Suitably Flip

PC-Town Opens Up a Can of Whitewash

The town of Provincetown, Massachusetts (population 3,341 and shrinking) has done something peculiar, even by Bay State standards.  When I read about this, I nearly pulled an eye muscle from such strenuous rolling.

The New England hamlet's Board of Selectmen recently voted 3 to 1 in favor of removing an oil painting of Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact from their hearing room wall.  Despite depicting a key development in the pre-history of America, which took place in their very town (more or less), the painting's egregious offenses were two-fold:

1) It didn't include any women.
2) The Native American featured in the piece was not voting!

Chairwoman of the Board of Selectman Cheryl Andrews, who cast the sole dissenting vote, offered the following:

''There's this lovely oil painting... The thing is huge. It's been up there since forever. It was painted by Max Bohm, who's considered quite something in local art circles.

''And Sarah Peake turns around and faces it, and it's government. They're voting. She says, 'I'd like to talk about this painting. I find this painting disturbing.' That's a quote. She said it's disturbing to her because there are no women in the painting and the only one not holding a ballot is the Native American Indian. And I thought, 'Here we go.' "
...
"Instead of P-Town, we'll be PC-Town," she said. ''Some of the things that are PC aren't bad, having sensitivity to different groups. But this feels strained, horribly strained."

Selected reaction from the townsfolk suggests the crazy in the water supply may be contained to Town Hall:

The former head of the town's Art Commission wrote to the local paper that the vote was ''an act of idiocy." Bohm's granddaughter, Anne Packard, herself a noted local artist, said, ''It offends me because they're trying to change the history of the town, or just history."

Historian John Kemp noted that the Compact was actually signed by the Pilgrims on board the Mayflower, but confirms it was only signed by men.  Also, it was never actually voted on, so the painting does in fact take some liberties.  But Peake's rationale for its removal was not based on these inconsistencies, but rather the bizarre requirement that suitable artwork magically swaddle our predecessors in the cultural and political norms in place 400 years later.

This is the worst brand of political correctness - that which finds it more palatable to disavow and disregard any historical reality that is out of sync with our modern enlightenment, rather than acknowledge, and even embrace, the progress highlighted by such contrast.  While the painting sounds to be an imperfect account of the adoption of the Mayflower Compact, it's a shame to disavow a pivotal chapter of history (and one's own town's role in it) in favor of the delicate sensibilities of the politically hypercorrect.

On the bright side:

I'm just glad the statue depicting the flag-raising at Iwo Jima isn't in Provincetown. There's not a woman in it, meaning that the selectmen would order it melted down for scrap.

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PC-Town Opens Up a Can of Whitewash

The town of Provincetown, Massachusetts (population 3,341 and shrinking) has done something peculiar, even by Bay State standards.  When I read about this, I nearly pulled an eye muscle from such strenuous rolling.

The New England hamlet's Board of Selectmen recently voted 3 to 1 in favor of removing an oil painting of Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact from their hearing room wall.  Despite depicting a key development in the pre-history of America, which took place in their very town (more or less), the painting's egregious offenses were two-fold:

1) It didn't include any women.
2) The Native American featured in the piece was not voting!

Chairwoman of the Board of Selectman Cheryl Andrews, who cast the sole dissenting vote, offered the following:

''There's this lovely oil painting... The thing is huge. It's been up there since forever. It was painted by Max Bohm, who's considered quite something in local art circles.

''And Sarah Peake turns around and faces it, and it's government. They're voting. She says, 'I'd like to talk about this painting. I find this painting disturbing.' That's a quote. She said it's disturbing to her because there are no women in the painting and the only one not holding a ballot is the Native American Indian. And I thought, 'Here we go.' "
...
"Instead of P-Town, we'll be PC-Town," she said. ''Some of the things that are PC aren't bad, having sensitivity to different groups. But this feels strained, horribly strained."

Selected reaction from the townsfolk suggests the crazy in the water supply may be contained to Town Hall:

The former head of the town's Art Commission wrote to the local paper that the vote was ''an act of idiocy." Bohm's granddaughter, Anne Packard, herself a noted local artist, said, ''It offends me because they're trying to change the history of the town, or just history."

Historian John Kemp noted that the Compact was actually signed by the Pilgrims on board the Mayflower, but confirms it was only signed by men.  Also, it was never actually voted on, so the painting does in fact take some liberties.  But Peake's rationale for its removal was not based on these inconsistencies, but rather the bizarre requirement that suitable artwork magically swaddle our predecessors in the cultural and political norms in place 400 years later.

This is the worst brand of political correctness - that which finds it more palatable to disavow and disregard any historical reality that is out of sync with our modern enlightenment, rather than acknowledge, and even embrace, the progress highlighted by such contrast.  While the painting sounds to be an imperfect account of the adoption of the Mayflower Compact, it's a shame to disavow a pivotal chapter of history (and one's own town's role in it) in favor of the delicate sensibilities of the politically hypercorrect.

On the bright side:

I'm just glad the statue depicting the flag-raising at Iwo Jima isn't in Provincetown. There's not a woman in it, meaning that the selectmen would order it melted down for scrap.