Graffiti Is Not Vandalism!

Instead, some say the word has been stolen from legitimate artists and encoded as a crime

Joshua Longobardy

A little more than a month ago, Marc Ecko, founder and owner of the prodigious apparel company ecko unltd., and a monumental figure in the culture of today's youth, hip-hop, sent a provocative letter to Oscar Goodman. Its intention was to ignite dialogue over a major quandary weighing heavy and thus far unshakable on the back of the Las Vegas Valley, as well as other metropolitan areas across the nation: graffiti.


And that's because last year Las Vegas' mayor made national headlines with his comments about graffiti, when he appeared on a Reno television show and said: "You know, we have a beautiful highway landscaping redevelopment in our Downtown ... These punks come along and deface it. I'm saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb. That may be the right thing to do."


Goodman has neither repented for his absurd suggestion nor responded to the invitation to a forum in Ecko's letter, but he did reply that Ecko, a man who used the art of graffiti to achieve corporate and cultural success and who now advocates for the art in its uncorrupted form, represents a scarce minority, and he, the mayor, the vast majority. (Which is true, for there are few authentic artists who practice graffiti and even fewer who advocate their inalienable rights; and there are many who rightfully detest graffiti on their neighborhood walls.) And then Goodman made a clear insinuation: end of the matter.


But that's just not the case. Because even though Goodman declined to meet with Ecko during the entrepreneur's May 9-10 business trip to Las Vegas, the issue abides.


At its core, men ask of government only two things: to protect them—their life, their rights, their responsibilities; and to protect their own—their nation, their family, their property. Governmental means to any other ends are superfluous and oftentimes obtrusive, and, stripped of curveball politics and labyrinthine rhetoric, easy to discern. But quandaries rise—and so too debate—when protection for one runs contradictory to protection for the other. We've seen this exemplified with the Patriot Act, by which the government moves to protect the nation at the expense of an individual's privacy.


And we see it with graffiti. On one hand a minority seeks with uncompromising persistence to have their natural right to practice their art safeguarded; and on the other, a majority demands that their property, both public and private, be kept inviolate.


The two sides, however, are not irreconcilable, just as they are neither polarized nor mutually distinct. As with so many of the long and twisted thorn bushes in our nation's politics, it all stems from a problem in language.


At its core graffiti refers to a drawing or inscription on a wall. That's all. Nothing of art or vandalism. But graffiti in the world of hip-hop—that culture from which it took its artistic wings—is art that uses words, characters and flamboyant designs to express urban motifs. In its pure form graffiti is iridescent, vivacious and multidimensional, and pleasing to the eye if crafted with an adept hand. Divinity passes through a chosen graffiti artist as it does a Dali or da Vinci. Most accomplish it with spray paint and broad-tipped markers, but the tools of the craft are endless. As with any art, the words 'legal' and 'illegal' have no place in its definition.


On the other hand, Nevada, in its revised statutes, defines graffiti as an unauthorized inscription, word, figure or design painted on or affixed to property, which defaces that property. North Las Vegas defines it as simply "vandalism." Timothy Kephart, a man so well-learned in graffiti that the State of California Superior Court deems him an expert on the matter, calls it the most underrated crime in America, for few people realize its impact. Las Vegas, according to Clark County statistics, paid some $370,000 to clean up its graffiti last year; North Las Vegas, $219,000; Henderson, $141,000; and Clark County in total, $3 million. All while private property owners shelled out some $30 million.


In the end artists have come to share an inseparable association with vandals, linked together by the innocuous word "graffiti." The victim of this association, of course, has been the upright artists. The responsibility for this tragic connection belongs to two sources.


Those who have betrayed the art—the recreants, who use the tools and techniques and themes of graffiti to carry out their deviance—have done more to harm the cause advocated by Marc Ecko than anyone else. Their pestilence has given graffiti a bad name. Had there never been any graffiti-minded vandals—who often share the same talk, walk, dress, music and rage as the authentic artists, for many identify with the hip-hop culture, which is vast and contains multitudes—the art of graffiti would abound freely, says Ecko. "That's why," Ecko says, "we don't want to see vandalism any more than Oscar Goodman does."


But disconnected politicians who rebuke graffiti with irresponsible rhetoric, like Goodman, and who strive to eradicate graffiti through punitive means, are just as responsible, according to Ecko. And his point holds substance.


For categorizing those who practice graffiti without distinction as "punks" demonizes a minority who in fact break no laws and who wish, like any artists, to offer their style to the world. Of course the venom in Oscar Goodman's words, heard nationwide, were geared toward vandalism, not the art of graffiti. But his rhetoric didn't extricate the two. In fact, it further linked the authentic artists with the miscreants, so that today, when someone advocates the rights of graffiti artists, the majority of the voting population—who are inclined to listen to the officials elected to represent them—can't acquiesce, for in their minds they immediately and inseparably associate the pestilence they've abhorred on their neighborhood walls. Failure to be cognizant of the authentic artists, the minority, says Ecko, is to the mayor's shortcoming. For it is incumbent upon an elected official to understand the people and subcultures that comprise his community. "You can't demonize a certain population and not expect ramifications," says Ecko.


Suggesting harsher punishments as a means to eradicate illegal graffiti is also injurious to the cause, Ecko states, And not just because Goodman's call for amputating the thumbs of vandals is unreasonable (as by his logic the mayor would have to call for the right foot of everyone guilty of speeding, because everyone knows that that crime, unlike graffiti, kills—a lot—especially in Goodman's city). But also because increased punitive measures is a faulty methodology. Ask any trained teacher: extreme negative reinforcement is sure to backfire (above all with youth, who by nature are rebellious). And so far it has in this Valley, evidenced by the 50,000 acts of graffiti seen in Las Vegas alone in 2005.


Last year a Juvenile Court judge who works with young graffiti offenders on a daily basis told the Las Vegas Sun that excessive punishments do little to deter graffiti, and studies from all over the world have corroborated this notion. Nevertheless, Clark County is attempting a comprehensive plan by which a coalition of governmental entities—such as the district attorney's office, the Metro, Henderson and North Las Vegas police departments, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management—team together to attack graffiti and its culprits. The plan calls for four battle strategies, and they are all focused on catching and punishing deviant behavior.


Advocates of the art of graffiti suggest a more positive pedagogy. Kids, they say, should be steered from the path of deviance not by threatening harsher punishments, but instead, by encouraging them to exorcise their talents and energies in productive directions. Just as they do with the MAP program in Philadelphia.


The Murals Arts Program, initiated in 1984, is a collaborative effort of several governmental entities seeking to make Marc Eckos out of not just kids with a penchant for graffiti but inner-city youths in general. That is, the program, with its authorized mural paintings, art education programs, and outreach efforts, strives to help urban kids employ their energies, their talents, and even their culture toward not just a productive good, but perhaps even a profitable one too.


"When we started, our walls [in Philadelphia] were covered in graffiti—you couldn't find one that wasn't," says Brian Campbell, assistant director of MAP. "What we found was, a lot of kids who were extremely talented, but who just didn't have the opportunity, the canvases, to hone their craft. So we told them: 'Okay, you know how to tag—where's that going to get you?' Then we redirected their talents."


Now each year MAP employs 250 to 300 young artists, and reaches over 3,000 underprivileged children with its art education program. They have put up 2,500 murals in Philadelphia, a city that has thus become a tourist stop for thousands of art enthusiasts, and most of the murals shine colorful and poignant in dissolute neighborhoods that had been in desperate need of beautification. Moreover, Campbell says: "There has been a dramatic decrease in graffiti since 1984." One study out of Philadelphia found that 92 percent of the population noticed a significant reduction in graffiti in their neighborhoods since the program's inception.


Emulating such a program is quite plausible in Clark County. "With the right tools, with the right instructors, with authorization, it's very possible," Campbell says.


Ecko would like more. He would like to see public figures like Goodman acknowledge the legitimacy of the art of graffiti. Then they would adapt their rhetoric so that vandals are condemned while the art of graffiti is commended. For the man is reproachable and not the medium. Graffiti—in either its crude or eloquent forms—has by itself harmed nothing and no one, he says.


And then, because Goodman is a man in a seat of political power, Ecko wishes to see him work with the artists and their advocates, to help salvage their name. To alleviate the restrictions that prevent them from not only practicing their craft, but, more importantly, practicing it free from the fear of persecution. To change laws to be in accordance with First Amendment. It's a desire both noble and warranted. Right now in Clark County it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to possess aerosol cans or broad-tipped markers—the tools of the craft—and cities like North Las Vegas are working to make the penalties stricter for businesses caught selling the tools to minors. This is a deterrent in regard to young vandals; but to formative artists, it's censorship. What if, when William Faulkner was a boy, there had been a wave of stabbings by youths armed with pencils, and thus the state of Mississippi prohibited anyone under the age of 18 from possessing pencils as a means to protect the populace? Imagine the tragedy, not just for the literary world, but for humanity itself, to which literature is a prop. What if, in Bob Dylan's youth, a band of miscreants kept neighbors up all night, every night, with their obnoxious music, and so the local jurisprudence from then on banned minors from owning a guitar or harmonica? What a detriment to America it would have been! In America 100 miscreants must be suffered to permit even a single artist to thrive. That has been the praise of this country, and in truth the reason for its being.


In the end this is not an irreconcilable matter—an endless impasse like the abortion and death-penalty issues—but rather, a problem of language. What neither side seems to get is, the dilemma is in the name; and if that simple titular problem were resolved, the rest of the quandary will most likely follow. That is to say: The term "graffiti" has been robbed from its authentic artists. It is no longer theirs alone; it now belongs to the recreants as well. The artists and their advocates have so far chosen, on principle, to fight for it; but if they were to surrender the term "graffiti' to the recreants, detach and distance themselves from it, in totality, and take ownership of a new name, then they could have a genre unsullied and free from criminal connotations. They would have to capitulate a significant part of their cultural history, yes, but the gains would be worth it: freedom not just to practice their craft but also to practice it without fear. Under the new name—which would have to be consecrated by someone from within, like Marc Ecko—they could ask government to protect their freedom of expression, and allow law enforcement to pursue and prosecute "graffiti."

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