Last Sunday there was a great article in the Washington Post about the just-completed mural in DC called From Edgewood to the Edge of the World. My good friend DECOY participated in the construction of the mural (and is shown in the video above), so when I originally saw the video clip on TV, I laughed out loud and decided to save the video. I originally attempted to embed the video about the story here on this blog, but was unable to do so properly, so I uploaded the video to YouTube. After I posted the video on Facebook, I decided to e-mail the popular street art blog Wooster Collective, who had posted a call to artists a couple weeks ago. The following day they posted the video under the headline “Stupidity in Washington, DC.”
The joke of this story is that there really is no controversy. Rather its one ANC commissioner, who doesn’t have much appreciation for art, trying to make a fuss about a unique cultural attraction in his neighborhood. I think it was the Redskins reference that really got me laughing. The team isn’t even located in Washington, DC! I sincerely hope someone makes a stencil of the Redskins logo and adds it to the mural. Not to comply with his request, per se, but to just make a point about the transient nature of street art. Since the artists approached him before the mural was even started, he had the opportunity to participate in the painting of the mural. So for him to complain about it lacking local relevance is in poor taste. But then again, he’s wearing a neon green jumpsuit, and from the looks of it(?), has his beard dyed grey. I’m curious about what he hangs on the walls of home.
As a side note— I really really really dislike the blatant racism exhibited by some YouTube users. The video has been viewed about 2,000 times since I uploaded it and I’ve already had to delete some racially charged comments. This is not the first time I’ve had to deal with this type of digital bigotry. The YouTube video of George Bush getting booed at Obama’s inauguration had quite a bit of hate speech. So what gives? I am debating if I should just turn off comments on all the videos I upload so I don’t have to be the intolerance nanny.
