Clearly we have to reach agreement on what color paint we shall use to cover up the sins of the past. White is out of the question for it is too racially charged, and black, as it might be applied to cover up something white, will be considered a cultural appropriation.

No, we need something neutral, a light shade of green perhaps. There are no green people that we know of and green would work when the government demands that we must destroy all copies of Irving Berlin’s classic unless it is a green Christmas we are dreaming of. And even then, it won’t be long before Christmas itself will be viewed through the lens of modern sensibility and found to be too patriarchal or imperialistic or too rife with poverty shaming.

Buckets of paint will be delivered soon to the chambers of the St. Paul City Council where, capriciously it seems, our elected worthies have decided that four large panels or murals of art deco style are racist and mean spirited and insensitive. They aren’t, of course, but we are governed by scholars who would sooner condemn a classic piece of art than plow a street.

The panels in question feature, for example, two black laborers shouldering sacks of grain across the loading plank of a steam boat. They are now described, through the lens of modern sensibilities, as servants or slaves. Says who? This was St. Paul. They were just as likely to be gainfully employed longshoremen.

Other panels show a porter carrying bags for a white couple and a priest, probably not successfully, trying to convert or at least preach to Native Americans. We are to be instructed by the likes of Jane Prince and Amy Brendmoen and Rebecca Noecker, city council people, that these are images of servitude, conversion and humility.

None of them are passing up the chance to grandstand their enlightenment and their fearless belief that they have been elected to sanitize history.

Chris Tolbert urged a resolution, “to make it very clear what the council feels, and not skirt the issue: This is offensive.’’

Well again, it isn’t offensive at all, but it plays well with the hectoring crowd.

The City Hall and Ramsey Country Courthouse building opened in 1932, as art deco was flourishing. The building, and presumably its art work, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Because the building is shared, the city council and Ramsey County commissioners can wring their hands together.

We need a task force, of course. Yes a task force most certainly. And some money. Just like that, they found $34,570 of your dollars from the city and county’s building fund. I guess that money will be used to buy the paint or hire artists to place alongside the old panels new art that will have to be impossibly unimaginative to not offend anybody. Or they might hide the panels behind drapes, something funereal, I would suspect.

It is a shame that not a single elected official has the courage, if that is the word, or resoluteness, to simply say that these art works reflected the style of the time and that, of course, we would not feature such paintings today, but we are not going to slather them with paint or cover them, or hide them behind drapes. For better or worse, this is who we were. We certainly intend to keep these powerful pieces as a reminder of how far we have traveled.

But the people we need to say that don’t run for office.

We are increasingly electing people who are frighteningly too comfortable with erasing history rather understanding it.