Who's Repugnant? That would be Marty...

marjorie says...

Three months ago young interns at SWOP began planning an event in collaboration with the South Valley Male Involvement Project. The event was envisioned as a way to inform Albuquerque youth about all the varied resources available to them. Eventually, the organizers of the event had commitments from almost 30 different resource organizations to set up informational tables at the event, which would also include nine different local youth bands for entertainment. Hence the name of the event: Rock Out With Your Cause Out.

Last week, the city pulled the permit for the event, using as an excuse that the organizers refused to provide security or cleanup, or pay the fees. I know these charges are blatant falsehoods, and I also know that the city routinely works with groups up until the very last minute to ensure that events take place. Security and cleanup were arranged and the fees which were sprung on the youth organizers at the last minute were well on their way to being raised.

So…security, cleanup and fees issues are the official reasons given for pulling the permit. But SWOP youth also know that Mayor Martin Chavez harbors an antipathy toward them going back many years. In 2002 there was a non-violent direct action at Marty’s office to protest what many young people see as an anti-youth city agenda that criminalizes young people of color specifically. Its amazing really that a grown man who claims to be a seasoned politician can be so bent out of shape for years on end due to teenagers stringing up police crime scene tape in his office. This is what that horrendously threatening event actually looked like:

Yep...these teenage girls look like real criminals don't they? Does Marty have no sense of humor? His comments since that action have shown time and again that he is a petty man who takes out his frustrations on easy targets…in this case, young people who don’t fit his notions of what people should think and be.

And it’s a shame that his attitude has caused city bureaucrats to pull the permit for an event that would have been very positive for young people.

But Marty really shows his true colors when he uses this opportunity to go a step further and attack one component of the planned event, which was a “Graffiti Battle” …an art competition between young graffiti artists. SWOP has held three graffiti battles in the past couple of years, as have other organizations in Albuquerque. Here’s what one of them looks like:

SWOP's graffiti battles have always had a theme and as it turns out most of the young artists who participate are intelligent politically aware people. Here's the winning mural painted during the first battle a few years ago..."Power to Choose." This mural was subsequently used on T-shirts used to get out the vote among young people.

Marty shows the class and the color divide of the world we live in when he calls Graffiti Artists “Repugnant” across the board and impugns the young people organizing this event as “Ghettocizing the city.”

So does this mean that Basquiat and Haring were “Repugnant” to Mayor Marty?

Does this mean that the vivid graffiti murals to be found in our most vibrant urban centers don’t contribute to that vibrancy AT ALL? That they are in fact “Repugnant”?

In reality it’s an attack by Marty on people unlike himself. It’s behavior all too familiar to SWOP
organizers and we can only hope that the petty behavior of Marty this past week makes it all the more obvious to greater Albuquerque.

Graffiti is used in different ways and means different things to different people. One important thing to consider about it is that it's a form of expression used the world over by disenfranchised people. I encourage all those who read m-pyre and are engaged in this internet form of expression...which by comparison is a privileged one...to support the young people who were disenfranchised by the city this week by speaking out: through your blogs, through letters to the editor, through communicating directly with city government. Not to mention come to the rally tomorrow at noon in civic plaza and show solidarity with an important organized youth voice in Albuquerque.

PRO-Youth Rally: Support Organized Youth Voices in Albuquerque

Saturday, August 26, 2002

12:00-2:00pm

Civic Plaza, Downtown Albuquerque


Ya Basta!