by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo columnist
Rock Out With Your Cause Out - an event featuring local bands, a graffiti battle and an MC battle - was set to take place last Saturday at Civic Plaza.
Instead, it became a protest after city government refused the Southwest Organizing Project's request for a permit.
More than 30 non-profit and governmental public health and youth-oriented organizations from around Albuquerque were set to be present at the event.
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The man in charge of putting on the event, former UNM student Craig Drury, works for the South Valley Male Involvement Project. He said one of his main goals, besides hosting a day of fun Downtown, was to give exposure to the many organizations that exist to benefit the South Valley.
It's hard to fathom why the mayor's office was so hostile toward the event. Some suspect it has to do with Mayor Martin Ch†vez's stance against graffiti.
"Graffiti is an art form," said Monica Cordova from the Southwest Organizing Project. "We were going to provide a place for people to express themselves without being destructive. We do not support tagging."
The works of graffiti were to be judged based on how well they expressed community pride, she said.
The manner in which the city government denied the permit has frustrated organizers the most. Cordova said after raising $1,600 for the permit on short notice, the city simply quit returning their calls. By the time the event's organizers hired legal representation to force a response from the city, the Albuquerque Cultural Services Department justified the permit's denial by claiming the deadline had passed.
Most perplexing to organizers is the fact that the city originally recommended Civic Plaza for their event, Cordova said.
"We originally planned on using Tiguex Park," Cordova said. "Then the city suggested Civic Plaza."
The city's motives for denying the permit are questionable. On Aug. 22, FOX News quoted Ch†vez as saying the event would "ghettoize" Albuquerque. The next morning on KOB radio, he referred to the Southwest Organizing Project as a bunch of Brown Berets from the '70s who haven't gotten over it.
Organizers said they had a right to host the event.
"The fact is that Civic Plaza belongs to the people," said Zachary Ives, the lawyer for the Southwest Organizing Project, at a press conference on Aug. 22. "We made it clear that we would pay the fee. We believe that the way the city has gone about this shows discrimination against this group."
The people who really suffered in this debacle, of course, were Albuquerque's youth.
"The mayor is picking on the only kids taking the initiative to get youth involved in Albuquerque," organizer Casandra Stewart said. "There's nothing in the city to do. We just wanted to give people a positive place to have fun."
Apparently, that conflicts with the city's agenda.
