Graffiti has a long history of being a tool for protest. Because of its public form it inherently makes a statement to a broad audience of passersby and not ones who frequent galleries or museums. What was written on the bathroom walls in Cro a mere two weeks ago is not graffiti, it is defacement. There is nothing artistic about the scribbles that were found on the bathroom walls the morning of March 29. On the other hand, the visual event of anonymous students painting the words “I Feel Unsafe” in three prominent locations on campus, one outside of Fanning, one outside of Crozier-Williams and the last by the entrance of the Athletic Center, is better aligned with graffiti as an art movement. Quibbles with language are often thought to be trivial endeavors. However, language has the power to frame how one views our visual world and thus it is also important to be critical and understand the long and heavy historical context of these two campus visual spectacles that occurred in the past two weeks.
Initially in the 1960s and ’70s when graffiti started to gain traction as a movement, this mode of representation was not considered an artform but merely a scratching or writing on the walls. Even the artists themselves would refer to their craft as “writing” and call themselves “writers.” Writing is a political act, particularly in the public sphere. However, graffiti is more than that. Famed street artist LSD OM notes, “My first impression of why other people were writing was because I felt people were angry, upset that they didn’t have a voice in the world.” It is clear that graffiti, as an art form, is about critiquing and questioning power and expressing oneself particularly if one feels their voice is stifled or suppressed. Even though many excite over graffiti art, it is also a highly contentious medium because it is technically defacement and vandalism, and thus it is often devalued.
Today, some would still consider this contention enough to label graffiti a medium that is unworthy of praise. Regardless of these opinions (opinions similar to those who do not value abstract expressionism or modern art in general), this style has also been co-opted into institutions like museums and galleries that have given legitimacy and cultural capital to this form of expression. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring are but two artists who became famous due in large part to the graffiti art that they promulgated throughout New York City. Both of these artists created distinctive visual languages that took to the walls of New York City and let the people know of their struggles and hopes. Their positions as marginalized artists, Basquiat as black and Haring as gay and HIV-positive, are integral to the form of their work and the ideas they explored in a public arena. Graffiti art is inherently activist in nature which is why it is crucial to understand the difference between the two campus incidents and how mislabeling them is an act of injustice.
The incident in Cro does not elicit nor does it merit being associated with this very deep history. Obviously this is only a short overview of the wide range of ways that graffiti has been used as a form of protest, but what it comes down to is very simple: to call this hastily scrawled racist phrase on the bathroom walls graffiti would be to elevate this to the status of art when in reality it is a tired remnant of Jim Crow era segregation. This is evidenced by the fact that the defacement occurred in a bathroom, a historically loaded battleground of racial injustice and bigotry.
This also brings to light how little American culture has come in demystifying and understanding racism as a structure that perpetually privileges whiteness. It is certainly clear that there has been little progress. While many students on our campus have been in crisis mode even before this moment, there are still many who do not understand and do not care to understand how this incident has affected their peers. Essentially what it boils down to was that scrawling this phrase was an act of violence, not an act of protest. It was an act of oppression that reinforced white supremacy and privilege, not an act of revolution that deconstructed these very notions. Graffiti historically has been a form of art that has given voice to those who are interested in making a public statement from their marginalized positions. By continually framing the incident in the Crozier-Williams bathrooms as “racist graffiti,” the College seemingly elevates this visceral act of hate into art while delegitimizing graffiti’s rich historical and social contexts as an art form.
The student response to this incident on the morning of the 30th of March was actually a work that merits being called graffiti. It was a thoughtful, powerful message that made it clear how our institution is failing its students. The message was clear and concise, and was an act of protest that is artistically building on graffiti art as art that is imbued with social commentary. This kind of institutional critique of power is at the very core of the history of graffiti, which is why it is critical to distinguish the language that is used to describe the two incidents. While both inevitably fall under the category of “vandalism,” the former is defacement that caused immense harm, the second was an act of protest–a call to action for the campus to make change.•
