From Canoe.ca:
VICTORIA — On the same day B.C.’s first aboriginal lieutenant-governor is to be sworn in, murals of bare-breasted native women at the B.C. legislature were hidden from view.
[...]
Chief Ed John, of the First Nations Summit, called the cloaking a “significant gesture.”
[...]
Chief Ed John, of the First Nations Summit, called the cloaking a “significant gesture.”
A bit of back story. The murals in question are a series of four paintings done by British Columbia artist George Southwell back in 1932. By rendering several of the female figures in them topless, he was going for the "idealized native" look that one finds in the work of Paul Gauguin. Almost since the day these paintings were unveiled, however, they have attracted protests from the B.C. First Nations, and in April of this year the B.C. government voted to have them removed and stored at a cost of $280,000.
However, to frame the issue as a matter of covering up nakedness, as the Canoe story does, and as local journalists have done repeatedly since the decision was announced, deliberately cheapens native concerns. A February release from the B.C. First Nation's summit makes clear that it is not the nudity in the murals which renders them offensive:
“First Nations have always maintained the murals in the rotunda of the legislative buildings
are demeaning and degrading and do nothing more than uphold negative
stereotypes of First Nations as a conquered and subservient people.
If you look closely at the picture above, it is quite clear that the natives in it are performing menial and possibly slave labor for their white masters. That's what got people cheesed off.
PS. Why am I writing about this, other than that I am an unreconstructed boob man? My own conflicted history with the murals at the B.C. Legislature can be found here.
