We had entered an era of limitlessness, or the illusion thereof, and this in itself is a sort of wonder. My grandfather lived a life of limits, both suffered and strictly observed, in a world of limits. I learned much of that world from him and others, and then I changed; I entered the world of labor-saving machines and of limitless cheap fossil fuel. It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.
― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food
I have some questions about limits that will undoubtedly bring the disapproval and dismissal of those who will argue that only one with privilege would dare to ask them. And I concede that, to a great degree, this is true. Those without privilege rarely ask that limits be established when they’ve been limited in one way or another, by one group or another, their entire lives. In this light, then, as a white woman of privilege with questions about limits, I am guilty. But I really want to know. Regarding works of art–statues, paintings, sculptures, even architecture–I want to know if limits identifying what should and should not be removed from public venues, are not only inescapable but indispensable, as Berry writes?
Most of my life, I’ve shouldered the helpful harness of limits: curfews and deadlines, defined duties and expectations, organizational structures of every shape, shape, and origin. Using The Shape A Writer Can Contain, a composition manual my father wrote in the 70s, I learned to write, and later teach, a coherent, organized, and focused essay. The parameters of its parts–the introduction, the body, and the conclusion–yoked my many-legged ideas which threatened to bolt for other pastures. The framework of a single paragraph trained me to look closely and dig deeply, exploring and expounding upon one good insight. The stricture of a thesis statement or topic sentence kept me honest and bound to the ideological contract I’d made with my readers.
It wasn’t until the 80s when I attended an English Language Arts conference that I was told that assigning my students a five-paragraph essay was a quick road to composition hell. This traditional structure didn’t even merit purgatory. No, force your students to write it, and you condemned them to the eternal and dreadful compliance of expository hell. Let them write organically, the presenters argued. Let their ideas grow freely and naturally as they will. As a relatively young teacher, I stewed and fretted all the way home from the conference, admonishing myself for such naivety. Maybe there were better ways to help students learn to write. Maybe I’d been simply unaware.
After two excruciating months of organic writing during which more students suffered and failed than not, I returned to the form which had proven itself over and over again, convicted that its limits were more helpful than harmful.
But most limits, even those that may be largely beneficial, are not without controversy. Laws regarding mandatory seatbelt use: personal limits for safety or an affront to civil liberty? Dress codes for restaurants (no shoes, no shirt, no service): reasonable public health restrictions or an infringement on personal freedom? By their very nature, limits are restrictive and exclusive; they define what is acceptable and what is not, what is in and what is out.
Certainly there are–and have always been–limits that privilege, please, and protect some groups and not others. In our country, we don’t have to go back too many decades to identify examples of these. The Jim Crow laws are some of the most aggregious examples. It goes without saying that limits may be helpful or destructive; they may serve the greater good or serve a privileged few. The best ones are always carefully considered, ethically examined, and clearly defined.
Even in rural Iowa, most people I know agree that we should limit the public display of Confederate statues that profile individuals known primarily for defending and promoting the pre-Civil War South, including and especially the institution of slavery. Although they may argue that it’s not acceptable to destroy or deface them, they will concede that these statues should be removed from the public positions they’ve held.
But the removal of other statues and pieces of art isn’t as clear cut. In a recent Boston Globe article, “Lincoln’s emancipation statue triggers debate on how the Black experience should be commemorated,” Meghan E. Irons writes:
But nearly 150 years after its debut here, the statue has become a flashpoint in the nation’s latest reckoning with public art portraying figures from the Civil War and its aftermath. What was intended as a depiction of liberation can look demeaning to 21st-century eyes: a submissive Black man bending at the feet of the president. Yet even as activists in Boston and Washington have urged the statues be torn down or repurposed, some argue against, saying the art, however challenging, is worth preserving.
Even the distant relatives of Archer Alexander, the black man used as the model for the statue’s kneeling figure, disagree over whether or not the emancipation statue should be removed. One of Alexander’s distant relatives, Keith Winstead, contends that the statue is a tribute to a critical period in Black history and to an American hero who risked his life to help Union soldiers during the Civil War. Another descendant, Cedric Turner believes that taking down the statue is akin to wiping out the story of freed slaves who donated money for the statue, and of Alexander himself, who helped his country during the Civil War.
But there is also distant relative, Maryum Ali, who argues that it is degrading and offensive and said that she was certain that her great-great-great-great grandfather would not want to be viewed as bowing down to anyone — Lincoln or anybody else. Like Ali, Raul Fernandez, a lecturer and associate dean at Boston University who has extensively researched the statue, claims that it is clearly a tribute to white supremacy.
So how do we proceed? What stays and what goes? What is acceptable and what is not? What celebrates and what offends?
I began to seriously consider these questions when I thought about the bronze statue of my father that stands outside of the university classroom building where he taught for much of his life. The statue is a beautiful piece of artwork, lovingly crafted by sculptor Martha Pettigrew. But it is a statue of a white male teacher/poet flanking a building that has also housed a black teacher/poet. So, some would consider my father’s statue a microinvalidation, a piece of art that excludes, negates, or nullifies the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a minority person. Has the bronzed Don Welch invalidated and excluded the minority person who, instead, should stand as an affirmation of teaching excellence on the University of Nebraska Kearney campus? And if so, should my father’s statue be removed because it’s yet another symbol of the systemic racism that privileges whites over blacks?
My father was a man of the truest integrity and one of the finest teachers, thinkers and writers I have known. I believe that the statue his friends and colleagues commissioned is a worthy testament to my father’s legacy as an excellent teacher. Still, I’m not naive enough to assume that a majority would vote to keep his statue if a national poll was taken today. For there really are no clear parameters that identify what we should keep and what we should remove. And without these, what specific criteria–if any–do we use? And who decides upon this criteria?
I know there will be some who consider me foolish for worrying about my father’s statue. After all, it’s not like my dad was a Confederate officer or former slave owner, and it’s not like he has a history of racist speech and actions. And yet, there will be others who would argue that, because my father was a white man, his statue should removed and replaced with one that validates and celebrates the reality of minority persons.
Like Keith Winstead and Cedric Turner who prefer that the emancipation statue remain, I prefer that the statue of my father remain. There will be others who prefer that both statues be removed and forgotten. But preferences are not carefully considered, ethically examined, clearly defined limits. They are simply personal predilictions, individual desires. And as such, they leave us in a quagmire. There are as many preferences as there are people who hold them, so whose preference should prevail?
I’ve read that my desire for clear limits regarding public art is yet another symptom of my white privilege. Perhaps it is. But even so, is this desire wrong? Would such limits cause more harm than good to most people? And might not the discussion of such limits be a progressive step forward?
These statues weren’t intended to be idols before which we worship. Rather, most of them were created as public pieces of art intended to commemorate imperfect human beings whose prevailing legacies are honorable and good. In the end, someone or some group will decide if a public statue stays or goes. I would like to think that their decisions will be carefully considered, ethically examined, and clearly defined so that the criteria used to make these decisions may be applied consistently–or at least more consistently.
Before we remove or destroy them, then, I’d like to know if we might come to a consensus regarding the criteria we will use to determine what stays and what goes. I’d like to know if there will be any limits beyond preference to guide our decisions. I’m painfully aware of the challenges that establishing such limits will pose. This is messy stuff–perhaps the messiest. Done well, however, it should take us beyond politics and preferences to sound, ethical guidelines that we can collectively agree upon. Done well, it should be part of the solution rather than exacerbating the problem. Done well, it should result in limits that are truly indispensable.
