Name: Bay Area city washes away Black Lives Matter street art after resident asks for 'MAGA 2020' painting
Brand: sfgate.com
SKU: sfgate-com-234
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Bay Area city washes away Black Lives Matter street art after resident asks for 'MAGA 2020' painting

preview

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateRoughly two weeks after a massive Black Lives Matter street painting appeared in downtown Redwood City, Calif., it was washed away - leaving the asphalt without a trace of the message's familiar bright yellow paint. But unlike in other cities where vandals targeting BLM murals have been arrested and even charged with a hate crime, this time it was the city that suddenly removed the artwork.Despite granting permission for the temporary street art and even providing the paint for the July 4 project, officials in the Northern California city ordered the painting removed from its prime location late last week, KPIX reported."Staff is concerned about public safety issues that may arise from painting murals on its public streets, which could result in driver confusion and traffic accidents," city spokeswoman Jennifer Yamaguma told The Washington Post in a statement early Wednesday. "Thus, the existing mural has been removed from Broadway and no further art installation will be authorized on the City's streets."But supporters of the artwork, who have expressed outrage over its removal, point to another factor they say actually prompted the city to take action: one resident's request to paint "MAGA 2020" along the same stretch of street."They made the decision to take Black Lives Matter off the street at the first person that proposed the MAGA 2020," Redwood City resident Dan Pease, who spearheaded the effort behind the original art piece, told KRON.The request came from local attorney Maria Rutenburg, who told The Washington Post late Tuesday that she emailed city officials just hours after the Black Lives Matter painting had been completed asking if she could also paint the truncated version of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign slogan nearby."I'm a Trump supporter and the slogan is important to me," said Rutenburg, 44, who is white, arguing that once the well-known yellow words were painted on the street, it effectively became "a public forum.""Everybody has a chance of saying whatever they feel like," she added. "My speech is just as important as BLM."Rutenburg said she immediately heard back from city officials noting that they were considering her proposal. Just over a week later, they denied her request over concerns that the painting would be a "traffic hazard," she said.Not long after Rutenburg's proposal was turned down, Pease was informed by city officials of plans to wash away his street art, he told the San Mateo Daily Journal."I'm not upset the piece is being taken down because it's just words on the street. It doesn't represent real change," said Pease, who is white. "What is upsetting and frustrating is someone who disagrees with the thought of Black Lives Matter has the audacity to come out with . . . a comparable counter punch to Black Lives Matter. That to me is disgusting."In the statement to The Post, Yamaguma explained that the temporary painting had been "allowed as an extension of City efforts to preserve art related to the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Redwood City," and was also intended to complement a recently commissioned chalk mural in same area."The painting was informally processed, and intended for a short duration," the statement said.While Pease told KPIX over the weekend that he was aware of the artwork's limited life span, he said he was still "disappointed.""Because we were using the poster board paint that would eventually deteriorate over time, my understanding from them was that the mural would last as long as the paint lasted," he said.The news that the city would be erasing the giant letters was swiftly met with outcry. People flooded a public Facebook group for Redwood City residents with critical posts blasting the city and Rutenburg. Meanwhile, an online petition to protest the erasure of the painting was also launched."Such negation of the community's voice is itself an example of white supremacy - privileging one white voice over the community's," the petition read. As of early Wednesday, it had received nearly 900 signatures.In response to the barrage of criticism targeting her, Rutenburg defended herself on social media, penning lengthy Facebook posts insisting that she did not intend for the existing art to be removed. Rutenburg noted in one post that she and her family have weathered death threats in the aftermath of the painting being washed away."I'd like to make it clear now: this is not the outcome I wanted, nor one that I requested," she recently wrote in the community Facebook group. "I made my request because I saw that the courthouse square was being used as a public forum, and, as a Redwood City resident, wanted to participate."She added: "I did not ask for the mural's removal, nor did I threaten legal action."On Tuesday, Rutenburg stressed in an email to The Post that her request to paint "MAGA 2020" had been an attempt to ensure that "free and open political discussion for all sides" is allowed."I think we can all agree that black lives matter, and that equality is important. These are really fundamental truths," she wrote. "But what's happening is now is one loud political group intimidating the cities into speaking their own private agenda just because cities are afraid of being called racist if they do not give in on the spot."Pease, however, disagreed."Black Lives Matter is not a political statement," he told KRON. "Black Lives Matter is a human rights issue. Black Lives Matter is a call; it's a message, it's a symbol."Read MoreRead More

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateRoughly two weeks after a massive Black Lives Matter street painting appeared in downtown Redwood City, Calif., it was washed away - leaving the asphalt without a trace of the message's familiar bright yellow paint. But unlike in other cities where vandals targeting BLM murals have been arrested and even charged with a hate crime, this time it was the city that suddenly removed the artwork.Despite granting permission for the temporary street art and even providing the paint for the July 4 project, officials in the Northern...

public

Allyson Chiu

News. Culture. Sports. Opinion. All the journalism that matters from San Francisco & the Bay Area. Newsletters: http://sfgate.com/newsletters IG: http://instagram.com/sfgate

Bay Area city washes away Black Lives Matter street art after resident asks for 'MAGA 2020' painting

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS