Billboard backlash
Anger over ‘racially divisive’ poster for a project funded by taxpayers
A POSTER declaring ‘Hey Straight White Men, Pass The Power!’ has provoked fury – with one MP claiming it could stoke racial division.
It is one of ten creations paid for by a publicly-funded arts project, aiming to ‘ask critical and urgent questions about the society we live in’.
They have been put up nationwide on advertising billboards owned by JC Decaux for an exhibition called Straight White Male.
Artichoke, the arts group behind the posters, which is funded by Arts Council England, said: ‘The selected artworks are nuanced and thoughtful, covering everything from male identity and power to menstruation and manspreading’.
The image of ‘manspreading’ on public transport, where a man spreads his legs wide, has the slogan ‘ What Oppresses Us Shapes Our Desires’. Another is about domestic violence, showing a woman in a pool of blood, with the slogan ‘ Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Bleeding’.
The ‘Hey Straight White Men, Pass The Power!’ poster was designed by London-based artist Nadina Ali and put up in Bury, Greater Manchester. She said: ‘I want to challenge the idea that straight white men in positions of power is still an acceptable norm.’
But James Daly, Conservative MP for Bury North, pointed out that straight white men do not always have ‘the power’ – highlighting that the next prime minister will be either a ‘white woman’ or a man of ‘Indian origin’.
He said: ‘If they feel that they’ve got a political point of view or a social point of view, there are plenty of ways they can do that. But getting the taxpayer to pay for this is in my view both inappropriate, a complete and utter waste of money.’ He added: ‘I think that any type of statement that stigmatises or attacks any single part of our community is pointless, ridiculous and just stokes division for no reason whatsoever.’
One Bury resident fumed: ‘As a non-racist, non-misogynistic, nonhomophonic, open minded, accepting, progressive straight white male and father of two teenage boys, who myself and my strong, independent, successful wife have brought up to be of similar mind, while ensuring strong educational values, I find the billboard utterly offensive. It completely vilifies all straight white men by suggesting that they all possess and wield power in some tyrannical manner with the intention of keeping all other people downtrodden to the benefit of themselves.’
A spokesman from east Londonbased Artichoke, which also receives National Lottery and British Council funding, said: ‘The artwork in question is part of the first exhibition of The Gallery... a new kind of cultural institution without walls, that asks critical and urgent questions about the society we live in.
‘We’re not asking that the public should necessarily agree with the statements in any of the artworks, just that they should think about and debate the ideas.’