Victoria city councillors voted Thursday to remove an anti-police message from a mural in Bastion Square, but it was unclear exactly when or how that will happen.
The motion approved at committee of the whole states that the acronym ACAB, which commonly means All Cops Are Bastards or All Cops Are Bad, should be removed from the mural “at the earliest opportunity.”
Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe, who brought the motion forward, said she stopped short of setting a deadline for the removal so as to avoid putting undue pressure on staff members who have been in ongoing talks with the artists and the police.
Thornton-Joe said if the parties can come to a quick resolution, perhaps the “offensive” letters can replaced with other artwork.
Otherwise, she said, the letters should be painted over immediately while the talks continue.
“As someone that is a visible minority and a person of colour, I’ve been faced with discrimination and racism,” she said. “But I don’t think that more hate gets rid of hate. I think it just provokes more conflict and I think the letters being left there stops us from having good dialogue.”
Council passed a related motion to formally recognize the prevalence of systemic racism in the city and commit to addressing the problem everywhere that it exists.
The controversy first erupted in August when the acronym was discovered in the city-sponsored mural, a joint effort by 17 artists to raise awareness of injustices suffered by Black and Indigenous people and people of colour.
Victoria Police Chief Del Manak called the acronym “deeply disrespectful,” while the African Heritage Association of Vancouver Island, a mural sponsor, said in a statement that it stood behind the mural’s More Justice, More Peace sentiment, but did not condone the “offensive ACAB acronym.”
City manager Jocelyn Jenkyns said staff discussions with the various parties since then have been a “tightrope walk” because the idea of painting over the letters without replacing them with something else is viewed by the artists as “expungement” and “suppression of artistic expression.”
“So the idea was you would do it all in one movement, so that you could honour that experience [and] you could remove the very divisive acronym that is there,” she said. “And that is our challenge currently.”
Coun. Sarah Potts argued against removing the acronym while those talks are ongoing.
“To say that the acronym needs to be taken out to have a collegial conversation really belies the enormous power imbalance in this discussion,” she said. “We have some folks who are talking about issues of racism, violence or even murder, and the other side is talking about the letters in a mural.
“I know it is hurtful for some, but … we are talking about systemic racism and our part in that history and what we can do to make it better.”
The issue will return to council next week.
