In Mr. Soucheray’s Sunday column he presents his readers with a choice in the color of paint that is hypothetically to be used to cover up Art Deco murals in the St. Paul City Council chambers. The only color that comes to mind after reading Mr. Soucheray’s latest diatribe is the crimson scarlet of shame.

In his rush to evoke an Orwellian thought police, Mr. Soucheray forgot to actually look at the murals being discussed. The murals mark the changes St. Paul went through from the era of voyageurs to the age of the railroad — and chiefly do so showing vignettes about laborers in those times beneath a main focus of each mural.

Each focus of each mural is a white man.

Art sends messages, and where art is presented sends messages. Currently in the home of the local government in our city we are sending a message of white male dominance and superiority. Mr. Soucheray, being a white male, perhaps can plead ignorance for not finding offense.

These murals should be removed and preserved, where they can be displayed with their proper context. They unequivocally however, do not belong in the city council chambers which should be open and welcoming to all citizens of St. Paul.

Archie Pickering, St. Paul

IT HAPPENED

I can’t for the life of me understand the reasoning behind the city council’s decision to attempt to remove the historic murals from the walls of city hall. The murals speak truth: That’s what life was like.

I’m part Ojibwa. My father was born on a reservation. Am I proud of the way anglos treated my ancestors? No. Not at all. But I’m not afraid of the truth either. I’m not ashamed to see a mural depicting the way my ancestors were treated. I’m not offended: It happened. It’s historical fact; it was sad and maybe even inhuman, and it was wrong. But the murals depict history as it actually was. You can’t — and shouldn’t — attempt to change history by removing these or covering it up. That’s censorship.

The artwork is excellent. I worked in the courthouse for many years. I walked by those murals more times than I can count, and not once did I feel faint for what they depicted. To the overly sensitive who would destroy this historically accurate artwork I say get a backbone, for crying out loud.

John Conway, St. Paul

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING

I read Fred Melo’s article “St. Paul City Council seeks task force on ‘offensive’ art in its chambers” (Nov. 29) with great interest. I have visited the chambers of the Saint Paul City Council and the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners for a variety of reasons. As a community advocate, I spoke before the City Council; as an interested community member, I observed Ramsey County Board meetings; and as a curious resident, I participated in one of the official historic tours of the chambers and building.

Because it’s relevant, I will share that I identify as a white woman. Every time I enter the chambers, I am viscerally struck by the enormous murals in an unpleasant way. As a woman, they offend me. As a white person, I am mortified and embarrassed by these one-dimensional, yet towering, depictions of “our history,” that do not merely offer symbols of systematic subjugation, but actual images of these policies and practices.

Context is everything. If these murals appeared in an art museum or history center with signage to help interpret the art, I would not be writing this letter. However, these murals are instead situated in the most symbolic location of city and county political power and, quite literally, form the space of the most publicly available interface between our local elected officials and everyday residents.

The recent public controversy over the Walker Art Museum’s Scaffold installation in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden should be a red flag warning to our city and county leaders. A recent assessment of the controversy published in the Mitchell Hamline Law Review includes at least two relevant conclusions. First, “when art and remembrance or memorial representations intersect, the responsibility is to provide some education about past events or a narrative framework that will guide the perceptions of the visitor.” And second, the Walker was wrong to exclude affected Native people in its process of commissioning and displaying a work of art representing their history.

It is nauseating hypocrisy to recruit members of affected communities onto an implementation task force after a “compromise” decision was made without their input and brokered behind closed doors by those with political power.

That the city and county have failed to recognize their complicity in perpetuating racial and gender inequities by allowing these murals to continue demeaning women, Native people, and African Americans is disturbing. I expect more from city and county governments that aspire to build more equitable communities.

Tracy Sides, St. Paul