The Emmett Till Painting

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/the-emmett-till-painting.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Painting of Emmett Till Draws Protests” (Arts pages, March 22):

It is far more important to hang a painting of Emmett Till’s body beaten and killed by a mob of white men — even though painted by a white artist — than to show nothing at all of this racial crime, which occurred in Mississippi in 1955. What are the alternative paintings these protesting artists offer?

Better to get busy and paint one themselves than advocate the removal of this one.

Do we want to deepen the divisions among us or face and accept our responsibility for whatever part we have played in our country’s history of racial violence?

And destroy this painting, as one of the artists suggests? I never thought that I would see the day when any artist advocated censorship of any kind.

MARY MCLEOD, ST. PAUL