The Public Square was a Derelict Place

Well, here I am at the beginning of a new year, facing many of the same systemic challenges as I was last year. In many ways I feel like a reflection of the nation, 30 years of deferred maintenance. If something is built quickly and on the cheap, the whole structure may collapse. That sort of building process is not sustainable, but then, I have never known anything different.

The public square of civil society was a derelict place when I came of age. The civility having been drained from the very concrete. I have grown up entirely post-Watergate; old enough to witness the end of the cold war, but far too young to have experienced the hope of Kennedy, or MLK. Too young even for Regan, really. I am part of a generation that has never known a segregated classroom and grew up watching Sesame Street. And that has made a great difference. But as the petty cultural divisions of baby-boomers consumed them, my generation has been out on the streets. In L.A., I grew up with wildstyle graffiti down in the river and above the freeways, and the internet took it global. The artists hit high profile spots controlled by business shoveling advertising, or the government (that labeled the artists criminals for violating property rights). Without having any of the capital to buy in, graffiti artists took space. They demanded a place in the visual discourse of the city, so successfully in fact, that marketing companies would mimic their techniques. Graffiti art seems to me to reflect a seemingly harsh reality of life; you must participate and participation will be hard. However, with that time you can choose to create something of beauty and meaning.

Tomorrow will witness the swearing in of Barak Obama. I know that this is a momentous occasion for millions of people across the globe. A wealth of layered meaning has been composed for the inauguration. I will try to take in the whole of its parts soon. But tonight, I am thinking about the strains that resonate with my own better angels: the focus and the discipline to change.