Editorial: 9/30/2010

There is an unfortunate condition that goes along with the strong sense of pride in the Bay Area’s reputation for being outspoken and accepting. We celebrate diversity in sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and cultural background, and strongly support valuable freedoms like dress and self expression. But we rarely acknowledge that underneath this attractive front is an incredible hypocrisy. We are embedded with a mentality that our opinion is superior. The problem with this is that we consistently fail to step back, abandon our bias, and consider the opposite side of an issue.
The capacity of this problem struck me when I had to cancel my plans to attend an exhibit of drawings by Palestinian youth at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland. Or rather, my plans were cancelled for me. After overwhelming pressure from members of our community, not only Jewish activist groups but the general public as well, the museum was forced to cancel the showing.
The exhibit is called “A Child’s View from Gaza.” Compiled by the Middle East Children’s Alliance and scheduled to open on September 24, it features fifty pieces of art made by children aged nine to eleven who live in Palestine’s Gaza region. The drawings are their personal depictions of what they have seen and experienced living in a war-stricken state: admittedly graphic images portraying everything from uprooted trees and burning buildings to lines of tanks and bloody bodies.
My initial reaction was a regrettable understanding that the museum, also called MOCHA, had to withdraw from displaying the art because the content was too graphic for a children’s center. Indeed, museum curators justified the cancellation by claiming that the images were “inappropriate” and that the museum did not have a formal policy established regarding the exhibition of sensitive material. But MOCHA has hardly censored its exhibitions before. In 2004 they displayed a collection of art by Iraqi children that portrayed similarly violent representations of the Iraq War and American military aggression. Three years later, an exhibit featuring vivid images of World War II violence drawn by children was shown. Neither of these events evoked concern or response from the community, nor did the museum hesitate in the publishing of the exhibitions. How can we call ourselves freethinkers when we support such an obvious double standard toward an issue of self-expression?
Because of the museum’s past position toward similar issues, we can’t deny that the intense reaction to the proposal of a Palestinian children’s art exhibit stemmed not from distress over the content of the images, but from the implications associated with their source, and most likely a falsely-presumed endorsement of the Palestinian perspective. But the artists behind the exhibition were children. They did not intend to promote political views or generalize against another group of people. The images they drew were disturbing and violent because they were direct representations of disturbing and violent events that they themselves had witnessed.
My argument is not that the exhibit--or, in reality, the idea of the exhibit--isn’t politically and socially sensitive. But as a community, our efforts should not be spent trying to stamp out the voices of others because we are afraid of disagreement or agitation; instead, these should be embraced as opportunities for expanding our acceptance of each other. With regard to the conflict in the Middle East, this all-too-common predisposed ignorance, fed justifiably by our inbred divisions, will never allow for even gradual progress. Here in the Bay Area, we should utilize our range of opinions as a starting point for cooperation on a larger scale.