American Graffiti and Contested Spaces

Photos by Beth Lawrence. Used with permission.

From Beth Lawrence:

This morning [Saturday] I woke up to a once blank wall spray painted with racially divisive language. Among other things, it said, "Go Home Racist Pigz," and "Racist monsters. It also said "Black love," and "my block." My husband and I wanted to paint over the graffiti. I tried to find out how to do it. I called the DC help line- they are closed on the week-ends. I called the police who drove by. When I called back, they told me to call Howard because the wall belongs to them. I called Howard security who told me that this matter couldn't be dealt with until Monday and not to touch the wall ourselves. I wonder what people on the list serve think about this incident. For a little background: our block houses the elderly, the young, college students, families, gay people, straight people, Hispanics, white people, Asians, black people, people who have been here a while, people with "for sale" signs on their lawns and people who have recently moved in. While I don’t know for sure, I think there is also a range of socio-economic strata. I'm sure it looks similar to a lot of other blocks out there in the city.
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The next day, a neighbor had painted it over. Self-help in action.

A blog entry from July that people might be interested in reading if you haven't is "Tom Sherwood, Duncan Spencer, Anwar Amal, and thinking about what I call the 'Uncivil War'". And while not directly relevant, this paper on "Contested Landscapes" by Dolores Hayden offers interesting reading as well.