59.850
It doesn't tell you the actual truth
00:20:59.850 --> 00:21:02.520
of what happened in the Mission system,
00:21:02.520 --> 00:21:06.153
the history that was so
devastating to Indigenous people.
00:21:09.780 --> 00:21:14.640
We don't learn about the
state-sanctioned militias
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:16.200
that were sent throughout California
00:21:16.200 --> 00:21:18.210
to actually hunt down Native people
00:21:18.210 --> 00:21:19.803
and sell their scalps for $5.
00:21:22.170 --> 00:21:24.180
- One of the things that I've learned
00:21:24.180 --> 00:21:26.340
as an Indigenous person in looking back
00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:28.800
at the history of the United States is
00:21:28.800 --> 00:21:32.670
that Native Americans have had
to be incredibly resourceful
00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:33.810
in order to survive.
00:21:33.810 --> 00:21:36.560
Resilience is baked into our DNA.
00:21:48.780 --> 00:21:51.450
My experience with the
"Early Days" monument
00:21:51.450 --> 00:21:53.520
actually goes back to my childhood
00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:55.410
when I grew up in San Francisco
00:21:55.410 --> 00:21:57.810
and I used to walk all
around the Civic Center.
00:21:57.810 --> 00:22:00.300
My mom used to work
around the Civic Center.
00:22:00.300 --> 00:22:02.580
So I passed by that monument
00:22:02.580 --> 00:22:07.580
quite often (laughs) and I
remember seeing that image
00:22:08.130 --> 00:22:11.640
of a cowering Indian
underneath a missionary
00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:15.030
and thinking it was weird
when I was a little girl
00:22:15.030 --> 00:22:17.460
and not really liking it,
00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:20.460
and feeling awful about it.
00:22:20.460 --> 00:22:24.300
And it really did hurt
my self-esteem I think.
00:22:24.300 --> 00:22:27.300
Even though I was never
ashamed to be Native American,
00:22:27.300 --> 00:22:29.250
all these external markers were telling me
00:22:29.250 --> 00:22:31.503
at some point in time it was shameful.
00:22:33.120 --> 00:22:34.980
The "Early Days" monument was meant
00:22:34.980 --> 00:22:38.160
to project a certain
history of California,
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:41.490
a certain white Founding Father history.
00:22:41.490 --> 00:22:43.500
And I think that that sort of whitewashing
00:22:43.500 --> 00:22:46.533
of history was encapsulated
in the monument.
00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:50.550
- When I first saw the
"Early Days" statue,
00:22:50.550 --> 00:22:54.420
I think what was pretty
shocking was a physical,
00:22:54.420 --> 00:22:57.000
visceral reaction that I had to it.
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:00.090
I was overcome with a lot
of hurt and anger and fear,
00:23:00.090 --> 00:23:02.280
and I actually started crying.
00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:05.730
And coming from a small
town in the Central Valley
00:23:05.730 --> 00:23:09.570
where we didn't have
public art to a large city,
00:23:09.570 --> 00:23:12.810
I didn't have a vocabulary
for it at the time.
00:23:12.810 --> 00:23:15.660
I think that what I was feeling
was some historical trauma
00:23:15.660 --> 00:23:20.220
that was coming through
in seeing the subjugation
00:23:20.220 --> 00:23:23.310
of Native people presented
in the way that it was.
00:23:23.310 --> 00:23:26.940
And for me I think the statue
actually politicized me.
00:23:26.940 --> 00:23:29.880
So I have kind of a love-hate
relationship with the statue
00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:31.950
in a sense that it really woke me up
00:23:31.950 --> 00:23:33.270
into what was going on
00:23:33.270 --> 00:23:36.210
and how I could get involved
in an urban setting,
00:23:36.210 --> 00:23:39.180
and really kind of set me on a trajectory
00:23:39.180 --> 00:23:40.923
in my life that I carry today.
00:23:42.376 --> 00:23:46.793
(crowd chanting in a Native language)
00:23:49.710 --> 00:23:52.470
To see the statue removed was a feeling
00:23:52.470 --> 00:23:54.090
of not only of triumph and victory,
00:23:54.090 --> 00:23:55.955
but it was also somewhat somber.
00:23:55.955 --> 00:23:59.538
(crowd chanting continues)
00:24:07.514 --> 00:24:11.097
(crowd chanting continues)
00:24:14.902 --> 00:24:19.902
All of our ancestors, they
all are buried under the city.
00:24:20.280 --> 00:24:23.250
When they got through
murdering the Ohlone people,
00:24:23.250 --> 00:24:24.720
they got our Miwok people,
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:27.780
our Pomo people, our Maidu people.
00:24:27.780 --> 00:24:29.913
That's what we walk on every day.
00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:33.210
Now that that statue is gone,
00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:35.190
some of that healing can start.
00:24:35.190 --> 00:24:37.830
We can breathe, we can repair
00:24:37.830 --> 00:24:40.112
and we can grow and we can heal.
00:24:40.112 --> 00:24:44.529
(crowd chanting continues)
00:24:46.650 --> 00:24:49.683
- I was really glad when
the statue was removed,
00:24:51.360 --> 00:24:53.339
because I think it was
a very harmful image
00:24:53.339 --> 00:24:55.650
of Native Americans.
00:24:55.650 --> 00:24:57.895
It was harmful for me when I was a kid.
00:24:57.895 --> 00:24:59.745
(crowd chanting continues)
00:24:59.745 --> 00:25:02.495
(crowd cheering)
00:25:09.386 --> 00:25:13.303
(steady electric guitar music)
00:25:22.860 --> 00:25:25.290
- What is the ascendant theme here is
00:25:25.290 --> 00:25:27.483
that we are still here.
00:25:28.770 --> 00:25:30.450
We are not dead.
00:25:30.450 --> 00:25:32.640
We're not an ethnographic remnant waiting
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:34.743
to be pushed off the stage of history.
00:25:36.330 --> 00:25:40.980
We are very much a people and
communities with a deep past,
00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:43.560
but also an active present,
00:25:43.560 --> 00:25:45.663
and rather insistent on a future.
00:25:46.500 --> 00:25:51.500
And what you see in this
gallery is the engagement,
00:25:51.570 --> 00:25:55.290
the intersection between being Native
00:25:55.290 --> 00:25:57.720
and being of the Native community
00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:01.743
and yet being part of a
larger non-Native society.
00:26:02.850 --> 00:26:05.760
And I remember when my father was saying,
00:26:05.760 --> 00:26:07.650
I brought you back to Oklahoma
00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:09.450
because I want you and your brother
00:26:09.450 --> 00:26:11.283
to be raised as Cheyenne.
00:26:12.390 --> 00:26:14.280
That was my objective,
00:26:14.280 --> 00:26:16.710
but never think that I think
00:26:16.710 --> 00:26:20.790
the Cheyenne will ever
again be the cultural island
00:26:20.790 --> 00:26:23.580
that they were for much of their history.
00:26:23.580 --> 00:26:25.380
That's not going to happen.
00:26:25.380 --> 00:26:29.910
And just as my father's art
spoke to his generation,
00:26:29.910 --> 00:26:32.670
the art that you see here
speaks to a generation
00:26:32.670 --> 00:26:35.253
that began probably in the late sixties.
00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:39.900
And it began on a small island
in the San Francisco Bay.
00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:44.370
And it spread from there
to many, many other places,
00:26:44.370 --> 00:26:47.370
not only in California, but elsewhere.
00:26:47.370 --> 00:26:48.630
I mean, think of it,
00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:51.000
think back over the last generation
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:52.210
when at one point
00:26:53.100 --> 00:26:58.020
any American art that smacked
of political expression
00:26:58.020 --> 00:26:59.820
and political viewpoint
00:26:59.820 --> 00:27:03.393
was considered political
art, which was not quite art.
00:27:04.500 --> 00:27:08.373
I think that that is in
retreat quite honestly.
00:27:10.950 --> 00:27:12.480
- This is the wildfire,
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:14.700
which we've just come
through the worst summer
00:27:14.700 --> 00:27:18.720
with the Dixie Fire taking
out much of my homelands
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:20.580
up in Plumas and Lassen County.
00:27:20.580 --> 00:27:23.760
So I envisioned the
destruction of the roundhouse.
00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:26.040
The roundhouse is the main character
00:27:26.040 --> 00:27:27.633
in all of these pictures.
00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:32.040
I use symbolism a lot myself,
00:27:32.040 --> 00:27:33.492
and again that's the Renaissance.
00:27:33.492 --> 00:27:35.430
If you decode the "Primavera",
00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:38.280
I mean, there's so much,
especially when they cleaned it,
00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:40.290
all of a sudden so much more content
00:27:40.290 --> 00:27:43.830
and narrative that they knew
and all the flowers and all;
00:27:43.830 --> 00:27:46.020
there's nothing that didn't
have a reason to be there
00:27:46.020 --> 00:27:47.163
that wasn't symbolic.
00:27:49.560 --> 00:27:50.393
And again, I think
00:27:50.393 --> 00:27:52.440
this artist might have
been using some symbolism
00:27:52.440 --> 00:27:56.040
to subvert the narrative a
little bit more sympathetic
00:27:56.040 --> 00:27:57.490
to the Native side of things.
00:27:58.470 --> 00:28:00.840
I mean, Washington was a surveyor
00:28:00.840 --> 00:28:03.810
that saw this as his real estate,
00:28:03.810 --> 00:28:06.030
mapping out the country,
00:28:06.030 --> 00:28:08.550
so it sort of symbolizes the initiation
00:28:08.550 --> 00:28:10.773
of the dicing up of our continent.
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:15.212
When I look at that dead Indian,
00:28:15.212 --> 00:28:17.670
I put myself in the place of the artist
00:28:17.670 --> 00:28:19.563
while he was actually creating it.
00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:24.720
First thing I notice
is the Indian is prone.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:25.773
He's not supine.
00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:30.930
So his identity's been protected, I think.
00:28:30.930 --> 00:28:35.460
I don't think you can paint a dead person,
00:28:35.460 --> 00:28:37.020
especially one that's been victimized
00:28:37.020 --> 00:28:39.270
and not feel some kind of compassion.
00:28:39.270 --> 00:28:41.190
So my feeling is, in this mural,
00:28:41.190 --> 00:28:43.920
especially in the black and white people,
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:45.183
the ones without souls,
00:28:46.290 --> 00:28:47.550
if you really look at it,
00:28:47.550 --> 00:28:49.230
it really tells the story the right way:
00:28:49.230 --> 00:28:51.540
these people were stepped on.
00:28:51.540 --> 00:28:53.070
They were robbed of their country.
00:28:53.070 --> 00:28:54.810
It's saying that.
00:28:54.810 --> 00:28:58.290
So I think the artist
created a little subversion
00:28:58.290 --> 00:28:59.123
within his work.
00:28:59.123 --> 00:29:01.050
It's not the first time that's happened.
00:29:01.050 --> 00:29:02.790
So if they just reinterpret it,
00:29:02.790 --> 00:29:04.240
I think they should leave it.
00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:09.270
- Well, I think truth is
hard to look at sometimes,
00:29:09.270 --> 00:29:12.840
but that is truth as far as I'm concerned.
00:29:12.840 --> 00:29:15.900
And I think that particular institutions
00:29:15.900 --> 00:29:19.440
in public society have
a special responsibility
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:21.330
to create very wide boundaries
00:29:21.330 --> 00:29:23.280
when you're dealing with tough subjects.
00:29:23.280 --> 00:29:26.640
And so I'd rather have
a vigorous, pointed,
00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:31.080
even controversial discussion
about what that represents
00:29:31.080 --> 00:29:34.241
than simply try to eradicate it.
00:29:34.241 --> 00:29:37.241
(upbeat rock music)
00:29:42.490 --> 00:29:46.323
(upbeat rock music continues)
00:29:54.600 --> 00:29:58.050
- There's this ambivalence
and contradiction
00:29:58.050 --> 00:30:01.320
at the heart of American
national identity.
00:30:01.320 --> 00:30:03.870
I think you can call it
kind of a secret obsession
00:30:03.870 --> 00:30:06.213
Americans have with Native people.
00:30:07.380 --> 00:30:08.580
So how do we understand that?
00:30:08.580 --> 00:30:10.143
How do we make sense of that?
00:30:11.100 --> 00:30:13.380
Why does this country need
00:30:13.380 --> 00:30:16.743
to build this imaginary Indian?
00:30:18.090 --> 00:30:21.990
Elvis is in here twice, 'cause he's Elvis.
00:30:21.990 --> 00:30:23.670
That's one of them.
00:30:23.670 --> 00:30:25.083
Cher of course.
00:30:26.280 --> 00:30:29.643
And here we have Native American Barbie.
00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:32.790
The Tomahawk missile is interesting
00:30:32.790 --> 00:30:36.750
because it's been used in
so many different conflicts.
00:30:36.750 --> 00:30:38.490
So it's an ancient idea
00:30:38.490 --> 00:30:41.643
of taking on Native names for weapons.
00:30:42.840 --> 00:30:44.550
There were ships named Pocahontas
00:30:44.550 --> 00:30:46.323
on both sides of the Civil War.
00:30:48.990 --> 00:30:53.700
Since the late 1940s,
by Pentagon directive,
00:30:53.700 --> 00:30:57.060
every helicopter used by
any of the armed services
00:30:57.060 --> 00:30:59.550
will have a Native name of an individual,
00:30:59.550 --> 00:31:02.070
or a tribe, or a place.
00:31:02.070 --> 00:31:03.360
The Apache helicopter,
00:31:03.360 --> 00:31:06.510
of course we couldn't get
an actual Apache helicopter.
00:31:06.510 --> 00:31:07.800
And so there are Apaches
00:31:07.800 --> 00:31:09.390
who hate the fact there's a helicopter
00:31:09.390 --> 00:31:10.770
that kills people with their name.
00:31:10.770 --> 00:31:13.710
There're Apaches that
think that's fantastic.
00:31:13.710 --> 00:31:17.130
Since I'm an enrolled member
of the Comanche nation,
00:31:17.130 --> 00:31:19.590
I went to some effort to get a model
00:31:19.590 --> 00:31:24.330
of the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter.
00:31:24.330 --> 00:31:26.070
I understood tribal officials were upset,
00:31:26.070 --> 00:31:29.340
'cause there was so much
attention to the Apache helicopter
00:31:29.340 --> 00:31:30.967
and they would say, they would make calls,
00:31:30.967 --> 00:31:34.080
"Why isn't there a Comanche helicopter?"
00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:36.210
It cost $6.9 billion.
00:31:36.210 --> 00:31:38.943
And they ended up with only
two Comanche helicopters.
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:43.890
What I learned through doing this project
00:31:43.890 --> 00:31:45.900
as we went deeper and deeper is
00:31:45.900 --> 00:31:49.500
this obsession takes a form of people
00:31:49.500 --> 00:31:51.723
generating these images,
00:31:52.740 --> 00:31:54.600
advertising, movies,
00:31:54.600 --> 00:31:57.450
you know, all kinds of pop culture, memes.
00:31:57.450 --> 00:32:01.080
And a lot of that is stereotypical.
00:32:01.080 --> 00:32:04.533
And a lot of it's disrespectful.
00:32:05.820 --> 00:32:07.170
On some level, it doesn't really have
00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:09.240
to do with us, with Native people.
00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:11.043
It's its own thing.
00:32:12.155 --> 00:32:17.078
So I came to understand
romanticism as a form of racism.
00:32:19.020 --> 00:32:20.370
If you think
00:32:20.370 --> 00:32:23.340
we love Native Americans
and they are just great;
00:32:23.340 --> 00:32:25.260
and we love them when they're acting
00:32:25.260 --> 00:32:27.960
like we think their
ancestors were acting like,
00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:29.490
you know, a hundred years ago,
00:32:29.490 --> 00:32:32.760
that Native people generally are noble,
00:32:32.760 --> 00:32:36.123
that we can teach the world
about the environment;
00:32:38.580 --> 00:32:42.543
ultimately it makes us
less than fully human.
00:32:43.410 --> 00:32:46.980
And so with the mural
controversy, San Francisco,
00:32:46.980 --> 00:32:49.770
it's unquestionably a significant work
00:32:49.770 --> 00:32:51.600
by a significant artist.
00:32:51.600 --> 00:32:54.000
It's meant to be a provocation,
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:54.963
which was as,
00:32:56.580 --> 00:32:58.710
at the moment of its
creation, as anti-racist
00:32:58.710 --> 00:33:00.783
as anything could possibly be.
00:33:02.070 --> 00:33:05.310
I find myself aligned with the people
00:33:05.310 --> 00:33:08.463
who say keep it up and teach it.
00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:14.283
But I'm not a student
in that school, and I,
00:33:16.350 --> 00:33:18.063
I think that, um,
00:33:19.650 --> 00:33:22.563
it's a bit wistful to
think that can still work.
00:33:25.366 --> 00:33:28.366
(cars whooshing by)
00:33:30.780 --> 00:33:35.680
- This school is one of the
most unique schools in America
00:33:36.578 --> 00:33:39.740
in that it has artwork that spans
00:33:40.682 --> 00:33:43.770
from the very early
part of the 20th century
00:33:43.770 --> 00:33:46.870
all the way till now and that
00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:50.823
that this school, unlike many,
00:33:51.990 --> 00:33:55.230
has that kind of artistic breadth
00:33:55.230 --> 00:33:57.900
and all of the work in the buildings,
00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:01.020
including Sargent Johnson's are
00:34:01.020 --> 00:34:04.890
among the great works in America,
00:34:04.890 --> 00:34:09.890
and it's so horrible that
they have been neglected.
00:34:10.266 --> 00:34:13.183
(crowd noise)
00:34:17.430 --> 00:34:18.600
- [Principal] Hello, welcome.
00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:20.130
- Hello, how are you?
- [Principal] Good.
00:34:20.130 --> 00:34:21.450
- Are you the principal?
- I am.
00:34:21.450 --> 00:34:23.177
I saw you coming up, so
I thought I'd greet you.
00:34:23.177 --> 00:34:24.518
- Oh, well...
- I'm okay.
00:34:24.518 --> 00:34:29.518
- Okay.
00:34:33.690 --> 00:34:35.403
It's not as bad as I thought.
00:34:39.841 --> 00:34:44.174
(people chattering in the distance)
00:34:48.979 --> 00:34:51.812
(door slams shut)
00:34:55.032 --> 00:34:58.680
(people chattering in the distance)
00:34:58.680 --> 00:35:00.393
See, to be right up on it,
00:35:02.130 --> 00:35:03.310
to be right in it
00:35:05.070 --> 00:35:07.833
like I was as a kid,
00:35:08.970 --> 00:35:10.113
God darn,
00:35:11.130 --> 00:35:13.480
because I haven't been
this close to this mural
00:35:15.480 --> 00:35:16.683
since I painted it.
00:35:20.250 --> 00:35:22.710
Man, let me tell you this.
00:35:22.710 --> 00:35:27.710
I'm looking at how I
painted it as a 20-year-old.
00:35:28.680 --> 00:35:31.920
You know, you do things when you're a kid
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:36.780
and you don't really completely
know what you're doing
00:35:36.780 --> 00:35:39.810
and that it is possible for it to hold up.
00:35:39.810 --> 00:35:44.550
Like I don't feel ashamed
of having made it,
00:35:44.550 --> 00:35:46.590
even though, you know,
00:35:46.590 --> 00:35:49.443
I could have done some things much better.
00:35:56.130 --> 00:35:59.850
At first, I was incensed with this,
00:35:59.850 --> 00:36:03.960
but once I really understood
00:36:03.960 --> 00:36:06.990
in a much more sophisticated way,
00:36:06.990 --> 00:36:09.900
how the language of art operates.
00:36:09.900 --> 00:36:13.110
And in this case, you can see
00:36:13.110 --> 00:36:15.240
that he is looking
00:36:15.240 --> 00:36:19.440
not at these people.
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:22.113
He is looking into the future.
00:36:22.980 --> 00:36:27.000
That's why his eyes are pointed away.
00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:31.980
My body is here, but my mind is liberated.
00:36:31.980 --> 00:36:34.910
And that's where he is.
00:36:34.910 --> 00:36:37.993
(gentle piano music)
00:36:46.991 --> 00:36:49.233
(gentle piano music continues)
00:36:49.233 --> 00:36:52.150
(crowd chattering)
00:36:53.596 --> 00:36:57.027
(crowd chattering)
00:37:07.470 --> 00:37:11.640
- Today is a good day, as hopeful as I am,
00:37:11.640 --> 00:37:13.803
to end white supremacy,
00:37:15.120 --> 00:37:19.530
to pay it forward to all of
us who are misrepresented
00:37:19.530 --> 00:37:22.203
and abused in those mural panels.
00:37:23.670 --> 00:37:26.220
We Indigenous people are not exotic people
00:37:26.220 --> 00:37:29.910
of paint and feathers to be ogled at.
00:37:29.910 --> 00:37:34.888
We are not savages and all
the real Indians are not dead.
00:37:34.888 --> 00:37:37.638
(crowd cheering)
00:37:38.700 --> 00:37:39.870
- My name is Tamaka.
00:37:39.870 --> 00:37:43.203
I'm a teacher of the
Oklahoma Choctaw language.
00:37:44.370 --> 00:37:46.770
I'm against taking those murals down
00:37:46.770 --> 00:37:49.320
for one reason and one reason only.
00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:52.380
Those murals are our visual history
00:37:52.380 --> 00:37:55.830
that a genocide was there.
00:37:55.830 --> 00:37:58.110
It shows it in those murals.
00:37:58.110 --> 00:38:02.910
To take those down, you're
taking a visual record away.
00:38:02.910 --> 00:38:06.750
- I am an upcoming junior at
George Washington High School.
00:38:06.750 --> 00:38:08.490
I believe that the school murals should be
00:38:08.490 --> 00:38:10.590
permanently removed from this high school.
00:38:10.590 --> 00:38:11.850
We deserve respect.
00:38:11.850 --> 00:38:13.830
We deserve to feel safe and supported.
00:38:13.830 --> 00:38:15.810
I don't want this mural in our school.
00:38:15.810 --> 00:38:17.610
Honor the vote, paint it down!
00:38:17.610 --> 00:38:18.836
Thank you for listening.
00:38:18.836 --> 00:38:21.586
(crowd cheering)
00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:26.610
- The School Board is entitled
00:38:26.610 --> 00:38:29.430
to cling to its deliberate
misinterpretation
00:38:29.430 --> 00:38:31.140
of Victor Arnautoff's work,
00:38:31.140 --> 00:38:35.490
but a wiser national public
knows how brave it is even today
00:38:35.490 --> 00:38:37.650
to acknowledge the exploitation
00:38:37.650 --> 00:38:40.920
upon which our nation was and is based.
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:44.460
To constantly describe
our high school students
00:38:44.460 --> 00:38:46.140
as forever in need of protection
00:38:46.140 --> 00:38:49.140
from provocative ideas
is more obscene to me
00:38:49.140 --> 00:38:51.660
than anything you could put up on a wall.
00:38:51.660 --> 00:38:52.620
- I'm sorry;
00:38:52.620 --> 00:38:54.220
we are done with public comment.
00:38:55.680 --> 00:38:56.850
Commissioner Lopez.
00:38:56.850 --> 00:38:58.860
- I think I need to start by saying
00:38:58.860 --> 00:39:01.710
how exhausting it's
been hearing the months
00:39:01.710 --> 00:39:05.223
of arguments rooted in
white supremacy culture.
00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:09.780
As a classroom teacher, I'm
a teacher for social justice.
00:39:09.780 --> 00:39:13.140
Protecting property over people
is white supremacy culture.
00:39:13.140 --> 00:39:14.640
That's the bottom line.
00:39:14.640 --> 00:39:18.210
- It's not an undue term to use right now
00:39:18.210 --> 00:39:19.650
that this is reparations.
00:39:19.650 --> 00:39:24.540
That basically, basically,
if we can do our small part
00:39:24.540 --> 00:39:27.030
after offending not just one culture,
00:39:27.030 --> 00:39:29.520
but many cultures for 70 years
00:39:29.520 --> 00:39:31.443
with this mural or set of murals,
00:39:32.520 --> 00:39:35.160
it's about time that we
stood up and paid for it.
00:39:35.160 --> 00:39:37.230
And this is one way we can do it.
00:39:37.230 --> 00:39:39.540
- The discussion about the
Washington murals is relevant
00:39:39.540 --> 00:39:42.150
in that it is an effort by outside actors
00:39:42.150 --> 00:39:45.660
to dictate for our
children, mine included,
00:39:45.660 --> 00:39:49.080
what they should see and what
stories they should be told
00:39:49.080 --> 00:39:51.933
by people that aren't
from their community.
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:55.110
This mural is not historic.
00:39:55.110 --> 00:39:56.460
It is a relic.
00:39:56.460 --> 00:39:59.010
It is a remnant from a bygone era.
00:39:59.010 --> 00:40:00.470
- It's like, I don't get it.
00:40:00.470 --> 00:40:03.750
I don't get why people are
like standing up for this.
00:40:03.750 --> 00:40:07.150
You know, like there are
Black and Brown boys dying
00:40:08.340 --> 00:40:12.180
and people are making
noise around, you know?
00:40:12.180 --> 00:40:13.410
And I was just confused.
00:40:13.410 --> 00:40:15.134
I was like, well, what are
we supposed to be doing?
00:40:15.134 --> 00:40:17.490
Is this a smoke screen?
00:40:17.490 --> 00:40:18.780
Is this the okey-doke?
00:40:18.780 --> 00:40:20.250
Like they say back in the hood,
00:40:20.250 --> 00:40:21.720
is this the okey-doke?
00:40:21.720 --> 00:40:24.060
Are we supposed to like
get caught up in all this,
00:40:24.060 --> 00:40:27.390
so we could really be
confused about the issues
00:40:27.390 --> 00:40:31.247
that are really impacting
our kids of color?
00:40:31.247 --> 00:40:33.300
- Ms. Caskill, roll call vote.
00:40:33.300 --> 00:40:35.310
- [Clerk] Clarification.
00:40:35.310 --> 00:40:39.000
Mr. Chairman, we are voting
on Mr. Sanchez's amendment,
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:39.833
correct?
- Yes.
00:40:39.833 --> 00:40:42.330
- [Clerk] It's been
duly moved and seconded.
00:40:42.330 --> 00:40:43.530
Thank you.
00:40:43.530 --> 00:40:44.370
- Thank you.
00:40:44.370 --> 00:40:46.800
- [Clerk] Ms. Collins.
- Yes.
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:48.450
- [Clerk] Ms. Lamb.
- Yes.
00:40:48.450 --> 00:40:49.980
- [Clerk] Ms. Lopez.
- Yes.
00:40:49.980 --> 00:40:51.660
- [Clerk] Mr. Moliga.
- Yes.
00:40:51.660 --> 00:40:52.500
- [Clerk] Ms. Norton.
00:40:52.500 --> 00:40:53.907
Mr. Sanchez.
- Yes.
00:40:53.907 --> 00:40:55.110
- [Clerk] And Mr. Cook.
- Yes.
00:40:55.110 --> 00:40:56.186
- [Clerk] It's six ayes.
00:40:56.186 --> 00:40:57.510
(crowd cheering)
00:40:57.510 --> 00:40:58.443
- Thank you.
00:40:58.443 --> 00:41:01.298
(crowd cheering)
(crowd chattering)
00:41:01.298 --> 00:41:04.048
(uneasy music)
00:41:13.928 --> 00:41:17.511
(uneasy music continues)
00:41:18.660 --> 00:41:20.940
- Well, the School Board of San Francisco,
00:41:20.940 --> 00:41:22.860
in their infinite lack of wisdom,
00:41:22.860 --> 00:41:25.800
decided that they were going
to get rid of these murals.
00:41:25.800 --> 00:41:28.500
They were going to rip those murals down,
00:41:28.500 --> 00:41:30.930
then they were going to paint
over them and God knows what,
00:41:30.930 --> 00:41:33.330
but they were going to
destroy them for all eternity.
00:41:33.330 --> 00:41:34.800
Where do we stand now?
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:37.380
- We're still fighting, and our goal is
00:41:37.380 --> 00:41:39.540
to mobilize the community to say,
00:41:39.540 --> 00:41:41.310
don't cover them up.
00:41:41.310 --> 00:41:43.020
Let people see them.
00:41:43.020 --> 00:41:46.530
Let's build an educational
curriculum that responds to it.
00:41:46.530 --> 00:41:47.975
That's what we want to do.
00:41:47.975 --> 00:41:51.558
(uneasy music continues)
00:41:59.475 --> 00:42:03.058
(uneasy music continues)
00:42:11.730 --> 00:42:13.301
- I wanna state from the outset
00:42:13.301 --> 00:42:16.260
that this is not a debate.
00:42:16.260 --> 00:42:18.960
This is a forum to sum up where we go
00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:21.510
from the point of the
School Board's decision
00:42:21.510 --> 00:42:24.153
to destroy the 13-panel mural.
00:42:25.530 --> 00:42:29.160
Looking specifically at
George Washington High School,
00:42:29.160 --> 00:42:31.080
I'm not without sympathy
00:42:31.080 --> 00:42:34.440
for those who say the images
in the mural are hurtful;
00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:38.910
however, these feelings
do not justify censorship.
00:42:38.910 --> 00:42:42.720
What is behind trying to pit
seemingly progressive allies
00:42:42.720 --> 00:42:44.220
against each other?
00:42:44.220 --> 00:42:47.404
This is identity politics
gone off the rails.
00:42:47.404 --> 00:42:50.321
(crowd applauding)
00:42:53.250 --> 00:42:55.770
- Victor Arnautoff was one
00:42:55.770 --> 00:43:00.210
of the most prolific New Deal
artists in San Francisco.
00:43:00.210 --> 00:43:03.660
In all of the large murals at
George Washington High School,
00:43:03.660 --> 00:43:06.780
Arnautoff presented a counter-narrative
00:43:06.780 --> 00:43:09.600
to the prevailing high
school textbooks of the day.
00:43:09.600 --> 00:43:11.414
- [Protester] Why do you
think it's important...
00:43:11.414 --> 00:43:12.604
- [Crowd] No! No!
00:43:12.604 --> 00:43:14.426
- You are disrupting.
- [Crowd] Shame!
00:43:14.426 --> 00:43:15.543
- You are disrupting.
00:43:15.543 --> 00:43:18.771
- [Crowd] Shame, shame, shame, shame!
00:43:18.771 --> 00:43:20.597
- Get out.
- Get out.
00:43:20.597 --> 00:43:21.807
- Get out!
- Get out!
00:43:21.807 --> 00:43:23.873
- You are opposed to education,
00:43:23.873 --> 00:43:25.290
you are a censor,
00:43:25.290 --> 00:43:26.911
you are a totalitarian-
00:43:26.911 --> 00:43:28.674
- Why are you censoring the words
00:43:28.674 --> 00:43:31.328
that I was speaking of
Native American students
00:43:31.328 --> 00:43:33.561
directly impacted by this mural?
00:43:33.561 --> 00:43:37.230
- They don't have a rational argument.
00:43:37.230 --> 00:43:39.630
That is their argument to disrupt.
00:43:39.630 --> 00:43:41.460
- I'm a licensed psychologist.
00:43:41.460 --> 00:43:43.500
The trauma is real.
00:43:43.500 --> 00:43:45.930
Why don't you believe the trauma is real?
00:43:45.930 --> 00:43:49.080
My daughter can't go there.
00:43:49.080 --> 00:43:51.810
Why don't you believe,
answer the question!
00:43:51.810 --> 00:43:53.130
- Get the hell out of here!
00:43:53.130 --> 00:43:54.810
You came to disrupt.
00:43:54.810 --> 00:43:55.643
You came to disrupt.
00:43:55.643 --> 00:43:58.319
- I came to tell you that the trauma
00:43:58.319 --> 00:44:00.145
- of my daughter-
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:00.145 --> 00:44:01.513
- Genocide!
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:01.513 --> 00:44:02.753
- Genocide!
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:02.753 --> 00:44:03.898
- Genocide!
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:03.898 --> 00:44:05.177
- Genocide!
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:05.177 --> 00:44:06.547
- Genocide!
- Out! Out! Out!
00:44:06.547 --> 00:44:09.214
(crowd yelling)
00:44:18.713 --> 00:44:22.410
- I think if people assert
something is triggering,
00:44:22.410 --> 00:44:24.210
if they feel like they are personally hurt
00:44:24.210 --> 00:44:26.010
by a presentation
00:44:26.010 --> 00:44:28.740
or an image, you can't debate that.
00:44:28.740 --> 00:44:30.820
You have to accept that that's how
00:44:32.160 --> 00:44:34.050
that individual feels.
00:44:34.050 --> 00:44:37.350
At some point, the intentions
of the artist don't matter.
00:44:37.350 --> 00:44:39.450
It's about how it's received.
00:44:39.450 --> 00:44:41.250
It's in the world.
00:44:41.250 --> 00:44:46.250
And I think the idea of it
being something to teach,
00:44:46.950 --> 00:44:49.790
you know, I feel like those are...
00:44:51.030 --> 00:44:52.380
It's like the idea of nuance;
00:44:52.380 --> 00:44:54.963
it's sort of a quaint notion now.
00:44:57.900 --> 00:45:02.010
- The definition of trauma
is that it is a repetition
00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:04.530
and sometimes the outright repetition
00:45:04.530 --> 00:45:06.420
of the violent event itself.
00:45:06.420 --> 00:45:09.930
Sometimes it's the
internalized repetition,
00:45:09.930 --> 00:45:12.210
the way that we see something happening
00:45:12.210 --> 00:45:13.920
again and again in our mind's eye.
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:17.100
And I think for urban Indigenous people
00:45:17.100 --> 00:45:21.780
it's seeing a person's name
on a school that you go to,
00:45:21.780 --> 00:45:24.960
the courthouse that you
have to go do jury duty at,
00:45:24.960 --> 00:45:26.760
and knowing that history,
00:45:26.760 --> 00:45:28.890
and sometimes being the only
person that knows that history
00:45:28.890 --> 00:45:30.240
or feeling like you're the only person
00:45:30.240 --> 00:45:31.740
that knows that history,
00:45:31.740 --> 00:45:33.420
that I think exacerbates a trauma
00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:34.620
over and over and over again.
00:45:34.620 --> 00:45:36.300
It can seem mundane.
00:45:36.300 --> 00:45:39.480
It can seem like I'm just
walking into a building,
00:45:39.480 --> 00:45:41.370
but it's the cumulation of these things
00:45:41.370 --> 00:45:44.493
that can, I think, over
time lead to traumatization.
00:45:45.450 --> 00:45:47.400
And I think it's important to realize
00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:49.920
that these things aren't benign.
00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:52.203
Cumulatively, they can lead to real harm.
00:45:53.640 --> 00:45:56.640
- Indigenous activists have
I think a really powerful
00:45:56.640 --> 00:45:58.470
and compelling point
00:45:58.470 --> 00:46:01.833
about the way the mural
depicts Indigenous people.
00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:08.010
But we have to be really
careful and judicious
00:46:08.010 --> 00:46:10.830
about what we identify
as traumatizing or not.
00:46:10.830 --> 00:46:15.300
Trauma becomes the easy way
00:46:15.300 --> 00:46:20.300
to justify the erasure of
things you just don't like.
00:46:20.656 --> 00:46:23.820
(birds chirping)
00:46:23.820 --> 00:46:25.710
- I think this notion
of protecting children
00:46:25.710 --> 00:46:28.230
from their own histories
and their own traumas,
00:46:28.230 --> 00:46:30.360
I think it's an important one to consider.
00:46:30.360 --> 00:46:33.460
But at the same time,
it's really important
00:46:34.380 --> 00:46:37.230
to give people the opportunity
to know their own histories
00:46:37.230 --> 00:46:41.520
and to know where their own
traumas might come from.
00:46:41.520 --> 00:46:44.160
And it depends on what
children you're protecting.
00:46:44.160 --> 00:46:45.560
I grew up in public housing.
00:46:46.650 --> 00:46:48.300
I witnessed drug abuse.
00:46:48.300 --> 00:46:49.740
I witnessed gang violence.
00:46:49.740 --> 00:46:54.740
I witnessed people being shot,
I witnessed police brutality.
00:46:54.930 --> 00:46:56.790
My family was a victim
of police brutality.
00:46:56.790 --> 00:46:59.703
I lost an uncle to police violence.
00:47:02.370 --> 00:47:05.370
Is a depiction of
violence going to shock me
00:47:05.370 --> 00:47:07.440
or traumatize me further?
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:10.530
No, it's going to affirm my experience.
00:47:10.530 --> 00:47:12.030
And it's going to let me know
00:47:12.030 --> 00:47:13.890
that there's a historical
precedent for this,
00:47:13.890 --> 00:47:16.500
and this is something
that should be addressed.
00:47:16.500 --> 00:47:18.480
These images motivated me
00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:22.470
to go out into the streets
to protest and to understand
00:47:22.470 --> 00:47:25.200
that it wasn't just me
that this was happening to.
00:47:25.200 --> 00:47:26.370
It wasn't just my neighborhood.
00:47:26.370 --> 00:47:29.800
It wasn't just my family, but
this was a systemic issue.
00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:32.883
(soft ambient music)
00:47:38.850 --> 00:47:41.767
(crowd chattering)
00:47:49.122 --> 00:47:53.039
(soft ambient music continues)
00:48:01.470 --> 00:48:03.780
- It breaks my heart to think
about painting them over,
00:48:03.780 --> 00:48:06.630
because I think they are
stunning works of art.
00:48:06.630 --> 00:48:09.810
And I don't know if I would
want to paint them over,
00:48:09.810 --> 00:48:11.756
but I definitely think that
00:48:11.756 --> 00:48:14.943
the difficult material should
be covered from students.
00:48:17.820 --> 00:48:19.380
I think it's a difficult question,
00:48:19.380 --> 00:48:22.173
and I don't know what side
I actually come down on.
00:48:24.900 --> 00:48:28.473
- Art is a extraordinary,
00:48:29.490 --> 00:48:32.820
extraordinary and powerful instrument.
00:48:32.820 --> 00:48:36.600
And that's why it's always difficult,
00:48:36.600 --> 00:48:40.050
because art gets in the mind,
00:48:40.050 --> 00:48:42.043
it deals with the mind.
00:48:42.043 --> 00:48:44.960
(crowd chattering)
00:48:50.002 --> 00:48:51.807
(camera clicking)
00:48:51.807 --> 00:48:54.890
(gentle piano music)
00:49:15.246 --> 00:49:19.163
(gentle piano music continues)
00:49:26.479 --> 00:49:30.396
(gentle piano music continues)
00:49:33.660 --> 00:49:35.760
- We are changing the narrative.
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:37.380
We're not going to stand for imagery
00:49:37.380 --> 00:49:40.143
that perpetuates the
idea that we're defeated.
00:49:41.520 --> 00:49:43.770
We will probably likely
have this conversation
00:49:43.770 --> 00:49:45.030
for another couple of decades
00:49:45.030 --> 00:49:49.792
until there is something more
permanent done to address it.
00:49:49.792 --> 00:49:54.792
(gentle piano music continues)
00:50:04.140 --> 00:50:07.170
- What we do with these murals,
what we do with these names,
00:50:07.170 --> 00:50:08.730
what we do with these institutions needs
00:50:08.730 --> 00:50:11.280
to be part of a longer process
00:50:11.280 --> 00:50:13.680
of restitution, of reparations,
00:50:13.680 --> 00:50:16.230
of understanding how we
can be better relatives
00:50:16.230 --> 00:50:17.550
to each other.
00:50:17.550 --> 00:50:20.490
- It's not about choosing a side.
00:50:20.490 --> 00:50:21.960
You know, we are taught
00:50:21.960 --> 00:50:23.580
that there are two sides to every story.
00:50:23.580 --> 00:50:25.290
There's not two sides.
00:50:25.290 --> 00:50:27.720
There are multiple perspectives.
00:50:27.720 --> 00:50:29.310
The truth of the matter is that
00:50:29.310 --> 00:50:31.710
no one person can tell the story,
00:50:31.710 --> 00:50:33.780
no one group could tell the story.
00:50:33.780 --> 00:50:36.200
Every story that we tell is incomplete.
00:50:42.170 --> 00:50:45.837
(upbeat instrumental music)
00:50:54.593 --> 00:50:56.993
(upbeat instrumental music continues)
00:51:07.254 --> 00:51:11.754
(upbeat instrumental music continues)
00:52:09.749 --> 00:52:14.249
(upbeat instrumental music continues)
00:52:34.728 --> 00:52:39.728
(upbeat instrumental music fading out)
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 53 minutes
Date: 2022
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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