Graffiti & You
I read an article about graffiti on gothamist.com today and started posting responses to it.
Here, go check it out.
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/05/02/scratchitti.php
I just read all these comments about how offensive and terrible and awful graffiti is in the city, and I posted a response. I liked it so much I wanted my friends to read it here.
Let's not forget all of the truly serious issues - like rape, homicide, homelessness, child abuse - in the city that are being neglected in favor of stuff like this. While I recognize that there are government agencies devoted to help resolve all the issues I mentioned, and many more that I didn't, the point I'm trying to make is this:
If we use all of the government's available resources on the issues that really matter, the life and death problems that face so many of the citizens of the city, I think that smaller quality-of-life issues like graffiti will take care of themselves.
And if they don't? Let's worry about them then, when we've got all these other, and in my mind, more important things all settled and taken care of.
Every hour spent by politicians and interns, every piece of photocopier paper used, every square foot of office space occupied for the purpose of taking markers away from adults is better spent in the service of feeding people and saving lives.
I think it takes a small mind, a disturbed mind, easily rattled by assaults on "cleanliness" and "purity of space," it takes a lousy mind to live in this city, to walk around in it, to read the papers and know all the things going wrong and going badly and to think, "What really needs fixing around here is all these marks on the walls."
Just cause I like to play devil's advocate and don't actually have any strong feelings on the subject, I'll retort. One of the arguments against graffitti is that it is a constant visual reminder of the lack of control over the criminal element that exists in a neighborhood. A proliferation of graffitti that remains on buildings may create a sense of hopelessness/helplessness of gaining control over this element. It's like, "if we paint over it the fuckers are just goanna tag it again" attitude prevails and it almost becomes OK to tag. Frankly, though I really have no opinion on the artistic value of graffitti, I'd probably much rather have a community garden or a community-painted mural in my neighborhood. Rather than tags, those things are symbols of neighborhood/community involvement and are likely to unite a community, thus reducing the type of atomization that, IMO, is destorying the entire notion of community in many places in this country. I frankly wish the people in my neighborhood said hi to eachother and participated in common activities.
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