You’d expect an outpouring of indignant outrage that someone could take the life of a young man over something so minor as small scale property damage. Maybe a public reaction similar to the virtual lynching of Junior Bailey Kurariki? No instead this man received generous helpings of media and public sympathy.

Sympathy for taking a life?

A few months down the track, The Wellingotn Police have jumped on the ‘tagging is the root of all evil’ bandwagon. They have decided to add a layer to the standard clean up duty punishment handed out to taggers. Now when a young kid gets caught scrawling his name on something he will be doing clean up in a bright pink jacket with TAGGER written on it.

Yes, the comparisons have already been made to Nazi Germany and the pink triangles homosexual people were forced to wear. And when the Police representative says “It was no reflection on anyone’s sexuality, it’s a loud colour,” I say ‘bullshit.”

Of course they chose pink because it brings along the homophobic peer pressure shame associations that all boys growing up know extremely well. If the Police claim that they didn’t think that was the first issue that would be raised, then they really are thicker than we already thought.

One of the biggest issues that young men deal with in New Zealand is bullying and the pressure to conform to a very white, sporty, straight, blokey, drinking culture. Sadly, too many of our young men don’t find ways of dealing with this pressure and this is one of the major contributors to our shameful teenage suicide rate.

The whole issue of tagging is symptomatic of a wider issue faced by all young people in New Zealand and that is a complete refusal by older generations to attempt to see the world from their perspective.

Wanna know why kids tag? ‘Cause they’re bored.

Wanna stop them from doing it? Give them something better to do.

It’s not fucking rocket science.

Everywhere on the planet where councils, communities, governments or whatever support street-based graffiti art programs see reductions in ‘illegal’ graffiti. EVERYWHERE. And they don’t cost very much. Certainly not as much as the price of housing a convicted murderer for a year…

And the benefits can be enormous. If you get some experienced graffiti artists with a bunch of kids, a pile of spraycans and a sanctioned space, the kids not only learn some decent skills and some basic behaviour codes. But they get to experience making a positive contribution to their community, learn new skills and all the other positive flow on effects of working in a group on a collective task.

Of course, we know it can also lead on to bigger and brighter things. People are now selling property at premium prices because it has Banksy art on it. Obviously the extreme example, but there’s a huge amount of people making a decent income from street art both commercially and as gallery artists.

I have so had enough of this issue. I think it’s time we start speaking out against this ‘community opinion’ that thinks tagging is such a hideous crime it is comparable with rape. Tagging is only a minor misdemenor and the biggest crime, in my opinion, is a lack of artistic skill.

I have spraypaint on the wall out the front of my house and sure it bothers me. But not as much as the fact that only 15% of women feel confident enough in the Police force to report a rape.

As a way of speaking out on this issue, I decided to cross stitch it.

And if you want to make one like this here’s the pattern for the text. Be as creative as you can.

Love and rage
xox

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I believe ties are the strongest symbol of the stranglehold that patriarchy has on men. Many people are under the misguided impression that patriarchy is a power that only affects women. Men are also strongly oppressed by the patriarchal system, just in different ways. I strongly recommend reading at least part of (it’s a feckin’ long book) Stiffed by Susan Faludi.

Sometimes I lament the lack of understanding some feminists (both female and male) have towards men and their behaviour within the patriarchal system. I get particularly wound up when men do attempt to educate and support themselves about how they are affected by issues of gender and they are not supported in doing so. I have experienced a number of occasions where women have tried to interfere and dictate processes for men trying to organise themselves against gender oppression. And I have had to seriously wonder if they get it at all.

How do you think women would react if men tried to tell them how to run a women’s only group? Well, we know because it happens all the time, the women involved, rightly, get quite pissed off. So how is it different when men organise? What gives women the right to dictate their processes?

I’m not saying there should be no dialogue; quite the opposite in fact. I think it’s imperative there is dialogue and collaboration between men and women organising on issues of gender. I certainly think that some of the angry men’s rights groups who predominantly organise around fathers rights issues, for example, could do with some dialogue with feminists, so there could be an understanding that they’re fighting the same fight.

Returning to the topic of this post…

I think that part of the reason the ‘men in suits’ are able to act without any apparent compassion for other human beings, or the planet on which we depend on for life, has a lot to do with a lack of oxygen flow to the brain.

The problem?

The tie.

The Slave tie has been sold but the other two are for sale. I will get around to putting them online soon otherwise you can contact me directly. And I have a few more ties left to stitch. If you have any suggestions, please comment below.

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