When I first heard that the police planned to embark on an operation to paint out stuff from the walls of inner-city communities, my first thought was that dem mussi have time and paint fi waste. My second thought was, why dem neva wait till Labour Day?

But I had a third thought - yeah, I'm a thinking man sometimes. My third thought was maybe they'll just be targeting slogans that could be construed as offensive or hate speech, [like 'police a murderer' or 'bow cat fi dead,' etc.] or they were effecting a counter-offensive to the graffiti campaign of a certain 'wall-famous' personality. Well, I was wrong.

According to an article by Anastasia Cunningham in The Gleaner of March 3 this year, it is part of an islandwide police operation to paint out murals in communities that depict slain or living dons or gang members. Quoted in that article, Eron Samuels, assistant superintendent of police for the Central Kingston Division, said, "This is us showing our stamp that we are taking back the communities for the residents."

questions bubbling

Well, Supe, I know you didn't ask, but if you did ask me, I'd say that this attempt at community policing via paint is really whitewash oppression! And there are a couple dozen questions bubbling in my head in response to this campaign. First of all, why didn't the police invite some moderators and panellists and engage the youths and elders in these communities in conversations about the meanings they assign and the significance they place on these murals? Did the police do any kind of study or carry out any form of research that proves any link between these artistic memorials and any actual or potential criminal activity?

And if a wall is part of private property in a residential or commercial area, who gives the police the power to decide what images can and can not be painted on that wall? If the images are not lewd or profane or offensive to public decency, what right does the State have to impose its taste on the residents and erase their art?

And there are other questions I want to ask, not the police, but the rest of us, like how unnu feel about this thing? Are we OK with this? Where are the Twitter and Facebook antagonists? Yes, peeps, I have to ask because there has been a strange, sinister silence from people of conscience in response to this absurd police paint-out campaign.

excellent article

That deafening silence has thankfully been broken by the incisive intervention of theatre stalwart and community art scholar Dr Honor Ford-Smith, with an excellent article in The Sunday Gleaner - 'Don't censor street art ' [November 10, 2013].

As Ford-Smith rightly asserts, "The destruction of the murals is an act of violent censorship of a popular street-art movement in Kingston in the guise of law enforcement. It is a violation of the right to freedom of expression that is guaranteed in the Jamaican Constitution. We may not like the murals. We don't have to. That is not the point. Not liking them is not the same as denying the right of self-representation." She also goes on to ask [and answer] another key question though: "Since when, and in what societies, do the police or the armed forces get to make decisions about art? The answer to this is chilling - Germany under the Nazis, Argentina under the generals, the USSR under Stalin, and so on."

So what unnu think? Instead of trying to 'take back communities with paint', couldn't the police try building relationships and engendering trust through respectful dialogue? And instead of destroying di ghetto youths' works of art, shouldn't they be establishing themselves as the real community heroes worthy of being depicted in murals, too? Talk to me nuh!

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