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Cleansing history is just wrong

Dear Editor The recent move to change names of schools, buildings and paintings to cleanse history of references to what we today perceive as politically incorrect is just wrong. We wouldn’t be Canada if it wasn’t for John A. Macdonald.

Dear Editor

The recent move to change names of schools, buildings and paintings to cleanse history of references to what we today perceive as politically incorrect is just wrong.

We wouldn’t be Canada if it wasn’t for John A. Macdonald.We wouldn’t have the tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn without Mark Twain’s words. We wouldn’t have the wonderful painting, The Indian Church, without Emily Carr’s thoughtful outlook on the Indian culture of her day.

These people were all good people, who contributed greatly to our society, in the context of their day. Yes, we now know we were misguided then, but we need to use these incidences as “teaching moments,” realize whitewashing history can’t correct those wrongs, and learn from it.

Emily Carr’s painting title should be left as is. It’s her art. She was supportive and respectful of the native community. And she was known to cuss a lot, and I suspect the renaming of her painting would make her do just that.

John A. Macdonald had his warts, as we all do, but overall was a visionary builder of our great nation. Put a plaque in the school telling everyone that today we realize he was misguided regarding the Indian reserve system. Don’t dishonour him by removing his name, but point out that his opinion was wrong then and we are moving, in our day, to correct those wrongs.

And rewriting Mark Twain’s literature? We must teach those words were used at that time, it was the history of that day and, fortunately, we have now learned it is disrespectful. Changing words doesn’t erase the wrongs of the past. Use these incidences to teach and learn from.

This move to renaming has the potential to be never ending. Where will it end? Changing Davin School in Regina to “Crescent” School? There is no history in that word. Are the people who make these decisions perfect in every way? I doubt it. This is political correctness run amok. Erasing history is time-consuming and expensive. For many reasons, It’s just wrong!

Let’s make conscious decisions to make our world today better, not focus on rewriting the past. Backward cleansing is not productive. What is productive is present-day actions, and present-day words. Let’s do our best to make today great.

Jean Walker

Battleford, Sask.