Cleansing history with name changes

The changing of names of schools, buildings, paintings to cleanse history of political incorrectness is wrong.

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

These people were all great contributors to our society, and acted within the context of their day. Carr’s art title is her art! She supported and respected the Indigenous community. She was notorious for frequent cussing; the renaming of her painting might make her do just that!

Macdonald was a visionary builder of Canada. Don’t dishonour him by removing his name, but erect a plaque to explain his thoughts on First Nations were wrong then and that today we are working hard to correct those wrongs.

Rewriting Twain’s literature? Teach children/people that those words were part of the history of that day, now recognized as disrespectful. Whitewashing history can’t correct those wrongs, but we can use these as “teaching moments,” and learn from them.

This is political correctness run amok. We can change history books, but erasing history? It’s time-consuming, expensive, dishonest and not productive. What is productive is present-day actions, and present-day words. Let’s make history today that won’t need to be changed.

Jean Walker, Battleford