This Blog Has Been [[[CENSORED]]]
It has been a quiet spring and summer on the blog because I have been busy working behind the scenes on some projects. Doing research, designing a course, and starting to be around people again has kept me busy. I haven’t been too busy to try to start conversations about social justice in my community. Try was italicized for a reason. Conversations have been happening, but censorship has slowed the progress. Censorship is defined by the ACLU as, “the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are ‘offensive,’ happens whenever people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.” I have been navigating both private and government censorship this year, and it is not a small or insignificant thing. This blog centers around the topic of censorship, and how I as an artist and as a person live in a community that censors me.
Scenario 1: Billboard
In late 2020, I worked with MAARCH (Madison Area Anti Racism Community Hub) to design and display a billboard to offer support to marginalized people in our community and to start conversations.
This Is Kindness Billboard, January 2021.
I wrote my last blog about this billboard, but that billboard is currently folded up in my basement. It was extremely successful in starting conversations, so much so that the owner of the land that the billboard stood on approached us about how much he did not like the message. I was out of town for the conversation, but MAARCH members engaged in constructive conversation with the landowner. His complaints were that he didn’t like the “Black Lives Matter'' message. After learning that the “Love is Love'' message was about LGBTQIA+ rights, he didn’t like that message either. He also said that he was getting complaints from his customers because he operates the Dutch Discount Market on the same land. His mind was not changed after having the conversation, and MAARCH members found his arguments to be flawed and his mind closed to the positive message behind our billboard. We chose the location not to be combative with the Dutch Discount Market, but because of the good visibility and close location to the entrance to the town of Hanover. We didn’t intend to pick a “fight” with a local business, but before we knew it the Dutch Discount Market changed their business sign to create a response to our billboard.
Dutch Discount Market
This sign was a response to the MAARCH billboard which is visible in the background.
We did not publicly criticize their sign or complain about it. It is their First Amendment right to display what they want just as it is our right to express ourselves. Nevertheless, a few weeks later we heard from the sign company that the Dutch Discount Market requested that the MAARCH sign be taken down because they were losing business. I’m not sure if they actually were losing business, or if their own sign caused them to lose business. The sign company had never had a landowner request a sign be moved and the prospect of losing a sign from their inventory was a threat to their business and put them in unfamiliar territory. The sign company offered to move the Billboard to another location, and we agreed. One way or another the sign would have come down so we decided to not put a strain on the sign company who was one of the few places in town willing to work with us. Legally this censorship was done by a private entity, and it was legal for them to decide not to host our sign on their land. It is also legal for me to write about never shopping at the Dutch Discount Market again. Full disclosure, I decided to stop shopping at Dutch Discount a few years ago after looking through records of health department violations. This situation made me appreciate a good decision I had already made for other good reasons.
We wanted to encourage conversations with this billboard and that is exactly what happened, so in some ways this was a successful project. We learned to research who owns the land that billboards are on before we choose a space, so I hope Duke energy doesn’t try to pick a fight with us about our new sign. We learned that we aren’t going to change everyone’s mind. We learned that there is a lot of support for our messages in our community, but this situation sucked. Being censored by a local business using their interpretation of religion to promote homophobia and discredit the experiences of Black people cuts deep into the heart of the issues that we are trying to lift up. This situation leans hard into the idea that things get harder before they get better.
Scenario 2: The Controversial Cross Stitch
With restrictions lifted from the pandemic, one of the things that MAARCH has been doing is planning how to get our message out to the community, by being out in the community. Our first opportunity post-vaccination was at the Hanover Park May Day Celebration craft fair. We paid for a booth and decided that the sale of our arts and crafts would go towards raising funds for our billboard project. I was out of town the day of the sale, but my fellow MAARCH members were going to cover our booth. I had been sharing some of the art and craft pieces that I had been making during the pandemic online, so I knew that some people had expressed interest in my prints and cross stitches. I posted a photo of the items I would have at the booth on social media platforms to encourage people to visit our booth. Within 30 minutes of posting these items online, I got a text message from an elected town official telling me that I would not be allowed to sell items that said “Retire The Rebel.” (Click here to see my blog about Retire The Rebel.)
The photo that sparked the cross-stitch controversy.
A few weeks before I had made a “Retire the Rebel” cross-stitch design that I made some kits for. I thought this would be a disarming way to start conversations about our school nickname because:
1. It was the size of a business card.
2. It was a cross stitch, the craft of choice of 8 year olds and grandmothers...and me.
3. It took the conversation out of the format of a school board meeting, where there is support or opposition for the idea, and put it in a community event, where people didn’t come with pre-established boundaries.
I was confused and concerned by our message exchange. I wasn’t friends with this town official on social media, so I was confused by how quickly the response came and then concerned that one of my friends/followers likely alerted him to the issue. (Let’s go trust issues!) The official had my cell number because he and I had exchanged text messages a few months before about having a conversation with MAARCH. At that point the meeting hadn’t happened because none of us were fully vaccinated, he refused to meet via zoom, and my last text about setting up a meeting after achieving full vaccination didn’t get a response. I was confused because he referenced censoring other booths and how selective they were, but the form I filled out to reserve the booth asked for minimal information and no photographs regarding what would be sold. I was concerned that he was implying that my cross-stitch was as concerning as racism was, and that both concepts were equally worthy of censorship. I was unsettled by the intensity of the authority implied in the censorship and insisted that we meet to discuss this situation, because I couldn’t follow the logic presented in the text messages. Most of all I was concerned that a town official didn’t seem to understand my constitutional rights.
The next day he relented a bit. He said that MAARCH could sell the items but could not display them. When a MAARCH member questioned him about his tolerance for other controversial images displayed at the event he did censor other booths, but to be clear that he was not asked to censor other booths and they were horrified that he did. We ended up meeting with the official for over two hours that week to discuss the situation, and I didn’t get a sense that he understood the severity of the issue. He validated his right to censor me by comparing my cross-stitch to child pornography, an insulting false equivalence. He spoke about fearing violence that could stem from my cross-stitch and wanting to protect us, and my concern was then for a town official that would rather censor me and my tiny bit of textile art than address the toxic and, by his own admission, violent behaviors of others. I learned from that conversation that the real issues in our community are known, but woefully unaddressed. They are left unaddressed, not because there aren’t solutions but because people refuse to put themselves outside of their comfort zones. I believe that our town official now understands the constitutional issue of censorship, so I won’t be taking this issue to court. I truly hope that more options for legal action from censorship don’t present themselves in the future, and that the community as a whole has benefited from the learning experiences presented here.
I have to admit, it is kind of validating as an artist to be censored. It puts me in the company of the world’s best and most respected artists, and it means that my cross-stitch really made a conceptual impact to my town's government. I found myself torn between so many emotions as this all unfolded. I was angry, amused by the absurdity of it all, confused, and concerned. It has been months since these situations happened and I am still processing. I have processed enough to move forward with some new approaches and projects.
Before I wrap up this blog post, there is one last thing to address. Why am I speaking about censorship while simultaneously trying to change our school mascot from “Rebels” to something furry and easy to cheer for? The truth is if there was a button that I could push to change that name, I don’t think I would push it. Our mission to change the “Rebel” name would be missing the point if we changed the name without our community understanding why it is hurtful and harmful. The whole reason we wanted to sell and display that cross stitch was to start conversations to create a greater understanding of the issue. We don’t have the power to censor the “Rebels” name, we only have the power to keep pushing the issue and attempting to have these difficult conversations. Maybe eventually our conversations will reach enough ears, and people will care more about how they are cheering for harmful histories and they will end up censoring themselves.
Stay tuned for more about our new billboard in my next post. To honor the double censorship that I experienced, the new billboard is a cross-stitch! If you are interested in donating to the MAARCH Billboard project, we are working on getting a bank account associated with MAARCH so that we can do online fundraisers. Until then you can call Heitz Sign Company and donate to the MAARCH Billboard over the phone.
