If you're like me, you had a different experience while walking to class last week.
I'm not referring to the people you saw, the weather or the dinosaurs that were roaming around campus. Those things were interesting enough, but the most interesting thing about the walks to and from classes last week was the chalk.
It doesn't matter what the chalk was saying to us (it was most likely about war, abortion or some oppressed group) - that's really not important. What's important is that these messages are a pain in the ass. They are a form of graffiti, make the sidewalk look ridiculous and make life in general a little more difficult.
The chalk is just ugly. I used that same chalk to write "Matt is a penis wrinkle" all over a neighborhood driveway when I was 7 years old. Besides the fact my message was slightly insulting, it upset the neighborhood because its presence merely turned things into a chalkboard (i.e., the one place where chalk belongs).
This is enough proof for the hideousness of the chalk. The reason it causes such a problem is that people who might be interested in buying a home in the area are not interested in a house covered in graffiti.
Most people might associate graffiti with spray paint, but chalk all over the sidewalk is graffiti, too. Graffiti is: writing or an inscription on a wall or other surface so as to be seen by the public.
It is also a rude decoration. The chalk writings around campus are supposed to be seen by the public and, as the "penis-wrinkle" incident has shown, the chalk is an inappropriate decoration.
Just look at how annoying some of the messages around campus have been. The anti-war messages are obviously going to be considered rude by the pro-war people. Meanwhile the anti-war people are going to consider the messages from pro-war people to be rude.
Do you see how this all works out? No matter what is written about the war, a significant portion of the student population is going to consider the chalk to be rude. Since the writing needs to be rude to include it in the ranks of graffiti, this is very important.
The chalk writing is very similar to the graffiti that, unfortunately, I have to see every few days. There is a bathroom next to a preschool center that graffiti vandals have tagged numerous times in the past semester.
Every time I have stopped in that bathroom, there have been vulgarities written all over the wall about "horny studs" and things of that sort. This kind of graffiti is not only disgusting - oh wait, that's it. It's just disgusting.
Distasteful graffiti in an area where impressionable children are known to go would not be tolerated, so why do we allow the chalk to run rampant? Those kids aren't going to know what a "horny stud" is, but they'll see the writing on the wall.
The same goes for your average drunken students on a Monday morning: They're not going to remember how to read, but they see the chalk all over the sidewalk and it disgusts them.
Another reason why the chalk is such a frustration is that you have to stare at the ground if you want to read the messages. You really can't help but read these messages. If you're human, you're going to want to see why the sidewalk is pink.
This leads people to watch the ground instead of where they are going. There haven't been any reported incidents, but if the chalk continues, it's only a matter of time until someone hits someone else in a head-on collision. This would undoubtedly lead to blood and guts all over the sidewalk, and if there is a group of youngsters visiting from an elementary school, they'll be scarred for life.
Some people may say it is their First Amendment right to put these messages on the sidewalk, but they are missing the point. The messages aren't the issue. The chalk is the issue.
Stick with protesting and hanging up fliers. They may be annoying, but they go away easily. With chalk, however, you have to work at it to get it to go away. People may say that I have the freedom to print this, and they deserve the freedom to write in chalk all over the sidewalk - but it doesn't take a high-powered water hose to get rid of my column.
These shenanigans should not be occurring at our University. If you have some kind of message that you simply HAVE to get out to "the people," then you might want to try something a little more grown-up.
Christopher Fanning is a journalism sophomore. Reach him at christopher.fanning@asu.edu.
