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"An Act of Chalking" in Wichita |
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Story submitted by Horace Santry on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 12:00am |
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At a time when people are blowing themselves up as an act of protest, events on a Sunday night this summer here in Wichita may seen trite. However, I cannot shake a feeling of warmth for the growth opportunity a small cadre of “young” protesters experienced that night. In a spontaneous un-sponsored act, they set out, using sidewalk chalk as their chosen weapon, to place social justice statements in downtown Wichita. And the police were called. With a promise of respecting privacy, I was given permission to lift some of comments from their on-line Blogs. I trust that my cut & paste editing does not change the message.
”Chalking, the gateway crime” “Thanks to the propaganda power of (email) this evening I met (several friends) and I helped them all acquire criminal records. Turns out sidewalk, chalk constitutes vandalism. Someone called the police, and an officer pulled up while I was finishing a quote by Thomas Jefferson - "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism". He didn't seem to like that one too much.” ”We rounded up the troops, and proceeded to receive a bit of a lecture on the importance of thinking before defacing public property. Two squad cars with flashing lights were clearly necessary for wrangling our group of delinquents.” I really did look through the city codes to make sure that these activities were legal - and I found nothing to suggest otherwise. Apparently, it's a matter of interpretation. Sidewalk chalk, as defacement of property. ”Come on”,and for the record tonight's (chalking) messages: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent". Thomas Jefferson - "The first responsibility of any citizen is to question authority" ~Benjamin Franklin - Self Awareness Lessons. Inquire Within - Fewer bombs. More Art Supplies. - Family Values: share with those who have less - Has anyone seen my constitutional rights? - Power to the Peaceful - Hope is a good companion but a poor guide - Everyone's better off when everyone's better off - A free society is one in which it's safe to be unpopular - Got Democracy” - The revolution won't be televised” ”If you are reading this, please don’t yet inform Mommy (she’ll panic unnecessarily)”. We'll title the evening? "I feel like I'm on the wrong side of a Nancy Drew mystery." “Somewhere tucked away is a memory of being driven though downtown Wichita as a wee child while my mother cited a quote from Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience about holding your personal beliefs as higher than those established by the authorities.” “We’ll see what manifests of the evening within the next three days, but I could potentially have a police record. Whoever would have thought that my first amendment rights expressed in sidewalk chalk could lead to jail time”? ”Although chalking is a common practice used on college campuses and on the sidewalks of large cities, obviously folks in Wichita aren’t ready to embrace the practice.” “So for artistically scrawling phrases such as “Fewer Bombs, More Art Supplies”, “Got Democracy”, “The revolution won’t be televised”, and “Have you seen my constitutional rights”, (we) were forced to surrender personal information to a pair of police officers standing in front of police cars with flashing lights “At one point” the officer continued to lecture our crew about “thinking” next time before we set out to “almost vandalize” downtown Wichita.” ”After the police retreated, I wondered out loud if it’d be appropriate to celebrate such an exclamation point on our lesson in activism and constitutional rights.” “Should this go on my previously non-existent police record, and should I decide to run for an elected public office someday, well, I’ll smile while supporting initiatives to beautify America’s sidewalks.” “...and the law won” “Well, it looks like we got our adventure. Well, if you count standing in front of two police cars (lights flashing away) downtown at 10:30 on a Sunday night an "adventure". But, hey, none of us are going to jail! Er, yet” Yes, it is apparently a crime to use sidewalk chalk on city sidewalks. Defacement of public property, pfft. Comment if you're now an official suspect in a vandalism investigation! Also if you had to listen to me attempt to sing "I fought the law" after we were out of the officers' earshot, because then you are very, very brave. S..t, that was fun.” ”Supposedly, being stopped had nothing to do with the message, but just the fact that we were chalking. Someone had called the police about our actions. I do think it had to do with the message, because if we'd been chalking less "controversial" messages(i.e. hopscotch boards), it's unlikely anyone would have stopped us or called the police - but the officer kept saying that he didn't disagree or agree with what we were saying.” “Similar thing(s) happened at school over here, only they were fined 200 bucks for chalking anti-rape messages. It seems the officer in charge held the firm belief that chalk hurts the sidewalk. Or something.” “At a school” That's crazy. We chalked on our campus at school all the time (which was actually, where I initially got the idea to do it here),it was the best way to get a message out. |
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Justice
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