An artist’s reflection on confronting hate.
Dear TRENDS Diary,
Part of building an equitable future is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Recently, a mural I was commissioned to paint on the Pearl Street Mall was defaced with white supremacist language:
“White Pride,” it read, among other provocations.
The tagging was random.
My mural on three Jersey barriers at 9th and Pearl streets had nothing to do with race. In fact, they are intended to be playful reminders to inspire health and wellbeing. They encouraged people to “Call your friends,” “Wear a mask” and “Wash your hands.”
The city, in collaboration with Street Wise Arts, has been wonderful to deal with, hiring me again after it happened, to come up and repair my mural. You wouldn’t know it happened now, unless you saw it. Unless you heard me or someone speak out.
I’m conflicted as to what to say. Yet, I feel the need to say something. Confronting hate and bias is exhausting, physically and emotionally. I’m speaking up because there are so many instances of this sort of thing that I can look back on in my life, where I didn’t speak up. Those experiences still poke at me. When they accumulate, each one starts to hurt a little bit more. They take my energy. They are senseless and I have no power over them.
I have come to learn that there was a racial equity plan laid out by the Boulder City Council at the same time this random act was inflicted on my work. It felt like a familiar, “one step forward, two steps back” moment.
People do not want to feel unsafe in their communities. They don’t want to be uncomfortable. I think people are quick to assume these things don’t happen in their community, or they’ve progressed beyond this way of thinking. However, if those ideas are not challenged, then there is no growth.
Despite this random act, it was a pleasure adding to the landscape of your vibrant community.
On my final day, a young person and their parent walked by. “I’ve never seen an artist in real life!” they exclaimed.
That joy and excitement is the future we are all working for.
– Alexandria Jimenez
