Lubbock Art Censorship Recap
One of my readers emailed me and asked me to make a post highlighting an important happening last week in Lubbock: the City of Lubbock removed two works of art from display at the Buddy Holly Center for the increasingly popular First Friday Art Trail event. The two works by local artist Lahib Jaddo were of a breastfeeding woman, shown below (click the thumbnails to see full-size pictures):
The reason I didn’t blog about it last week is because it has been very well covered in the Lubbock media and internet community. For my readers around the State (or living under a rock in Lubbock), here’s more than enough to get you up to speed:
AP Wire story:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5373554.html
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal article:
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/121307/loc_121307034.shtml
Shelly Gonzales’ Woman-to-Woman blog:
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071217-143948
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071214-123959
http://www.lubbockonline.net/blogs/shelly/index.php?entry=entry071213-144103
Chad Hasty Show blog:
http://chadhasty.wordpress.com/2007/12/12/city-of-lubbock-censors-art/
Tex Slim’s blog:
http://lubbockcountyregister.blogspot.com/2007/12/rightwing-gets-art-banned-at-lubbock.html
Discussion thread at LubbockOnline.com forums:
http://forums.lubbockonline.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000745
What’s particularly galling about this censorship is that one of the works depicts breast feeding, which is an activity protected by State law. Furthermore, accounts of the censorship indicate that it was done by an assistant city manager over the phone without even seeing the works in question.
Reassuringly, I am seeing outrage over this censorship from all over the political spectrum in Lubbock. Sometimes people just recognize a bad decision when they see one. The problem, of course, is that it happened in the first place.
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December 18th, 2007 at 6:19 am
You damn lefties are trying to corrupt the good morals of this here community by showing women doing pagan activities like feeding kids from their bare breasts! How many jobs will be lost if all women start breastfeeding? How many formula manufacturers in China will go out of business, causing the commies to spend less money buying up the U.S. dollar and be forced to funnel that formula money into Iran’s nuckleer program?! If every child gets healthier by breast feeding instead of being raised on synthetics then Big Pharma will lose a ton of money! And every time a U.S. corporation loses a dollar, the terrorists win!
Ya’ll need to unnerstand the bigger picture out here! No red-blooded West Texas man wants to see a woman’s boobies doing something as unnattractive as feeding some rugrat! Breasts should be only shown in glossy magazines in the bottom of our sock drawers, for a man’s privacy in his own home.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Sam Houston:
Sarcasm, right? ;-)
December 18th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I was in the Cincinnati modern art museum when the county sheriff came to raid it for having Robert Maplethorpe pictures. This stuff always goes and never stops. Still, you have to always make a fuss before it goes so far that basic freedoms, such as they are, go away.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:48 am
[…] in my recap post I neglected Bill Kerns’ excellent coverage of the matter at the Center Stage blog: […]