This feature is via our comrades over at JENKEM Magazine!
Intro: James Lee
Words: Seb Carayol
There has been plenty of controversial art put on skateboards over the years, but only a handful that may still be considered offensive in 2014. These days, everyone is pretty numb to violence and sex, but there are still a few boards that went over the line, mostly dealing with race, religion and gender. With our friend Seb Carayolโs new book out, โ100 Subversive Skateboard Graphicsโ we decided there was no better time to highlight a couple of these boards born out of questionable taste. While some of these graphics might not be personally offensive to you, remind yourself that these were printed on the bottom of a skateboard, ultimately, a childrenโs play toy.
Consolidated โ โBerieveโ (1997) Artist: Moish Brenman
In the early โ90s, one of the most iconic boards ever put out by Ohio-based company Alien Workshop bared an alien creature and a simple subtitle that said, โBelieve.โ
So iconic in fact that it became joke material, years later, for artist Moish Brenman over at Consolidated skateboards. โIโve never wanted to be a โfamousโ artist,โ he humbly swears,โ and I guess I succeeded. Iโm not famous or even that well-known. But the boards are.โ
This one could have been, yet, Alien Workshop caught wind of it before production and demanded it not come out. โI wish I could say we did this to deliberately piss off Alien Workshop, or to make some comment on the substandard Chinese wood that seems to be infiltrating the market recently,โ Brenman notes.
But itโs just something I thought was funny at the time. We showed it to Alien Workshop and they didnโt think so at all. They called us racist and asked us not to produce it. Iโm Chinese, and I thought it was funny. I still do.โ
World Industries โ Jovontae Turner โLench Mobโ (1993) Artist: Marc McKee
It was so outrageous, something had to happen. When artist Marc McKee drew The Napping Negro graphic for, and with the benediction of, African-American pro skater Jovontae Turner, a few feathers were ruffled. Among which, allegedly, Ice Cubeโs hardcore gangsta rap group Da Lench Mob.
The only thing is: as thrilling as it may sound, the story didnโt have one drop of truth to it.
โI think that was just a rumor that some of the World Industries riders came up with for fun,โ Marc McKee rebuts. โEven though it was satirical, โThe Napping Negroโ was still a pretty offensive image with the fat lips and watermelon and everything, so I guess some of the team riders started saying that Ice Cube had seen the graphic, and was going to have da Lench Mob retaliate.โ To make it even more believable, an article ran in [World Industries skateboards owned] Big Brother magazine, relaying the news and illustrated by a portrait of Marc McKee in the middle of a target.
Even though it was all made up, the artist thought it was interesting enough of a story to grant it its own follow-up graphic. And an even gnarlier one at it, showing da Lench Mob in front of a group of hanged bodies. โThat graphic is kind of really over the top, and Iโm not sure I would ever do anything like that again,โ he reassures today.
Consolidated โ โXtreme CEOsโ (2006) Artist: Anonymous
Taking the Donโt Do It campaign a step further, Consolidated skateboards ended up getting personal: on this three-deck series, the company showcased caricatures of actual executives at Nike Skateboarding.
โThis was around the time we did the [parodic] Drunk shoe,โ owner Birdo recalls. โWe didnโt actually do these decks. Our lawyer at the time advised us against it, so we pulled the plug. Only a set of three was made, and was sold at auction. When [pro skater] Ray Underhill was hospitalized with a cancerous brain tumor, we donated them to raise money. They sold for over $2,500 I think, which was awesome!โ
Almost equally awesome is the identity of the buyer: Sandy Bodecker, one of the very heads of Nike Skateboarding caricatured on one of the decks. โI donโt think you can get more direct than calling out the CEO and the President, but they certainly werenโt the first and Iโm sure wonโt be the last,โ he smiles. โI believe everyone has a right to their opinion and their right to express it. On the other hand, I never believed that what we were doing was bad for skateboarding,โ he professes.
โWe reached out to Consolidated a couple of times with offers to do something together but they werenโt interested. I think they are a small part of skateboard lore on one side. Whatever the reason(s) they chose not to release themโIโve heard different storiesโit was probably my only opportunity to have my own signature deck.โ
Baker โ Don Nguyen โGooks Of Hazzardโ (2012)
Artist: Jason Moore
This one caused such a media stir in 2012 that it got the whole community of Big Brother magazine nostalgics all teary-eyed, thinking it was 1992 all over again.
The board in question, which resulted in the t-shirt TMZ talked about, featured two Asian men in a suped-up car named the โGeneral Li.โ For good measure, this parody of The Dukes of Hazzard TV series replaced โDukesโ with โGooksโ (a derogatory name for Asians), while โgood old boysโ Nguyen and Shimizu were sitting on the window, Bo and Luke style.
The touchy concept stemmed from an idea that had been marinating in the minds of Asian skaters Shimizu and Nguyen for a long time. โIt was kinda both our idea,โ Nguyen notes. โThe art guy at Baker asked me what I wanted for my next graphic. I was kinda short on ideas and just brought that up randomly. I always wanted to do it. I didnโt even think about what would happen because in my head, itโs always just been a joke between me and my friend. I think itโs hilarious.โ
An organization with apparently a different sense of self-deprecating humor is the Asian American Justice Center. Once TMZ broadcasted the affair, the AAJC issued a statement that said, โBaker Skateboards, and the outlets that sell this shirt, should be aware that use of the term โgookโ on their apparel is offensive and quite simply amounts to racism for sale. No one should seek to profit from racism.โ
Caught off-guard by the fuss his idea generated, Nguyen went as far as apologizing to Baker skateboardsโ boss, Andrew Reynolds, the next day. โHe said he didnโt care,โ Nguyen remembers, โand thought it was funny too. He wasnโt even sweating anything. My intentions were not to offend anyone, because it was funny to me and it was an inside joke between homies.
Slave โ โMatt Mumford Positiveโ (2012) Artist: Ben Horton
โThis board was part of a pro series depicting random people suffering from an unfortunate injury, but having a positive attitude about it,โ artist Ben Horton explains. Very innocuous. Yet, for some reason, โsome people were offended at this board because they assumed the woman had been beaten by a man,โ he utters.
The issue is a very sensitive one. A couple months after his board came out, an Enjoi deck addressing a similar topic created one of the biggest recent uproars when concerned citizen Ginae Klasek started a petition on change.org.
In it, she demanded the t-shirt made after the enjoi board in question, representing a woman with a broken arm barred by a caption that said, โhe really does love his skateboard more than me,โ to be immediately pulled off the shelves.
โDomestic violence isnโt a joke and this t-shirt isnโt funny. Help us get enjoi to take down the shirt and continue spreading love of skateboarding without adding to the desensitization of violence that already exists,โ Klasek asked the company. โPortray women in a positive light, be the skateboard company that steps up and changes the image. You can be cutting edge in your culture without misogyny, promote equality in 2013! Acknowledge and apologize for merchandise and advertisements promoting domestic violence and rape.โ
On the other hand, if this Matt Mumford deck flew under the radar, itโs for a good reason, Ben Horton explains: โShe clearly implies that she had fallen down some stairs. But apparently, the people who didnโt like the board didnโt believe her.โ
World Industries โ Chico Brenes โOrange Vendorโ (1992) Artist: Marc Mckee
As an illegal immigrant to the US and part of a family that went through hell in Nicaragua, pro skater Chico Brenes was constantly reminded of where he came from. Well, where he roughly came from. โIโm from Nica but the homies at Embarcadero San Franciscoโs premier skate spot in the early โ90s started to call me โMental Mexโ since I was very quiet, mostly because I barely spoke English at first.โ
The tough love he received, though, didnโt prevent him from having a sense of humor about the whole situation. โWhen I first started coming to LA,โ he reminisces, โthat was one of the first things I noticed: people on the side of an exit ramp, immigrants, selling oranges and flowers. That gave me the idea to use that for my first pro model graphic. I mean, World Industries owner Steve Rocco was always into doing controversial stuff, so when I told them what I had in mind, of course they were super down.โ
To put things in perspective, this came from somebody whose mom was shot in the mouth during the war back home, who took the bus all the way to Mexico City, from Honduras to be smuggled across the US border by a coyote when he was 10 years old, and ended up getting his US papers 14 years after having reached the country. โWhen this board came out, I wasnโt bummed, I thought it was funny,โ he adds as a last comment. โEven until this day, it is one of my favorite graphics. Even my family liked it. The saw it, they didnโt even trip!โ
Birdhouse โ Jeremy Klein โAbusive Mother Maryโ (2005)
Artist: Sean Cliver
Itโs an interesting phenomenon to observe from a distance. Disenchanted by the way their careers were going, a handful of high-profile pro skaters sought some sort of spiritual guidance. More often than not, they found it by bumping into Jesus and becoming Born-Again Christians.
Such revelation happened to British skateboarder, a then-notorious night time rager, Brian Sumner. Once he saw the light, it proved impossible for his board sponsor, Birdhouse, to draw non-religious graphics for his pro decks. โ[Pro skater] Jeremy Klein, who was the art director at Birdhouse then,โ artist Sean Cliver giggles, โhated having to do all these โpro religion graphics that Brian Sumner wanted for his pro models. So this Abusive Mother Mary graphic was Kleinโs way of โbalancing the scales,โ so to speak.โ
The tug of war game didnโt last long: shortly after, Sumner moved on to the greener, and less conflicting, pastures of Christian board company Reliance skateboards.
World Industries โ Jovontae Turner, โNapping Negroโ (1992) Artist: Marc McKee
Where to start with what was perhaps the most controversial of all the โreverse racismโ decks ever made? To get in the mood, an excerpt from the ad that promoted it in Thrasher Magazine when it came out should do:
โNegroes have always shared a bright and colorful history with white people. Beginning in the 1600โs they were taken from their homes, shackled, piled into ships, and then transported to America. Over the next three centuries they were bought, sold, enslaved, tortured, raped and killed. Then, in 1954, they were allowed to drink from the same water fountains and that pretty much took the fun out of everything.โ
As horribly racist as a deck summing up in one drawing all the clicheฬs around black people may sound, critics always forget the keystone of the joke: it all stemmed from an idea submitted for his own pro models by African-American pro skater Jovontae Turner. โWhen World started asking me what Iโd want for my graphics, I said I wanted some old school black slavery stuff, you know what I mean, something of that era,โ Turner swears. โBasically to give back, and make fun of it, kinda. My first board was called โJovontae at night,โ I came up to them saying, โyou know how they say you canโt see black people at night unless they smile?โ Then we did one with a runaway slave hiding in a tree, and the Napping Negro. Me and my mom brought Marc McKee all these postcards of what they called black folklore, with cartoons representing black people that were really bad.โ
Turner smiles, perfectly aware that the trick worked yesterday, and still does today. โI liked it when it came out. I liked the controversy. It just makes people trip off it. I like to fuck with people, and it actually worked.โ
For more controversial skate graphics check out โ100 Subversive Skateboard Graphicsโ
