An Oakland mural depicting Native-American genocide was defaced. It led to a debate on the street.

OAKLAND For nearly years Diane Williams has seethed whenever she walked by a street mural depicting the genocide of Ohlone people by Spanish colonizers artwork she finds demeaning because the Native American men are depicted as fully nude Just this week plans to remove the wall art were halted at the last minute after tenants of the building s apartments at st Street and Piedmont Avenue demanded that the history on display be left alone But on Friday morning Williams ultimately had a reason to smile as she gazed at the mural Someone had defaced it overnight with paper cutouts and red paint Now the Franciscan missionaries oppressing the Native Americans in the painting had arrows piercing their heads and bodies Blood spilled out of the white men In the same red color a declaration had been scrawled over the artwork THERE I FIXED IT It was the latest twist in a saga that in latest weeks has divided the North Oakland public surrounding Piedmont Avenue On Friday the debate shifted from online circles into inhabitants view engulfing the sidewalk facing the mural These arguments mirror a broader discourse about artistic interpretations of history with shared consensus about the horrors of Indigenous genocide but more nuanced and often fierce disputes about how those stories are remembered and who should be allowed to tell them The mural painted by artist Rocky Rische Baird is titled The Capture of the Solid The Escape of the Soul Baird who completed the work in with help from a city grant at the time described the -by- -foot display as a testament that the spirit of a person can t be boxed At the center of the painting s complex imagery are missionaries bringing traditional Western clothes blue pants brown boots and a belt with a buckle to a naked Native man Alex Brand left Hong Nguyen and their six month-old baby Walker Brand who lived accross the street and in recent days moved to Hayward take a selfie with the mural The Capture of the Solid Escape of the Soul by artist Rocky Rische-Baird as seen on st Street near the corner of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland Calif on Monday Sept Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group The man stands just beyond a vivid swirl of similarly unclothed American Indians with discolored bodies a jarring imagining of the senseless violence and complaint that ravaged the Ohlone people who first settled in the coastal Northern California land that now comprises much of the Bay Area Williams a -year-old Alaskan Athabascan Indian who has lived in East Oakland since the early s finds plenty of reasons to despise the artwork the majority of visceral being its nudity I saw this big old life-sized penis on this Native American and I was appalled commented Williams who often passes the mural on the way to breast cancer healing at the nearby Kaiser diagnostic centers It s just culturally inappropriate she announced and historically inaccurate those Indians weren t frolicking around naked Any man would take care to cover his penis Williams who insists she is no prude reveled Friday in the newfound defacement saying it retained the Indians agency though she took no credit for the graffiti The mural has been vandalized before and already the Native man s genitals were barely visible because someone had previously tried to obscure the paint The Capture of the Solid Escape of the Soul mural by artist Rocky Rische-Baird was vandalized with red paint and paper arrows made r on st Street near the corner of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland Calif on Friday Sept The mural which was painted years ago depicts Spanish Franciscans clothing naked Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco Bay Area for work in the mission fields The building s property manager plans to paint over the mural after receiving complaints from Ohlone native Diane Williams regarding its nudity Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group A woman strolling by on the sidewalk stopped to point a finger directly at Williams The damage that they did now is inexcusable the woman Julia who provided only her first name explained in reference to the defacement Someone had had the guts to put this mural here for everyone to see it should be an honor to you as a Native I apologize that it upset you Williams responded but I m the one who complained and I wish we would have spoken when it was painted in Julia declined to give her age but described herself as the building s oldest tenant Indeed multiple of the residents here had urged the property manager to cancel a planned removal of the mural Their anger carried over to the social media website Nextdoor where in the heat of debate Williams account was in recent times suspended The owner of the building Albert Sarshar had earlier been lobbied by Williams to get rid of the artwork but called off the paint-over job this week to give himself more time to investigate Days later he remains confused about what to do I just want everyone to be happy he commented The owner even consulted with City Councilmember Zac Unger who declined to weigh in on the debate telling this news organization I don t think it s the role of establishment to dictate speech on private property Williams meanwhile insists that there were enough disgruntled Native Americans in the area to stage an upcoming boycott of the building s primary tenant a Japanese restaurant named Ebiko But her earliest protest in drew only a handful of people Jacqueline Hackle left expresses with Ohlone native and activist Diane Williams on The Capture of the Solid Escape of the Soul mural by artist Rocky Rische-Baird which was vandalized with red paint and paper arrows on st Street near the corner of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland Calif on Friday Sept The mural which was painted years ago depicts Spanish Franciscans clothing naked Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco Bay Area for work in the mission fields After complaints from Williams about the mural s nudity the building s property manager plans to paint over it Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group Reached this week several representatives at the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe seemed unaware of the mural or the debate surrounding it even after being provided the Piedmont Avenue address When art is offensive it stimulates thinking reflection and responses Alan Leventhal the tribal archaeologist and ethnohistorian mentioned in an email Although a few of the images are indeed provoking Leventhal added it still sends a message that the history on the genocide of California Indians has been swept under the rug and rendered invisible On the sidewalk Williams detected chosen allies Friday including a woman passing by who called the artwork problematic and a man who declared he had disliked the depiction of brutality since it was first painted two decades ago If this were a picture of slaves and slave owners what s really the purpose of that disclosed the man Nedar B who is Black and gave only the first initial of his last name Why does a white person want to put that on display Baird the original artist did not respond to interview requests While painting the mural he consulted with Andrew Galvan an Ohlone Indian and curator at the Old Mission Dolores Museum in San Francisco who defends the advice he gave Baird originally Art provokes conversation Galvan disclosed in a message The mural demands proper context It doesn t need to be defaced and destroyed The Capture of the Solid Escape of the Soul mural by artist Rocky Rische-Baird was vandalized with red paint and paper arrows on st Street near the corner of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland Calif on Friday Sept The mural which was painted years ago depicts Spanish Franciscans clothing naked Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco Bay Area for work in the mission fields The building s property manager plans to paint over the mural after receiving complaints from Ohlone native Diane Williams regarding its nudity Ray Chavez Bay Area News Group Others who engaged Williams on Friday shared that view including Jacqueline Hackle who arrived to retrieve a pair of scissors stashed in a newspaper distribution box on the sidewalk Earlier in the week Hackle had cut and duct-taped a formal description of the mural to the wall below where it identifies views held by Spanish soldiers that Native Americans needed to be clothed and directed to work in the missions fields At one point several people were simultaneously engaged with Williams in a fierce debate including neighborhood resident Valerie Winemiller who took matters into her own hands manually ripping off the paper arrowheads while angrily telling Williams to find another wall and paint your own mural Winemiller had backup calling to the scene Yano Rivera a self-described mural professional who revealed he specializes in removing graffiti We re going to very selectively and systematically reunify the painting visually Rivera explained And then he got to work using cotton balls and varnish to clean up all the blood