The truth about graffiti

By ROBERT MARSHALL

A column that ran a couple of weeks ago centred on truthfulness in the media and whether the average-Joe still cared about such qualities. Readers were clear. Accuracy was paramount. Truth was fundamental. E-mail told me many were frustrated about the modern-day state of news reporting and the criticism wasn't restricted to any particular medium. Some named names. One reader took my question and turned it around, asking if reporters cared. Never had one of my columns generated as much cross-country interest. Until ...

Bang! Boom! Kapow!

That was the sound of my e-mail box following a more recent column inspired by a news story about allowing some graffiti types to spray over the walls and planters of a local theatre following a truce of sorts.

There were a few pieces of mail from folks fed up with graffiti. One writer even wanted to see graffiti become a civic election issue and suggested that spray paint be restricted to commercial purposes.

But for the most part the bang, boom and so on was the sound of anything-but-friendly fire. The long and short of what I wrote, it seems, was offensive to those claiming an appreciation of graffiti and its roots in the urban underground.

I was called a doughnut-eater and there were hints I was a racist, while others told me I was uneducated and ignorant. Others were just plain rude.

Another reader even threw my media-accuracy column back at me and suggested I was willing to adjust the truth to make the story. That I blurred the line between art and other tagging.

How about a reality check?

Regarding that fine line, as far as I know it's all called graffiti. Not my definition. And it's been around since ancient times and contrary to what some believe it is not the product of some 20th-century counterculture thinking. Its evidence is found in artifacts from Greece to Egypt and even on the walls of Pompeii, buried 2,000 years ago after Mount Vesuvius blew.

As for what I wrote, graffiti -- any kind -- is "not my cup of tea." That happens to be true. I suppose I could have added I've visited the Louvre in Paris and was bored silly by its staunch conservatism. I just know what I like.

I also wrote that if people want graffiti "art" on their walls then "that's their business." Check. And I even went further suggesting that with permission, the graffiti-types should "go for it, have a ball," but that they should stay away from where they're not wanted.

I wrote that because it takes hundreds of thousand of dollars each year to clean up unwanted graffiti. And I assume that's true because that's what the city says it spends to do just that.

I said that motives for graffiti have a range and can be a simple as "marking turf -- like when a dog pees on a tree." That really got the dander up. But it's true. Don't believe me? Ask a canine expert. And then ask a street gang specialist.

My view is that graffiti is an insult to community. I pointed to a recent incident that saw a memorial tagged with spray paint. The memorial honoured those who gave their lives for Canada, its people and all generations to come. Sorry, don't see any lies there.

It's not as if I was advocating the recent position of the no-nonsense mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman. The former mob mouthpiece, who won his last election with more than 85% of the vote, suggested cutting off the fingers, on TV, of taggers who deface area freeways.

Finally, it was recommended that I open my mind and offer an apology to graffiti-people in Winnipeg, across Canada and around the world. Including the closet ones. Well, in the interests of truth in media ... I'm just not quite ready for that.



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Robert Marshall was a police officer for 27 years. E-mail comments to rm112800@hotmail.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@wpgsun.com.