Friday, October 18th, 2002

SHALL WE STARVE THE MOVEMENT?

The San Francisco Weekly Says Yes

It’s a rare article in the corporate media—even the corporate “alternative” weekly media—that takes visionary radical youth work with more than a grain of salt. More often than not, today’s young social justice leaders are treated with more ironic eyebrow-raising than genuine respect. Take Peter Byrne’s hit-piece in the San Francisco Weekly this past week on School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), a nonprofit group of under-thirtysomethings based out of West Oakland’s Mandela Village who train hip-hop generation youths to build a movement.

SOUL functions with a simple premise: to raise hell effectively, you not only need to organize your rallies, you need to organize yourselves. In this day and age, that means not only developing cutting-edge skills and issue-frames, it means keeping your organization funded and your staff stable. Environmentalists have a term for this: sustainability. History is littered with the corpses of well-meaning organizations that ran out of dough.

Byrne takes SOUL’s need to sustain progressive work through fund-raising as “a contradiction”. He writes, “A score of gold-plated, capitalist foundations regularly pump large sums of money into Mandela Village, even though SOUL promotes anti-capitalist ideas—including the redistribution of the world’s wealth to the poor—that, if made real, would mean the end of private property, not to mention philanthropic foundations.”

Instead, Byrne sides with SOUL’s critics, whom he tellingly describes as “old-timers who are wary of those who feast from the hands they are supposed to bite.” These baby boomers finger-wag at SOUL’s apparently money-grubbing revolutionaries. One old hippie compares the women activists to “poverty pimps”. But while 60s poverty pimps paid for fur coats and high-heeled shoes with government subsidies, SOUL schoolers might be happy to get free promotional T-shirts from their favorite major-label conscious-rap artists. Byrne’s article is utterly devoid of context. It’s easy to take cheap shots when you conveniently leave out 30 years of corporate globalization, governmental disinvestment and civic disengagement.

But Byrne is not merely a fallen liberal nostalgic for the supposedly radical 60s. He’s out to discredit these hip-hop generation rebels, P.J. O’ Rourke style, by trotting out the old tropes geezers used to use to delegitimize the long-haired rebels of the 60s and glazing them with a thick coat of irony. Tropes like:

*Activists are merely confused, guilt-ridden kids working out issues of family and authority on someone else’s time and dime. After detailing each of the SOUL sisters’ personal stories—often marked by tragedy and family strife—he notes that SOUL pays its staff salaries and offers them health benefits and paid sick leave. Horrors! That’s not suffering for The Movement! He then cites Maria Poblet—”SOUL’s ideal of a leader for the 21st century: young, female, intellectual, immigrant, idealist…and salaried”—who worries that she makes a bit more than some of the families on General Assistance that she organizes. Judging by paltry New Times standards, Mr. Byrne likely still makes at least 50% more than these organizers do. But it’s not his guilt that’s in question here.

*Young radicals are hypocrites who practice exactly the opposite of what they preach. Byrne says the SOUL borrows “techniques and language from the corporate business world”. He cites no proof, but presumably is referring to words like (duh) “empowerment” and techniques like (double duh) workshops, whose allegedly corporate provenance he doesn’t note either. But even worse, they take money from foundations whose endowments were built on the backs of those who still struggle to be free. Funny, back in the 60s, they used to call this “the redistribution of the world’s wealth to the poor”.

It is a bizarre notion that requires one to bite a hand only if it is doing nothing but slapping you silly. This is a bourgie idea, of course, but there are havens for it on the left, often amongst young, upper middle-class romantics whose main struggle in the morning is choosing which Birkenstocks to wear with which Patagonia. If they can throw a rock for anti-capitalism, who says old rich farts might not want to give money to them and their poorer, urban counterparts to do it some more? And why, on the face of it, is that always wrong?

More to the point, since the 60s, right-wingers—philanthropists or activists—haven’t worried about little things like ideological purity. Instead they have poured billions of dollars—billions, mind you—into building up activist, organizing, academic, and media institutions to implement a vast agenda. They have taken that money to push for the corporatization of the public space, the defunding of social services, including youth programs, the deracination of education, and the criminalization of young people and people of color. According to a study done by the People for the American Way, they have also used that money in order to, as one conservative put it, work toward “extinguishing” the funding sources of progressive groups. And so-called liberals (and some of their so-called “alternative” weeklies) have jumped on the bandwagon, supporting reactionary initiatives like Propositions 209 and 21, while reducing their charity to progressive causes.

And yet Byrne asks if these social justice activists—who fund five vibrant organizations, staff dozens of organizers, and train thousands of activists on less than $700,000 a year—are hypocritical for receiving money from the relatively teenier progressive foundations. The real question Byrne should have asked is this: How shall we fund The Movement? Until the left builds individual donor networks that can rival those on the right, foundations will—of necessity and not without tensions—play a role in supporting work for social change.

If Byrne has a better idea—we can reasonably assume that he doesn’t—he isn’t telling. And you’re not likely to find one soon in The New Times’ owned San Francisco Weekly, a chain which has become a haven for ex-liberals who are defining the political “alternative” to alternative. This article, in fact, is a good example of how far some “alt”-weeklies have fallen: it uses the investigative tools once deployed to uncover corporate greed and government corruption to bring down po’, broke, social justice activists. Byrne’s article might read like a parody of the once-mighty alt-weekly expose if it weren’t so malicious.

This question of funding the movement is not merely an ideological one. It has to do with real day-to-day choices activists inevitably have to make. If I give my life to The Movement, an activist must always ask, what will it give to me? Inevitably, far too many progressives flee political work because they decide, for a variety of reasons—money not being an inconsequential one—that the activist life is not sustainable.

Organizations like SOUL are correct to model the democracy they would like to see in their own work practices. It’s a process that is not only about participatory decision-making, but about how we value work and working. An organization that mistreats its workers by starving them and overworking them and psychologically battering them is not revolutionary, whether it’s a corporation or a collective. Shall the rest of the progressive community continue to exploit people who work for social change? Would we be moving toward a better, more just world if all the progressive activists were starving and burnt out? If you, like Byrne, believe so, you too are part of the problem.

posted by @ 3:48 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, October 11th, 2002

This Alternet piece, “Labor Champions Reform as Big Business Squirms”, is a bit dated, but drops one very interesting fact: “In July the Gallup Organization found that 38 percent of Americans consider big business to be the “biggest threat to the future of the country,” the highest figure in 48 years of polling.”

Is there any wonder why Bush is in a mad dash to go to war? And, as usual, the Democrats (thanks DiFi) would rather play chase-the-idiot than actually try to represent where the people are at.

It’s a shitty day. Thank god for Doonesbury, Ted Rall, and my man Lalo Alcaraz .

posted by @ 9:11 am | 0 Comments

Monday, October 7th, 2002

WEEKLY SCREED #1: SOME REASONS ALTERNATIVE WEEKLIES SUCK

Ok so maybe this isn’t taking the high road…but since I just got back from a weekend conference discussing the ills of media monopolization, this article in the New York Times, “Alternative Weeklies Divide Turf” gives me a nice reason to vent some steam I’ve been gathering in over a decade of writing for alt-weeklies.

Alt-weeklies mostly emerged as a way of meeting great goals: 1) providing a progressive foil against the mainstream, 2) representing lefty politics, and cutting-edge arts and culture of local communities through covering stories never told by the corporate mainstream media, and 3) building an enlightened business model — by becoming a marketing vehicle for local, small businesses, and people-connecting mechanisms (i.e. personal ads!) — in other words, being a manifestation of the whole “small is beautiful” ethic.

That era ended about a decade ago. Now, as the Times notes, the Village Voice Media and the New Times–the two monsters left in the game–have slowed down their competition. These $100+ million companies have declared a truce by each agreeing to close one of their magazines in areas where they have been going head to head. Specifically, New Times agreed to shut down the New Times LA, which has been going head to head with the Voice’s LA Weekly. The Voice agreed to shut down the Cleveland Free Times which has been fighting the New Times’ Cleveland Scene. Can anyone say collusion?

In radio, of course, Clear Channel has been buying up radio stations to remove competition and either sterilizing or changing the formats. Newspapers, same story. Alt-weeklies, which should have remained independent voices, have gone the same route.

In the short run, of course, the shutting down of New Times isn’t going to send the editors of the LA Weekly on a dead run to the right. But in the long run, this is f-ed up news for freelancers, especially younger voices. There are less venues for new writers to break in, magazines have no incentive to keep competitive freelance rates, and editors can afford to get lazy. Hell, they already are! When’s the last time you read an article in an alt-weekly about a band you really cared about, let alone one that was *interesting*? In Los Angeles and Cleveland, your long odds have been doubled.

As it is, freelancers get treated horribly. Rates have gone down with many magazines in the past three years, and outlets have dropped. Accounting people take much longer to pay these smaller checks. (Not to mention the indignity of chasing after piddly checks from these disrespectful, brain-dead jerks.) Very nice, fresh interns are exploited to do more copy for free, squeezing out older, seasoned freelancers who get disagreeable about the increasingly shitty treatment they suffer.

Even before New Times jumped on the scene–a chain whose editorial content has shifted right to match its labor policies, alt-weeklies have discouraged, harassed, or destroyed unionizing in their shops. The biggest offenders include some of the most editorially liberal papers in the most liberal cities whose nice, liberal readerships would be shocked to know about their alt-weekly publishers’ shady history and continued thievery.

Readers who deserve outlets for what remains of independent weekly journalism (another topic for another screed) have not been helped by the corporatization of the field. The Village Voice Media company has eliminated a third of its titles in the last three years. And this rush towards economies of scale is not over. As one COO admits, “Maybe we’re just dumb, but we have never seen the economies of scale.” Bottom-line vultures believe the industry will only reach those economies when one company owns most of the papers. The article asserts, “banks and private equity firms backing the respective chains will expect to cash out within several years and one or both of the chains could be sold.”

Yeah, I’m kinda angry. Shouldn’t you be?

BUSTA NEWS HEADLINE

A funny note in the ongoing hip-hopization of the world. These guys at Headline News clearly have not read Fab 5 Freddy’s “Fresh Fly Flavor”.

posted by @ 8:59 am | 0 Comments

Thursday, October 3rd, 2002

THE REAL DEAL ON LAPD’S NEW CHIEF

Here is information on the new LAPD police chief, William Bratton, from anti-police brutality activists from New York City’s communities of color. He is considered a “liberal” by police chief standards, especially considering he was ousted by former Mayor Giuliani. But Bratton’s history is not clean, as you’ll see…

William Bratton was NYC’s Police Commissioner from Jan. 10, 1994 to April 14, 1996. He was just appointed Police Commissioner in LA. Below are flyers/statements that were put out by the Justice Committee, summarizing his history in NYC.

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BRATTON’S “COMMUNITY POLICING” —

REALITY, NOT RHETORIC

Police Commissioner Bratton frequently speaks about “community policing” and his commitment to root out corruption and brutality in the NYPD. Let’s look at his record.

Cases he inherited and has done nothing about

The Giuliani/Bratton administration came into office and inherited a number of cases that had occurred earlier but had not yet been resolved. Some cases, like the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, have been given maximum attention. Others, involving people of color, have not received intense police attention. This is a racial double-standard.

Manuel Mayi. A Queens College honor student, Manuel Mayi, was beaten to death by a racist gang in Corona, Queens in March 1991. His murderers are still free. Despite promises by Mayor Giuliani to the Mayi family, there has not been an intensified police investigation. We have the name of two people from the gang that killed Manuel Mayi. One is now a cadet in the Police Academy! No one in the NYPD is interested in this information. No one is in jail for the murder of Manuel Mayi.

Howard Beach Racial Firebombing. In July 1995, a Howard Beach home that was purchased by a Puerto Rican family, was burned to the ground in what was characterized as “racially-motivated arson.” Commissioner Bratton has not spoken about this crime. There has been no on-going police investigation. No one is in jail.

Beatings of officers of color by white cops. In November 1991, police officers Antonio Echevestre and Scott Thompson were brutally beaten by a drunken mob of off-duty cops. One member of the mob, Patrick Brosnan, later became part of Mayor Giuliani’s campaign security team. In the upside-down world of the NYPD, charges were brought against Echevestre and Thompson and not against the drunken cops who beat them. These charges are still pending. Even inside the NYPD, there is violence and discrimination against people of color.

Cases that occurred since he took charge of the NYPD

The Mollen Commission, a government body, documented a link between corruption and brutality. It recommended a strong independent body with full investigative and subpoena power to monitor police corruption and brutality. Giuliani and Bratton oppose this. The 46th Precinct in the Bronx was singled out for attention by the Mollen Commission. One officer there was called “the mechanic” by other officers because he had a reputation for “tuning up” (beating) people. Despite the Mollen Commission’s findings and his claims of “concern”, Commissioner Bratton has done nothing in the 46th Precinct. As a result:

Anthony Baez–killed by 46th Precinct police. Anthony Baez was killed by an illegal police chokehold. Officer Francis Livoti, who has since been indicted, was supposed to be under departmental “observation” because of his history of violence (including an attack on a superior officer). However, the sergeant that was riding with him the night he killed Anthony Baez did nothing while the illegal chokehold was applied.

Anthony Rosario & Hilton Vega–killed by 46th Precinct police. These two young Puerto Ricans were shot in the back, 14 and 8 times. After their execution, the NYPD carried out a character assassination against them. One of the officers who emptied his gun into them was Patrick Brosnan. Again, an “official” police coverup is protecting him. Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bratton have repeatedly refused to discuss Brosnan’s role in the shootings.

HUNTER COLLEGE STUDENTS BEATEN. A peaceful demonstration by Hunter College Students protesting the budget cuts was attacked by police on March 15. 8 students were arrested. 1 was injured.

Police Brutality. Under Bratton’s “leadership,” police brutality complaints have gone up 37% citywide. In some precincts, however, the increase is much more. “Excessive force complaints in the 46th Precinct dumped 64.5 percent from 31 to 51. Overall complaints there, including excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, and offensive language, jumped 56%.” (Newsday, 2/9/65)

DON’T LET COMMISSIONER BRATTON FILL THE AIR WITH EMPTY RHETORIC ABOUT “COMMUNITY POLICING.” LET’S TALK ABOUT HIS “DEEDS” — WHAT HE HAS OR HASN’T DONE. ASK HIM ABOUT HIS RECORD.

NATIONAL CONGRESS FOR PUERTO RICAN RIGHTS – JUSTICE COMMITTEE/NYC CHAPTER

———————————————————–

“BRATTON’S LEAVING WITH BLOOD ON HIS HANDS”

SAY FAMILIES OF POLICE BRUTALITY VICTIMS

2,000 Expected at Racial Justice Day Rally 1996

At tomorrow’s RACIAL JUSTICE DAY RALLY (City Hall, 4 -5:30 pm), families of police brutality victims will criticize the policies and actions of the NYPD under the leadership of outgoing Commissioner William Bratton. The criticisms include:

* Police brutality and police killings of unarmed youth of color have increased under Commissioner Bratton.

* Commissioner Bratton claims to have reduced crime, but police brutality is a crime. In the name of “reducing street crime,” we have been asked to accept an increase of police crime.

* Bratton’s “quality of life” sweeps have resulted in more than 98,000 juvenile arrests. 80% of these were for non-violent offenses (such as disorderly conduct, loitering, not having i.d.); and 50% were so minor that only a summons was issued. During these “quality of life” sweeps young people’s civil rights are routinely violated.

* Commissioner Bratton has ignored racial crimes against people of color.

* Commissioner Bratton has ignored bias crimes against gays and lesbians.

* Commissioner Bratton has ignored the anti-corruption recommendations of the Mollen Commission; and has failed to mount a vigorous anti-corruption campaign inside the NYPD.

* Commissioner Bratton has undermined the Civilian Complaint Review Board by refusing to even read their findings in the cases of Anthony Rosario and Hilton Vega.

* Commissioner Bratton has ignored the problems of racial and gender discrimination WITHIN the Police Department.

posted by @ 2:48 pm | 0 Comments

Monday, September 30th, 2002

R.I.P PATSY MINK 1927-2002

“America is not a country which needs to punish its dissenters to preserve its honor. America is not a country which needs to demand conformity of all its people, for its strength lies in all our diversities converging in one common belief, that of the importance of freedom as the essence of our country.”

-Patsy Takemoto Mink, 1967, arguing against legislation to punish flag-burners.

posted by @ 8:52 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, September 27th, 2002

Here’s an article that hits close to home–No-fly blacklist snares political activists–because some of the folks that have been targeted here are close friends. The blacklist, which allows airlines to stop you from flying, is apparently netting many anti-racist and peace activists. More info soon…

posted by @ 12:04 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, September 27th, 2002

Today’s links. First up, an interview with Naomi Klein on Alternet in which she talks about the (don’t call it the) anti-globalization movement, which has taken over Washington DC for the weekend. She is off to Argentina to shoot a film there documenting that country’s crisis earlier this year and how the crushing forces of neo-liberalism have led to a strengthening of the left and a reinvigoration of democracy.

By the way, you can get updates on the demos and the arrests at DC Indymedia. From another coast, it strikes me that the anti-globalization (don’t call it that) activists in DC may have gone backwards in terms of diversity, and that they may have done much better in getting their message out about the war. The jury is still out, just an hour or two after the mass arrests, but I don’t know that the demonstrations this weekend will find widespread sympathy amongst the anti-war and anti-racist activists, some of whom are mobilizing for next month. I have a strong sense there were huge missed opportunities here. Prove me wrong.

Two other great articles: Mother Jones’ list of the top 10 student activist campuses last year, a report which nicely balances Playboy’s top 10 party campuses last year (Chico has slipped to #2, but I’m sure they drink harder). The highlight of the article is the Native American group at Northern Colorado which started up an intramural team called the Fightin Whites. Buy a t-shirt here and offend some WASPs!

posted by @ 9:11 am | 0 Comments

Tuesday, September 24th, 2002

A late mention that fits into the book/reissue/hip-hop nostalgia thang: my good friend, cheerful archivist and librarian, and sometime mentor Bill Adler has reissued his Run DMC biography, Tougher Than Leather: The Rise of Run-DMC. Now this is a beautiful thing. The original came out in 1987,as Bill explains, as part of a failed corporate synergy plan–a movie, album, and book all of the same name out at the same time! Of course, hip-hop back then had no multinational juice, and mostly ran like authentic dancehall shows still do–that is, real real real late.

The album probably dropped first (and didn’t get anywhere near the props that Raising Hell did), and the movie (which didn’t get anywhere near the props that Krush Groove did, and you know what, Krush Groove never got no props) much later. The book came out in pulp paperback sometime in between–the size of those old Michael Moorcock novels–and although it looked like a cheap cash-in, it remains one of the unsung classics of early hip-hop books.

It opens with the aftermath of the infamous Long Beach riots–the first sign to middle America that not only was rap big, it might be dangerous–and goes back and forth into the whole story of the group and the transitional scene out of the old school. If you’re new to this, then, it fills in where Yes Yes Y’all leaves off, right at the point where rap blows up. I like it better than Run’s and D’s autobiographies, mainly because Bill gives incredible you-were-there descriptions of the Disco Fever, Hollis parties, and, of course, the riots and their aftermath. It’s been out of print since the early 90s. I know I spent many desperate years trying to find a copy of this book, and when I finally did, it was more than worth the wait.

PS…If you didn’t know, and you may not just ’cause my man is too humble to tell you, Bill was Russell Simmons’ first publicist (besides Rush himself), worked with Def Jam (including Public Enemy, the Beasties, Slick Rick, LL) through the late 80s, has repped a number of great minds (the Last Poets, Franti, Paris, Paul Mooney) and has been one of the most important voices in shaping media perceptions of hip-hop culture. He’s a legend, man. Just wait ’til you read some of the interview stuff he gave me for my book. He’s also one of the key persons behind the Free Slick Rick campaign (see below).

By the way, can someone tell me how the amphitheater weekend went down–Wildstyle reunion on Friday and Kool Herc/Coxsone Dodd/Jammys on Saturday? Hit me at: cantstopwontstop@mindspring.com.

posted by @ 7:50 pm | 0 Comments

Thursday, September 12th, 2002

+++++++++++

IN THIS ISSUE of the highly (and soon to be even more) irregular

“CAN’T STOP” NEWSLETTER:

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-> WRITING THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF NYC GRAF

-> HIP-HOP FALL BOOKS

-> HIP-HOP ACTIVISM EVENTS

-> HEAVY ROTATES

-> MISC. OTHER SH*T

+++++++++++

**************

BLAZING BACK: THE RETURN OF NEW YORK CITY GRAFFITI

**************

This is a slightly extended remix of an article that appears this week in the Village Voice (including more citations than an alt-weekly would ever allow, but not nearly as much as your average Ethnic Studies grad-student’s paper). Check out the clean edit (with a cool jpeg and the inevitable e-commerce links) at The Village Voice.

Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City

By Joe Austin

Columbia University Press, 400 pp., $49.50 (cloth), $24.50 (paper)

Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City

By Ivor L. Miller

University of Mississippi Press, 288 pp., $60 (cloth), $30 (paper)

Broken Windows

By James and Karla Murray

Gingko Press, 180 pp., $39.95

On a quiet morning two months ago, Mayor Bloomberg took his paint-roller and press corps to Williamsburg, a burgeoning node on the graffiti-writers map that is now a target for intensified policing, punishment, and cleanup. “Even with limited resources, we are not going to walk away from the needs of this city,” he said. “Graffiti poses a direct threat to the quality of life of all New Yorkers. It’s not just an eyesore. It is an invitation to criminals and a message to citizens that we don’t care.”

Graffiti has been the scourge and scapegoat of every New York mayor since John Lindsay. Indeed, Bloomberg’s photo-op represents something of a mayoral rite of passage. But now, with remarkable timing, comes graf’s passionate defense. Three new books, Joe Austin’s *Taking The Train*, Ivor Miller’s *Aerosol Kingdom*, and James and Karla Murray’s *Broken Windows*, let the writers talk back to the haters, while offering a nuanced reassessment of New York City’s graffiti scene.

The contemporary movement, spawned in the subways and streets of Philadelphia and New York in the late 60s, has had a symbiotic relationship with academics, journalists, and photodocumentarians. Graf’s insularity attracts anthropological curiosity, its rebel codes ferment sociological inquiry, and its eye-burning virtuosity and butterfly ephemerality demand documentation and cataloguing.

Books on graffiti have always played a major role in the movement. Norman Mailer, Jon Naar and Mervyn Kurlansky’s *Faith of Graffiti* (1974) celebrated great Broadway stylists and time-forgotten toys alike, carrying the graf gospel into the boroughs like a virus. Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper’s *Subway Art* (1984) captured the peak years of train graffiti and catalyzed the post-buff global explosion. Chalfant and Jim Prigoff later captured that development in the equally influential *Spraycan Art* (1987).Early academic works on graffiti by Craig Castleman (*Getting Up* [1982]) and Jack Stewart (*Subway Graffiti: An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway System of New York City, 1970-1978* [dissertation, 1989]), and Steven Hager’s journalistic landmark *Hip-Hop* (1984) have also had a profound effect on the emerging generation of hip-hop intellectuals (who claim graf’s tradition as their own).

While the quality of academic books on rap music has mostly fallen off in recent years, the quality of graffiti books remains high. Unlike academics who study rap, a serious graf scholar can’t simply flip on BET for raw material. Ivor L. Miller’s *Aerosol Kingdom* is the product of a 15-year journey through the New York scene, capturing his sense of awe and admiration for the risk, skill, and ambition of the graf writers on every lavishly illustrated page.In “Night Train: The Power That Man Made”, Miller meditates on Ogun and Rakim, gandy dancing (by 19th century black rail workers) and white flight. Here, the book appears like a freshly painted 5 roaring out of the tunnel onto a Bronx el, a *Flash of the Spirit* for the hip-hop gen.

Soon after embarking on the study, Miller tossed out his theories and decided his job was to act as interpreter and disseminator. The result is an unprecedented record of graf’s subway years, told in definitive interviews with artists like BLADE, James TOP, DURO, DOZE and IZ the WIZ–writers whose names have become myth but whose stories have not. The reclusive Lee Quinones seems to drop poetry every time he speaks: “Subways are corporate America’s way of getting its people to workAnd the trains were clones themselves, they were all supposed to be silver and blue, a form of imperialism and control. And we took that and completely changed it.”

This drive to beautify is a logic, like the trains, that runs in circles. It’s a desire to “create art for art’s sake”, as the husband-and-wife photographers James and Karla Murray put it. What *Aerosol Kingdom* does for the subway era, *Broken Windows* does for the new school, allowing the post-subway kings and queens of New York—COPE 2, CES, VASE, KING BEE, DIVA and MICKEY –to talk about intent, technique, risk and reward. Some, like LADY PINK, SEEN and WEST ONE (FC)provide continuity between the eras. All share a do-or-die spirit that can’t be stopped.

*Broken Windows* documents the Giuliani-era explosion of “productions”–the usually legalmulti-writer pieces that began appearing on store-gates, buildings, walls, and train tunnels–and “bombs”–the illegal,controversial signatures that seemed to swarm the city. Like *Subway Art*, *Broken Windows* becomes a -salute to the graf-writers’ visual genius.

With the constraints of time, color, surface and size loosened, post-subway aerosol art has explored bold new conceptions of space. Robert Farris Thompson argues that subway wildstyle’s “gorgeous lariats of color and line” have influenced not only Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, but also Frank Stella. Even Zaha Hadid’s architecture now seems unimaginable without the late-era subway graf. Some of the wall productions in *Broken Windows* make you wonder what buildings might look like in 30 years.

After the MTA declared victory in its war against train graffiti in 1989, the center of the movement seemed to disperse to far-flung locales like Los Angeles and Sydney. But when Giuliani renewed the war on graffiti as the centerpiece of his “quality of life” campaign, graf-writers mobilized to create bigger, more stunning pieces and wage relentless bombing campaigns. The Giuliani crackdown–a crucial first step toward the Starbucks-ing of the urban core and the violent displacement of the poor, youths, and people of color–influenced a new generation of mayors across the country, and gave back to the New York graf scene its frontline urgency.

The Murray book gets its title from the “broken windows” theory that provided the psuedo-intellectual backbone for Giuliani time. As Joe Austin’s *Taking The Train* makes clear, the ideological war between quality-of-lifers and aerosol advocates has been as viscerally gripping as the graffiti itself. In the spring of 1973, journalist Richard Goldstein famously called graffiti “the first genuine teenage street culture since the fifties.” But by 1979, the backlash began to cohere through an astonishingly disingenuous Public Interest article by sociologist Nathan Glazer. He outlined an idea that Harvard criminologist James Q. Wilson would later develop into the “broken windows” theory: If one broken window was allowed to go unfixed, a neighborhood’s fall would soon follow. To these neocons, graffiti represented the signal moment of a neighborhood’s plunge into Fort Apache.

Glazer barely even had an argument; mostly he just had the same kind of *funny vibe* that Bernhard Goetz would later have. “(W)hile I do not find myself consciously making the connection between the graffiti-makers and the criminals who occasionally rob, rape, assault, and murder passengers,” Glazer admitted, “the sense that all are a part of one world of uncontrollable predators seems inescapable.” Today, despite scanty empirical evidence, the three-decade old soundbite from City Hall that graffiti is a gateway to violent crime has necrotized into unimpeachable truth.

Austin notes that by 1973 John Lindsay allocated the first $10 million for anti-graffiti efforts. Through the city’s bankruptcy and continued train accidents, politicians still somehow found $20 million to establish the “buff.” The chemical washing of graffitied trains not only left cars a dull color, it was harmful: hundreds of workers became sick and one man died of exposure. And in 1983, Michael Stewart was killed by transit cops for writing on a a 14th Street station wall, yet another fatal example of the effects of bad theory.

Shortly after the MTA’s victory over subway graffiti, Lee Quinones warned, “If you buff history, you get violence.” In New York, graffiti arrests have climbed nearly 200 percent since Giuliani revived the Anti-Graffiti Task Force in 1995. A quarter-million graf hits are still cleaned off subway cars a year, while 5 million square feet of graf is buffed off highways and bridges. Is this state violence or is it something else?

Some have argued that encouraging legal paintings and productions would be a socially just alternative to a scorched-earth policy of policing and punishment. That approach only encourages more intense vandalism and violence, they say, because crews turn away from focusing on creative competition towards attacking each other and the cops. As EWOK tells the Murrays, “When you push something down, it’s going to pop up somewhere else. It’s just natural progression.”

But everyone seems to agree that graffiti’s perpetual removal catalyzes innovation and ingenuity. Its countless deaths generate countless rebirths. Austin points out that when the MTA repainted its entire fleet in 1973, it ushered in a golden age of style. In graf’s status-hierarchy, piecers who don’t bomb barely rate. ESPO (whose 1999 book *The Art of Getting Over* ranks alongside PHASE II’s *Style: Writing From the Underground* and ZEPHYR and Michael White’s tribute to DONDI as the best of the graf-writer’s books) sums up the ethic nicely: “Illegal work has to say FUCK YOU, it can’t say ‘hello’ or ‘how ya doing’?” In other words, what makes graffiti an artform is its ability to dangle itself over the abyss–and occasionally fall in. Graffiti needs to be championed, but it doesn’t need to be saved.

“I think the greatness behind it is the fact that it doesn’t last,” EZO tells the Murrays. “You bomb and then it’s like, these are *my* walls, *my* throwups, *my* paintings and you can’t fuck with it…but deep inside myself, I know that nothing fuckin’ lasts. It just can’t. It’s not meant to.”

-END-

******

HIP-HOP BOOK ALERT!

******

[When’s the last time you saw *that* headline in a hip-hop magazine?]

Pardon me while I jock these fools. It’s just that this fall there will be so many hot new books on hip-hop history that I have to mention them. (Plus, so many innocent trees have been killed in the name of hip-hop “scholarship” that it’s only right to big-up the real, you know what I’m saying?)

This fall, Jim Fricke and Charlie “Wildstyle” Ahearn drop *Yes Yes Yall* which is a monumentally entertaining and completely essential oral history of the old school. (Not Public Enemy, ya shorty, but the real old school–Bronx style, as they say.) Cop it or steal it, just get it.

While we’re talking monumental, Steven Hager’s classic *Hip Hop*, the book that really launched hip-hop journalism, is also slated to be re-released soon. The eBay and alibris poachers who have been ripping you off for $600 US had better get it while they can.

Ernie Paniccioli is one of the few hip-hop photographers who have been there since the beginning and his book, *Who Shot Ya* (edited by Kevin Powell), should make your eyes burn and your heart race. It’ll be out in late October. He’ll have an extensive photo exhibit opening at the New York City Urban Experience Gallery also at about the same time. His websites are here and here.

And I should mention that *Ego Trip’s Big Book of Race* is coming out this fall, too. It’s already being compared to Karl Marx’s *Das Kapital*. Even Chris Rock says he’s going to read it. I’ve seen copies of it in their secret underground laboratory and I can safely say that right-wing talk shows and Ethnic Studies graduate programs may never be the same again. Or maybe they will.

*******

HIP-HOP ACTIVIST EVENTS

*******

+++ ORGANIZING FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT +++

Where: Washington DC

When: Saturday, September 14, 2002

Who: 50 young Black activists, intellectuals, artists, religious and spiritual leaders, political operatives, entrepreneurs, and other young Black voices

What: An historic all-day, invite-only assembly of post-Civil Rights era/hip-hop generation Black activists, political figures/policymakers, intellectuals, artists, entrepreneurs, and spiritual/religious figures

Info: (404) 752-9044

+++ ACTIVE ARTS YOUTH CONFERENCE +++

Where: Boston/Somerville, Northeastern Student Center and around town

When: Friday, September 20 to Sunday, September 22

Who: Dead Prez, Medusa, Minister Ben Chavis Muhammad, La Bruja, Suheir Hammad, Davey D, and many more…

What: Inspiring, educating and mobilizing the hip-hop generation

By: AFSC’s Critical Breakdown, Northeastern’s BSA, Redeye Magazine, and many others…

Info: 617-661-6130 or here.

+++ HIP-HOP SPEAKS: YOUTH TOWNHALL MEETING ON EDUCATION +++

Where: Harlem, Riverside Church

When: Monday, September 23, 2002, 6pm

Who: New York City youth, Toni Blackman, Russell Simmons

What: Hear New York City youth speak out on public school education, and other issues of concern to them. Freestyle competition to follow the townhall.

By: Hiphop Speaks, Russell Simmons, the Hiphop Summit Action Network, The Riverside Church

Info: hiphopspeaks2001@aol.com or 718-399-0695.

+++ HIP-HOP POLITICAL NEWSLETTER +++

And last but not least, you really should know about Davey D’s new HHPN [Hip Hop Political Newsletter], a parallel to his popular FNV e-newsletter which just debuted last week. With its digest, review-style format and its grassroots approach, it’s a dope new way of staying up-to-date on the politics of hip-hop. To subscribe, just send a blank message to FNV_Newsletter-on@mail-list.com or try here.

*******

HEAVY ROTATES

*******

steinski :: nothing to fear/solid steel radio mix

red hot + riot!

damon albarn, afel bocoum, toumani diabate + friends :: mali music

the tribute concert to chuck brown :: put your hands up!

public enemy :: revolverlution

mr. lif :: i phantom

singing melody :: expressions

greensleeves greatest dancehall anthems 1979-1982

select cuts from blood and fire, vol. 3

manu chao:: radio bemba sound system

meshell ndegeocello:: cookie: the anthropological mixtape

*****

PLUG 1: I gotta finish up my book, man, so you won’t be seeing a newsletter for a minute. Write on.

*****

*****

PLUG 2: But I’ll still post to my blog.

*****

*****

FINAL WERD

*****

Gary Webb was the journalist who broke the story in the late 1990s that the CIA was involved in arranging for crack cocaine to be sold into U.S. inner-cities for profits to finance the Contra counterrevolution in Nicaragua. For this, he was hounded out of his newspaper and blacklisted. Editorialists across the country took the unusual step of denouncing Webb and his journalism, despite the fact that his story was never disproven.

(His book, *Dark Alliance*, collects and expands on the articles and is a classic. In *White Out*, Alexander Cockburn and Jeff St. Clair cover how Webb was systematically hounded in the story’s aftermath.)

Webb’s original story came with a website (no pun intended) and he’s been able to revive it. Check it out here.

If you want to be added to the e-mail list, please send an email to cantstopwontstop@mindspring.com with “gotta be down” in the subject header.

RESPECT. PEACE. JUSTICE.

© 2002 Jeff Chang

posted by @ 10:12 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, September 11th, 2002

As LA gets ready to select its new police chief, there’s a fascinating look at LAPD in this week’s special issue of the LA Weekly. Check it out here, LA Weekly: Supplement: Rethinking the LAPD: Introduction.

posted by @ 9:19 am | 0 Comments



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