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Graffiti: Stupid crime of the century getting even dumber
08/04/08
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) The Last Judgment. I was going to put up a graffiti picture, but then it occurred to me that the taggers or graffiti artists would probably like that.
Reason number 4232 I hold mostly conservative views is an article I read while I was a teacher at Fred C. Nelles in Whittier (since closed), the California Youth Authority (CYA) or: a jail for California's juvenile offenders. The writer made the case for graffiti being "art" and a legitimate way to bring attention to the oppression of Mexican-Americans (I wonder what she thinks of the white, middle class students who vandalize property.).
Today, I happen to work in a Los Angeles high school, Hunting Park High School, plagued by graffiti. At the beginning of the year, I always give a speech to students which I'll paraphrase here:
Why is graffiti the dumbest crime of all time? Think about it:
Graffiti is the only crime in the world that costs you money to commit. A hungry person stealing fruit? OK, I might understand. But going to the store and spending $10.00 to commit a crime that will give you nothing back except the respect of other losers? Dumb.
It also costs you time. Imagine if you spent the same time studying that you do climbing freeway overpasses to scribble something that decent people, including, probably, your parents, think is disgusting.
It not only hurts you personally, but it hurts your parents, school, and neighborhood. Do you think your parents would be more proud of you for doing well in school, working, and raising a family- or for having to drive you from the police station?
Would you rather the school spend money on more teachers and activities- or on painting the walls every month?
Why do you think the houses in some neighborhoods are more expensive than in other neighborhoods? Because more people want to live there, right? Well, do you think people would prefer to live in a place where they run the risk of having their property defaced- or in a clean place? You are costing your parents' money by lowering the price of their house. Why don't you try to raise the price instead? It might be your house some day.
What about businesses? Do they want to paint over the graffiti on their buildings every week? Wouldn't they rather go to a cleaner area? When companies move into a neighborhood, they provide that community with jobs and tax revenue. In other words, more money out of you and your parents' pocket.
Let's imagine somebody driving through a city. Let's say the person is a non-Latino: If he notices that he's more likely to see graffiti cruising through a Latino or Mexican neighborhood than a Chinese or White one, what do you imagine he's thinking about each people? How does having that reputation help Latinos? Do you have a right to complain about somebody who holds negative stereotypes for your ethnic group if there's some merit to them?
The most important reason, however, is simple: It's wrong to write on other people's property. When people own something, they have a right to enjoy it without others ruining it. Apply the Golden Rule: How would you like to wake up and see your house or sidewalk with some gross paint strokes on it?
"Yeah, but it's still art," you say. Here's an idea that's a win for you because you get to practice your art and win for your parents, school, city, and whomever you think is watching you: Buy a little book and write in it or paper over your wall and practice there.
A lot of people today were talking about this article on graffiti in the Los Angeles Times describing how graffiti vandals are getting more aggressive.
Tags: graffiti, graffitti, grafiti, grafitti, hispanic graffiti, hphs, opinion of graffiti, what do people think about graffiti
16 comments
Comment from: christian DELEON [Visitor]
Insipring.Truly, you must command great respect at your school amongst your students.
08/05/08 @ 10:07
Comment from: SOmeine [Visitor] 
This text is very bias against graffiti. Being a graffiti artist and an illegal what is said here is bs. We dont do graffiti some kids do to be cool and popular but these people only represent a small amount in the graffity work force which these people are usually to afraid to comit this crime repetively. On the other like arti st such as myself, graffiti is not some thing that we do to be cool its a way of life the way we see things. You say you dont want graffiti but yet every damn I see advertisement EVERYWERE dont tell thats not graffiti its more of an eyesore than a beautiful mural. And all that shit your hear on CNN with "TAGBANGERS" and shit is just a way for people to be afraid of graffiti like its a terorist or some thing. All it is a an extremely popular and fast growing culture of which that cant be stoped!And whats with that Latino stuff sayin that people will think that there race is worse or graffiti oriented, thats just stereotyping. And as for schools all adults believe they think they know it all with graffiti intead create and art class and find the ones who are truly artisticly inclined and harness there great gift of imagination.Now dont get me wrong all those kids that just scrible shit on walls should be smacked because all they do is give graffiti a bad name. Such as gang graffiti it has nothing to do wiht graffiti its just idiots who think there tough and spray nonsense everywere. Also if any city could have some comon sense is that if they want to slow down the rate of illegal graffiti in their town is construct legal walls so they can practice. All i want is a place to practice and my town/city has none so i take it to the streets illegaly and just practice when this could be done on a legal wall. You also mention about spending our time other wise you say this because its an activity of which you find is just "dumb" with no actual explanation why quite childish just giving cookie cuter examples of why you think its dumb. We spend our time doing this because it is what we love and think paiting on walls is liek studying graffiti like practising a math equation till you get it right. Not all parents dilike graffiti and city people thats just what you would because of your bias idea on graffiti. My parents love my graffiti i prodyce beautiful art murals and do many art jobs for anyone who.I ACTUALLY EARN MONEY! wow how is this "dumb" i dont spend money on graffiti i EARN money from it. Well i could go on for a while and i tired of typing for some thing that will never change our image of what graffiti is. So read this and think that not all graffiti is bad you must seperate the people who actually do real graffiti illegal or not to the ones who just scribled shit on walls.
thanks.
08/06/08 @ 07:37
Comment from: SOmeine [Visitor]
Im sorry i had to leave another coment on just how childish you towards graffiti and graffiti artist heres a little quote.Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) The Last Judgment. I was going to put up a graffiti picture, but then it occurred to me that the taggers or graffiti artists would probably like that.
How old are you mentally, dont you teach at a high school?
How old are you? Dont you teach at a high school?
08/06/08 @ 07:43
Comment from: SOmeine [Visitor]
please send me a response i must try and comprehend what you will respond to this.
08/06/08 @ 07:45
Comment from: kieran [Visitor]
There are so so many things wrong with everything I just read. I have come to the conclusion that you must be slightly retarded, as nobody who claims to have any idea about graffiti would say any of the htings you just said. I'll go ahead and break this down paragraph by paragraph if you dont mind:1- Nobody who is taken seriously as a graffiti artist pays for paint. Everybody involved in graffiti knows this. Hungry man stealing for fruit? How about talented artist stealing for expression. As you so love to pick out ethnicities, picture a neighbourhood in NY or LA where every person you know is a drug addict. However, instead of going out every day, and buying crack off of some junkie, you go out, and fill the bland, generic, and overall ugly concrete jungle with beautiful works of art. Many people in this situation cannot afford to pay for paint, so graffiti doesn't actually cost them anything.
2,3,4 - The time put in is not wasted. Many, many graffiti artists who started out by hanging off of freeways and roaming around town now have substantial incomes, thanks to their art background. OBEY, The Seventh Letter, and DAIM are 3 clothing lines, just to name a few, which are all owned and produced by graffiti artists. Why go to university, to end up becoming a rogue-dickhead of a teacher earning about 30 grand a year, when your artistic abilities can earn you a 6 figure income?
5- NO SOBER OR SANE GRAFFITI ARTISTS PAINT ON HOUSES. IT IS JUST NOT DONE. House painting is done by complete fools who either have pointless beef, are high as fuck, or have not been writing long enough to know the difference.
6- You don't make any sense.
7,8,9 - Again, your lack of any knowledge of the graffiti world amazes me. Graffiti is the most diverse art form I have ever seen. Art such as calligraphy which is almost exclusively carried out by asians, or folk art, pertained to one race, are maybe examples of when somebody may feel threatened by stereotypes in art. Art is not a medium to express hate, it is a medium to express yourself. I don't believe that many groups of people of all races and backgrounds could possibly come together, paint anywhere or anything, and end up offending random passers by with stereo types or prejudices.And yeah, I admit, writing on other peoples property IS a crime. But it isn't neccessarily wrong. Women voting USED to be a crime. Black people and white people drinking out of the same fountain USED to be a crime. Its high time that graffiti is added to that list.
I find it extremely ironic that while you attempted to exclaim the stupidity of graffiti, you merely showed us all your stupidity, and lack of knowledge in the area. Do everybody a favour. Don't write about what you dont know. Thats why you're a teacher maybe, you're paid to act like you know what you're talking about. I hope someday you learn the LA names of REVOK, SABER, TOOMER, and other artists making a difference.
08/06/08 @ 07:48
Comment from: chris [Visitor]
Yea...this is pretty ridiculous. like kieran said, nobody serious about graffiti buys paint..its called rackin' cans...and i live in a very rich area and if people see graffiti, its not like they wont want to live there.
08/06/08 @ 08:24
Comment from: john [Visitor]
Eff this dude! he don't even know the meanin behind it.. as far as im conserned this dude is a major hater.
08/06/08 @ 10:45
Comment from: MOES [Visitor]
Kieran stole EVERY SINGLE WORD outta my mouth. Im a writer myself and this guy had my jaw at the floor trying to comprehend his stupidity throughout the entire article.
08/06/08 @ 16:09
Comment from: KateOneske [Visitor]
Perhaps people spend their money on it because... they ENJOY it? =PPerhaps it's also an addiction?
I, for one, think you're a little closed-minded and perhaps a little uneducated on the subject matter on which you are whinging about. =]
08/06/08 @ 19:33
Comment from: seaper isms [Visitor]
hahahahahahahahahaha.hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
hahahahahahahahahahaha.
mate you are pathetic.
all you care about is your career.
ever thought there might be something else out there than getting 30 grand a year to deal with a bunch of assholes kids.
hahahahahahahaha.
did you ever think about the multi million dollar businesses constructed to eradicate graffiti giving massive amounts of tax dollars back to the government?
there must be something good about graffiti if people are willing to pay with their lives climbing freeway signs or being sent to jail for it.
man you got burned by a bunch of 'idiots.'
that's all i can say.
oh and word to keiran who said it all for me.
08/07/08 @ 00:43
Comment from: 594 [Visitor]
The one and only thing that ruins the name and community of graffiti art is toys. Faggots scribbling stupid ass ugly shit everywhere. If more and more writers would put up beautiful pieces and less shitty tags and ugly bubble letters then maybe graffiti would be looked at as art. Then again, there are the few that are so talented enough to put up pieces. Would you rather see a nice piece, or 50 ugly tags?
08/08/08 @ 15:13
Comment from: It doesn't matter [Visitor]
#1 Have you ever heard of bikers who were 1% on their jackets? It means that they are an outlaw, that they belong to a gang of bikers. It is a common stereotype of people who ride motorcycles are outlaw gang members, yet 99% of motorcycle owners are not involved in any criminal gangs. Its the same thing with "graffiti" writers.#2 You and many other americans make graffiti out to be evil and devalue a neighborhood. How so? Paint on a wall will never kill a soul. Paint on a wall doesn't attract rapists and robbers. You ever stop to think that we might paint in bad areas, because well, they are ugly and not taken care of, so in our own way we are sprucing up the place?
#3 Painting on public property, its owned by everyone, yet when we decide on "landscaping" an area, or painting on a bench blue, they never asked what pleases the eyes of the general public who passes it everyday.
#4 I bet in some places, the only reason a wall or a piece of public property will ever be repainted is because of graffiti, if it wasn't for that, they would wait until all the paint chips off.
#5 You want to be persuasive, yet you directly insult people who probably aren't even "vandals" according to your definitions. You called anyone who can appreciate a piece of graffiti as a loser.
I understand why graffiti can't be legalized, but painting, non-racist, non-vulgar, positive images and words on run down public property isn't going to hurt anyone, unless you are a person who believes stereotypes and likes to fight things they don't understand.
08/10/08 @ 21:22
Comment from: Name: [Visitor]
All I have to say is WOW, You have a really biased opinion, to some degree i think its people like you who inspire artists to make posters and stickers that show others how they feel about the society that they are surrounded by. I have seen ad's that say "Stop graffiti before it hits where it hurts" and it shows graffiti in a toddlers room, and it is complete BULL SHIT, you are one of those people who only see SHITTY tags that come out of complete toys. Learn what is behind the art form, and learn what fuels it. Pasting, is a form (to some degree) of graffiti. and from what i read you dont see any of that, you are probably a 60 year old fuck sitting at a desk eating a hamburger and rambling on about how cool and right you are by trying to force opinions onto children, That is what your about right? manipulating opinions.?So really, I must say you have no true artistic ability. And you being a teacher, funny. I do what I love and make way more than you.
08/11/08 @ 21:27
Comment from: brent [Visitor]
i live in a place called Montreal, you may have heard of it. Montreal is the only city in the world that is half-french half-english. Because of this, it tends to be pretty european in style and in political thought. For instance, instead of assuming that all graffiti is somehow related to gangs and criminals, they make the realization that people who do graffiti are criminals BECAUSE graffiti is illegal, and if graffiti wasnt illegal they in fact would not be criminals at all. Montreal has something called a legal wall program, which means there are many walls in the city designated as a wall which graffiti artists can legally paint on. Because the artists no longer have to worry about the police, this has resulted in there being many large, beautiful murals and examples of graffiti art all over montreal. These murals actually increase the value of the neighborhood they are in because they are very well done works of art. Unfortunately, these do not work as "fly traps" as some people originally thought they would and decrease the ammount of graffiti everywhere else. Because graffiti is legal and socially accepted in some places, this creates many more "wannabes" (or "toys", in graffiti lingo) who want to be cool like an actual graffiti artist. I think someone else said that these people, who are the actual vandals, are not artists at all and are usually high or drunk when they vandalize shit. However, another point I want to make is that the legal walls always run out of room very quickly, usually within days of them opening. This means there are a plethora of actual artists with nowhere to work except more illegal walls (along busroutes, highways and traintracks are popular because more people in the city will see it) and on an illegal wall, the skilled and unskilled artists have to share the same space. Any illegal wall usually has both good and bad pieces on it, and more often than not has an excess of bad pieces. The graffiti culture (yes, because thats what it is) in montreal is so enormous that the montreal police force has a division called the vandal squad, whose sole purpose is to catch people doing graffiti on illegal walls. This is not just some scene that will fade away, this is a sub-culture that has been in development for more than 30 years and has become so popular among younger and older folk alike that it is an integral part of our city.to the writer of this article: you are extremely biased, you know nothing about the culture you love to insult, and to be honest, i think you're ignorant and closed-minded.
08/12/08 @ 20:12
Comment from: scare714 DBK [Visitor]
for all you real writers reading this shit check out www.vandalsquad.com
its an online graffiti studio that you paint on and upload your work so other writers can see its the most fucking advanced shit ever
my profile name is scare714 im pretty well nown on the site so you can see me in teh forums
08/22/08 @ 21:12
Comment from: DresOner [Visitor]
Haha, what a loser. This guy truly doesn't understand the meaning of graffiti. It is a culture, and it's just as beautiful as any other form of art. The problem is that so many people think it's strictly gang related. Kieran knows what's up!!
09/06/08 @ 17:01
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