Glorifiying graffiti?
Reader Carrie Luther was not pleased with Tuesday's photo editorial, titled "An Odd Game of Tag," which depicted the escalating and -- eternal war -- between vandals who tag private property with graffiti and property owners, who bear the costs and responsibility of cleaning it up.
She believes that every time the newspaper depicts graffiti, it encourages and glorifies illegal activity.
That certainly was not the intent.
Here's the photo:
Here's what the accompanying type said:
Someone paints graffiti. Someone paints over the graffiti. Someone scrawls more graffiti over the paint-over. Someone paints over the graffiti over the paint-over of the graffiti over the paint-over.
And so it goes.
In a public display of a never-ending battle, a concrete retaining wall next door to the Target Shopping Center on Lawndale Avenue provides clear evidence of the struggle to keep private property free of the garish doodles of guerrilla "artists." A city ordinance requires property owners to clean vandalized walls.
Problem is, the process seems to take forever.
Walls throughout the city bear the now-you-see-them, now-you-don't scribblings. Witness the scrawlings on the empty Winn-Dixie at East Cone Boulevard and Summit Avenue, many of them gang-related.
In the case of the Lawndale graffiti, no sooner do the clean-up patches dry over the offending markings than someone uses them as convenient canvases for the next round of markings.
As of this writing, the wall is again graffiti-free.
But the day is young.
"No more pictures of this, please," Luther said in a voice mail. "This is not something that needs to be printed and glorified."
She suggested that the News & Record pay the bills for the clean-up.
Luther and I later talked about the editorial. I explained the point was not to glorify the act but to convey the utter frustration of having to clean up over and over behind these people.
By the way, you'll see more photo editorials on opinion pages in the future under the title, "Snap Judgment."
And by the way, Carrie Luther was one of my 10th-grade English teachers. Ouch.
Comments (4)
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This is physical graffitti. Any comment on the psycho-social graffiti that taggers like the Pulpit Forum etc. paint on the city over and over again?
Looks like the DA and other investigators just painted over the latest installment. Oh well, at least nobody got locked out of their office this time so maybe things are getting better, huh?
Posted on April 2, 2008 11:36 AM
1994 Singapore, Michael Faye, this folks know how to stop this. I understand Michael, will not go in a store that sells spray paint.
Posted on April 3, 2008 7:16 AM
Allen, you guys never cease to amaze me. Here you are editorializing about lack of transparency by the state. People from any entity are not going to show or promote things that go against their interests and biases, period.
Look at the N&R for instance. A month ago- big controversy, extensive coverage etc. of an interest group that claims malfeascence on the part of the police in disposing of records. Editorials, blog threads etc ensue. A week ago the DA and investigators refute the claim, but now; no editorials, no blog threads (I'm posting on a graffiti thread for god's sake) Nobody is going to take these people to task for this record business, these false claims, even though this hysterical behavior sheds a bad light and doubt on the whole Wray thing and city gov't in general, there is not anybody at the N&R talking about it. You're giving these people a free pass. And then you'll go and say how other people aren't transparent. It's just laughable.
Posted on April 4, 2008 8:58 AM
Actually, the transparency editorial is posted online at the Your Voice at the Table blog.
We can take up the conversation there, if you'd like.
Posted on April 4, 2008 9:17 AM