Bennett L. Rouse

Spray-paint technology

Recent controversy came to NC State when vulgar messages were painted on the walls of its Free Expression Tunnel. The four students responsible for the messages eventually turned themselves in to the dean. Their punishment is supposedly being intervened by the NAACP with the dean. Immediately afterwards, the tunnel was painted completely white to show mourning for the victims of the messages. Rallies gathered in the Brickyard to educate students about diversity. News reporters consistently crowded the tunnel every morning at sun-up weeks after the incident occurred. The effects of these messages are probably way greater than what these students originally intended.

Spray-paint seems primitive but its use as a technology is being catalyzed by NC State. Graffiti is typically created by using spray-paint, but graffiti is essentially vandalism and illegal. Nonetheless, NC State allows its students to participate in these activities to express their thoughts and concerns. This allows students to not only efficiently communicate to other students their insights, but in the case of the previously mentioned incident it allows for the community to establish what is right and wrong through the eyes of the public. When messages written by students are so atrocious that the NAACP gets involved, someone is in the wrong. Though practically no one agreed with these messages, many students came together by their disagreement with the messages. Perhaps the use of spray-paint and free expression tunnels should be expanded so that more communities can communicate more efficiently and tie their residents closer together, because that is precisely what happened after these vulgar messages were written.

Posted at 10:58PM Dec 06, 2008 by Bennett L. Rouse in General  |  Comments[0]