This author has clearly never considered that this minimalist and highly symbolic artwork (by the commenter’s own admission) might not be depicting the different colors of people literally. The black men and the white men may or may not be blacks and whites; they could very well be the darker halves and lighter halves of a shared human nature ... What this means for the cultural Platonists is that even if we are not libertarians (as I am not), we still ought to act as if we are civic libertarians on most matters that fall outside our realm of expertise, and even some matters that we do know a fair deal about.
A friend of mine is hugely into art, has an MFA and has worked at NYC galleries. We were touring some galleries once, looking at some modern art sculpture that some high concept title and description on it ... but it kind of looked like poop. I asked him, "Do you think the artist knows it looks like poop?" He replied: "Of course, that's part of the game." And then later I pointed out one that looked phallic, and my friend said "of course the artist intended that."
The grug brain / midwit / topwit meme really comes to mind here...
Modern artists seem to be addicted to trolling. Telling people who point out the obvious, intuitive message of some piece of art that they have a dirty mind and they are simply not sophisticated enough is part of the trolling. I don't think the artist is propagandizing in favor of white genocide -- but rather he is probably getting a private chuckle from watching all the sophisticated, effete, white male art critics who will praise the artwork and its "symoblisms of unity" while studiously avoiding saying the blatantly obvious.
There is no reason to reward this trolling with display in public areas. As /u/coffee_enjoyer points out, this "art" does not educate us, does not spiritually uplift us, does not display some amazing abilities of craftsmanship so there is no reason to give it any respect at all. The mural should be replaced by something better.
Are you an American? Have you had standard American schoolbook history and civics?
The problem with this question is that to "be generally fluent and comfortable understanding the issues of our day" you need several things:
An understanding of the historical and political narratives that our current leadership grew up with, that is, what was being taught from 1970 to around 2005.
An understanding of the historical and political narratives that are now in vogue (eg. 1619 project)
Revisionist accounts that will explain all the myth-making in 1) and 2). Of course, many revisionist histories are themselves quite false ... so you have to find the right ones. I can tell you what I think are the right ones, but how will you know to trust my judgement?
If you just know 3), the "true history" you will have trouble debating, or even interacting with the mainstream. You might get yourself in a lot of hot water. If you just know 1) or 2), you will basically be an NPC, and a victim of fashion, and a victim of forces larger than yourself and that do not have your interest at heart.
I'll plug my own site that I created many moons ago, which just lists a bunch of book and article pairings that set a left/mainstream/center-left account against a non-left/revisionist account. Maybe you will find it useful: https://countersearch.net/
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