The Packards racist signs on the skywalk over Grand Blvd.

**mauser** · February-07-13, 05:18 PM

It wasnt done on paper and the letters were painted.

I think people here greatly underestimate how angry and upset the Anti-Defamation League is about this, as well as the local Jewish community. I also think people here are not giving enough weigh to the RIGHT of the ADL to be enraged by such a disrespectful act. Trivializing the Holocaust is not going to get you anywhere with anybody. If you are not Jewish, you just dont own that stuff, and you dont get the final say as to what is offensive or damaging to those people.

This time, it is not about Detroit looking bad. The sign persisting unchallenged without being removed and hitting the international news cycle as-is would be damaging to the reputation of the United States.

Look, the sign maker had their say and did whatever that was supposed to do. Should the sign have stayed forever ? How long is long enough ? Taking it down could never change the fact that it was up and plenty of people saw it and photographed it. They made their statement. My friend and I went up there with hammers, and we made our statement.

People can keep arguing for the sign and the sign maker, but history is on my side.

**Richard** · February-07-13, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by mauser

It wasnt done on paper and the letters were painted.

I think people here greatly underestimate how angry and upset the Anti-Defamation League is about this, as well as the local Jewish community. I also think people here are not giving enough weigh to the RIGHT of the ADL to be enraged by such a disrespectful act. Trivializing the Holocaust is not going to get you anywhere with anybody. If you are not Jewish, you just dont own that stuff, and you dont get the final say as to what is offensive or damaging to those people.

This time, it is not about Detroit looking bad. The sign persisting unchallenged without being removed and hitting the international news cycle as-is would be damaging to the reputation of the United States.

Look, the sign maker had their say and did whatever that was supposed to do. Should the sign have stayed forever ? How long is long enough ? Taking it down could never change the fact that it was up and plenty of people saw it and photographed it. They made their statement. My friend and I went up there with hammers, and we made our statement.

People can keep arguing for the sign and the sign maker, but history is on my side.

You do not need to justify what you did, but on the other hand I am not sure why you keep insisting that Wayne county owns the building when you know the government cannot take possession with out due legal process which is the opposite of the reason you took the sign down.

So on one hand you despise the message and what was behind it and on the other hand you are promoting it by advocating that the government should be allowed to seize private property without due process,you cannot have it both ways.

**mauser** · February-07-13, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by Richard

I am not sure why you keep insisting that Wayne county owns the building .

The County is in the process of foreclosure started last fall as required by law. This is my understanding.

I am not justifying anything - many people are not understanding that the sign needed to come down. I am talking about why I did it so people might understand why the sign was wrong and very hurtful.

**Richard** · February-07-13, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by mauser

The County is in the process of foreclosure started last fall as required by law. This is my understanding.

I am not justifying anything - many people are not understanding that the sign needed to come down. I am talking about why I did it so people might understand why the sign was wrong and very hurtful.

Zab – yeah, the City is probably my last choice for taking action, but it was such an inflammatory issue I would think somebody would do some damage control. If I believed they would take care of it, I wouldnt have done it myself.

Not to mention that Packard belongs to Wayne County, not Detroit or the ecstasy guy. Wayne County has enough money and resources to deal with Packard, but everybody is still playing hot potato with that property to avoid the expense.

Well maybe I am confused but when somebody says the above I take it not in the process aspect but in the current sense.

No hot potato it is clear and simple the government cannot just seize private land and has to follow due process.If they do not then you have what the sign represented.The sign represents a mindset and not a very nice one in the least,it is not the sign or the plant that scares me,it is that mindset.

It is in the city of Detroit the county handles the foreclosures for the city it is not now or ever been owned by Wayne County.

If it was not in the city why is the city still involved in the lawsuit from when they took it before without due process and the same city that does not want it rehabilitated come hell or high water.

Wayne County would love to see it rehabilitated and producing jobs and I am sure they wish they had it in their jurisdiction.

It could be 1 hour before the foreclosure auction and be quit claim deeded for $1 to another corporation and the process would have to start all over again so do not be so hasty to write it off.All it takes is a sale of the property and it does not say how much the property has to sell for.

**mauser** · February-08-13, 04:11 AM

Originally Posted by Richard

Well maybe I am confused but when somebody says the above I take it not in the process aspect but in the current sense.

You are saying I misunderstand the foreclosure process and therefore have no right to remove a Nazi death camp sign from an abandoned building. This is something I call "forum logic".

Yep, I am no expert on the foreclosure process, and nobody else seems to be able to figure where the Packard is at with ownership either. Way to hyper focus on an irrelevant point, which you have restated several times now. Got it - move on.

**Mark Smiles** · February-09-13, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by mauser

I am not justifying anything - many people are not understanding that the sign needed to come down. I am talking about why I did it so people might understand why the sign was wrong and very hurtful.

The Joe Louis fist is all about bringing people together. I guess some "art" is more equal than others.

**Bad Brains** · February-08-13, 01:29 AM

Originally Posted by mauser

Trivializing the Holocaust is not going to get you anywhere with anybody.

I don't know about that. Whoever did the sign probably did so as an attempt to get in the papers, which they successfully did. That was probably their only goal. The pranksters might have been Jewish themselves for all we know.

**Gannon** · February-07-13, 05:57 PM

Quite frankly, I daresay this sheds positive light on our artists, in the fact that at least two are studied enough in history to put this phrase from over a generation ago in the midst of the whole controversial neighborhood today.

I'd like to say to our mystery originator and Mauser a hearty thank you for doing your part to make this dialogue possible.

It is bringing people together who might not otherwise have met, and shedding more light on blight from the flight, which we all know wasn't right.

Cheers!

**Drexciya68** · February-07-13, 10:54 PM

I'm tired of people using The Packard Plant to get their 15 mins of fame or make some lame point. Seeing people picking that place to the bone offends me. I lived a block away from the Plant on East Grand when I was born. So in a way it's a part of my childhood. I also hope people realize that millions of NON-Jewish Polish citizens were murdered and put in ghettos by the Nazis. With Detroit's rich Polish history I would suspect that sign would be offensive. I have thick skin and won't give the clown who put it up any more attention.
Put down the spray cans, paint and signs and pick up a damn rake or invest in the City's future if you want to help. imo.

**noise** · February-08-13, 12:03 AM

As others have pontificated, I highly doubt the statement was intended to offend Jews or "rip off Nazis". I'm not of a historically oppressed group, so I won't pretend to relate to a Jew offended by the statement.

Would it have been more "fitting" on a Ford plant?

**mauser** · February-08-13, 05:35 AM

"Piss Christ" is by photographer Andres Serrano - 1987. It is often used in censorship/artistic expression arguments.

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 05:42 AM

Wouldn't it be a riot if this 'artist' turned out to be funded by one of the grants organizations...

**mauser** · February-08-13, 06:22 AM

Originally Posted by Gannon

Wouldn't it be a riot if this 'artist' turned out to be funded by one of the grants organizations...

Everyone should remember that "artist" is an assumption here. The sign maker is anonymous, so nobody can state that it was for sure an artwork. How can anybody be sure it wasn't meant to be a 100% antisemitic slur aimed at the Jewish population, and hung on the most famous building made by the Jewish architect Albert Kahn ?

I mean...if we are going to indulge in conspiracy theories about the sign maker - let's be a bit more creative.

Or if we should proceed in a more pragmatic and rational fashion, let me apply Occam's Razors here.

from Wiki:

"Occam's razor: when faced with competing hypotheses, select the one that makes the fewest assumptions"

Let us do that.

1.) Nazi death camp sign

2.) abandoned auto plant in Detroit

3.) famous for having been designed by Albert Kahn, a Jewish architect

We add these up and take the basic meaning and we get what ?

A slur against the auto industry, or a slur against Mr. Kahn.

If you get fancier than that folks, you have left Occam's Razor, and entered the Rorschach Test. This will end up with data that says more about you than about the sign. You will project all your political hoohaa onto the objects in question and come up with elaborate or even convoluted explanations and justifications for the sign.

In the famous words never actually spoken by Sergeant Joe Friday, let us stick to "Just the facts, ma'am.."

I also am reading one person after another calling the sign on the Packard "ironic"...Anyone want to tackle that definition and apply it to the sign? Any Grammar Nazis [[crap...sorry about that unintended pun) out there want to parse the use of the word ironic for everyone ? It is tricky, and often abused and misused. Most people confuse it with "coincidence".

For the sign on Packard, how exactly is this "ironic" ?

Please correct me if I am wrong because I am not positive either, but my understanding of the definition of "irony" is when the literal meaning and the implied meanings are opposites.

The sign on Packard is so unclear - what is it criticizing, if in fact it even is ?

Is it a comment on industry ? Then what is the relationship to death camps in the mind of the sign maker ? Is it a comment on Capitalism ? Again, what does the death camp have to do with Capitalism ?

And the sign was very carefully done to directly reference Auschwitz, as the Freep pointed out the font is indeed quite distinct and could never have been done coincidentally. So we can see the sign maker is in fact talking in part about the death camp.

Then there is the message. "Labor makes free".

I think this was the false promise to the people in the camps who were led to believe they would be released after the war if they worked hard for their captors. So now we transpose that message onto an abandoned factory whose original company has been gone since the late 1950's.

It is getting pretty murky now - where is sign maker going with this ?

What is the simplest meaning that can be derived from the message left for us ? Something about that building is bad - just as bad as the Nazi death camps.

Does anyone really believe there is some aspect of the Packard Plant's existence, or something which its abandonment represents that is as bad as the nazi death camps and the lies that were told to the inmates ?

Does anyone really think the sign maker went to that much trouble to say that to people, knowing full well how outraged the general public would be by the sign ?

**Zacha341** · February-08-13, 06:54 AM

Yeah, not like there's not a precedent for that kind of thing!

Originally Posted by Gannon

Wouldn't it be a riot if this 'artist' turned out to be funded by one of the grants organizations...

**Zacha341** · February-08-13, 06:55 AM

Or at least questioning the tax payer funding for such....

Originally Posted by mauser

"Piss Christ" is by photographer Andres Serrano - 1987. It is often used in censorship/artistic expression arguments.

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 05:40 AM

Thanks for the correction, Mauser. Maplethorpe must've been part of something Serrano was involved with, because in my memory it was one thing. When I did a quick search to insure I'd spelled everything correctly, the preview showed both in the same comment, but separated by an ellipse. It must've been around the time of that public arts funding argument during the Clinton years, when both Maplethorpe and Serrano were being funded by various joints getting federal monies.

**luckycar** · February-08-13, 06:40 AM

Hey why don't we all just show up on a nice spring day with sledge hammers and cranes and dumpsters and bobcats and dumptrucks ......and tear down this eyesore like the Berlin Wall came down.Who the hell would stop us?The fools from City Hall?If enough people showed up,Packard would be gone!

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 06:49 AM

Mauser,

All due respect, but you left the razor's edge the instant you assumed anyone knows or cares who the architect of any ruin really was...let alone which religion they might've been within. Sorry.

The indications are only that they know the position of this phrase, over an arch to a deathcamp from WWII...and the particular fashion of the Bauhaus B, but that in no way indicates that they've studied anything beyond a picture of the gate.

EVERYTHING beyond that is speculation. Everything. Including that which inflamed you enough to action. Sorry. It might be tough to see within the raw sensitivity, which MAY have caused a cascading series of over-reactions which indeed serve as a rolling Rorschach analysis.

For all of us.

Sincerely,
John

**mauser** · February-08-13, 08:02 AM

yeah, well Im searching and scratching here Gannon, because otherwise the only thing we see is a death camp sign. and i think that is the bottom line too.

no worries about your criticisms, because that just well be the case. i will stand by my actions as long as you stand with the death camp sign though. i admit it was an empathetic and then an emotional response, but not without complete full awareness of what i was doing and why. unlike the sign maker.

but perhaps like the sign maker, i was setting my sites on the ramifications of the sign further down the road. outside of our local Detroit bubble of concern. they are reading about this story in Israel, and i would bet both the sign maker and myself were both very aware of the ability of the sign to strike a reaction that far, that fast. i dont know the concerns of the sign maker, but one of my concerns is that the story of this sign not hit foreign news cycles, without the addemndum that the sign had propmtly been removed.

by two citizens, John, not just me. two different guys there to do the same thing at the same time - destroy the sign. unlike me, Roni is indeed Jewish.

the sign would have died at exactly 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, February 6th, 2013. because Roni was there with his claw hammer to do the deed.

is his reaction simply emotional ? did HE have a right, or more a right than myself, to destroy the sign ? or none ?

the best part about two people being there at exactly the same time is that you can remove me from this story and it we would still be where we are. what i added by participating in the dismantling of the Packard Nazi death camp sign was that i have the ability to quickly help distribute the story, and did. i am also willing to put myself out there and explain what i did to further the discussion, and i have.

john, you know how shy i actually am. so does Django, or any of my friends. i am not really an attention seeker, i like my work to get lots of attention, but not me. when i have to be a public figure it is indescribably uncomfortable for me. if i am doing it, it is because i think something is very very important.

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 09:17 AM

Of course, that isn't in question.

I didn't include the other fellow by mistake, he is still intangible to me...but you're right, in a way. Having the two of you there simultaneously does show that you've a similar sensitivity as the fellow of Jewish descent.

And the two of you might be over-sensitive to this together...as you've said, the Nazi stuff is nuclear though. So, while nobody expects anyone to grow skin thick enough to shield from the nuclear effects...perhaps we can at least begin to put some of those welder's glasses on, so our gaze can go towards this ugly, recurrent ideology, if only to insure it never rises again.

As we've seen through history, if a thing is IGNORED politely, it becomes legend others later seek to emulate. Say, like the Purple Gang's legacy in this town. Or the actual effects of gunfire, even unto automatic weapon use.

Unless the violence and horror humankind can produce are honestly faced, those who have the potential to perpetrate such may more easily continue.

Again, I thank you for bringing this to the fore and making it a 'teaching moment'. I merely think we've all got some facet of this which can reflect back enough for each to learn something good about ourselves.

Cheers

**East Detroit** · February-08-13, 05:30 PM

So many people downplaying this as artistic expression of the nth degree of cleverness. Is that because anti-semitism is so difficult to fathom, or because they don't care?

The "cleverness" was a complete failure because it just got a bunch of yapping monkeys typing on their keyboards with random thoughts on various websites. It didn't "teach" us anything or provoke thoughts about a useful message.

Although, nice segue to the Purple Gang... if I was a conspiracy theorist I would wonder why they were mentioned.

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 10:34 PM

So many people downplaying this as artistic expression of the nth degree of cleverness. Is that because anti-semitism is so difficult to fathom, or because they don't care?

The "cleverness" was a complete failure because it just got a bunch of yapping monkeys typing on their keyboards with random thoughts on various websites. It didn't "teach" us anything or provoke thoughts about a useful message.

Although, nice segue to the Purple Gang... if I was a conspiracy theorist I would wonder why they were mentioned.

If you were smart enough to follow the hints of conspiracy, you'd be able to follow plain language.

Sometimes folks are SO anti-"whatever", they can find it in everything.

I'm pretty sure that is at least part of what Rorschach tried to reveal with his inkblot testing.

Good Luck with that! Obsessions are blinders. If you keep 'em on, you might be convinced what you see is all there is.

**Gannon** · February-08-13, 11:14 PM

So even a person who is not from a family directly affected by the atrocities of Nazis in WWII can be driven to action against a perceived offense, and teach those around him why. Someone who paid attention to history enough to be sensitive to the point of being perceived as acting out-of-the-ordinary due it.

Simple as that. And I thanked him for it, too. Had some public dialogue that I'm sure we'd both rather have kept private, except everyone else might miss that facet of the learning moment.

Cheers!

**mauser** · February-09-13, 07:09 AM

Originally Posted by Gannon

Had some public dialogue that I'm sure we'd both rather have kept private, except everyone else might miss that facet of the learning moment.

Agreed, which is why John and I had this discussion here. I hope when "teachable moment" is mentioned, nobody takes that as me thinking Im here to teach everybody a lesson or whatever, because that is rediculous. No - Im learning along with everybody else and trying to understand and comprehend.

Unfortunately most of what I have learned through this has shocked me.

**East Detroit** · February-09-13, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by Gannon

If you were smart enough to follow the hints of conspiracy, you'd be able to follow plain language.

Sometimes folks are SO anti-"whatever", they can find it in everything.

I'm pretty sure that is at least part of what Rorschach tried to reveal with his inkblot testing.

Good Luck with that! Obsessions are blinders. If you keep 'em on, you might be convinced what you see is all there is.

Thanks for trivializing this, for speaking down to me, and for your usual making this about yourself even though you have no equity. Yeah, I am "obsessed" about the Holocaust.

Sorry, but there is no grand scheme here, no conspiracies to be revealed, no artistic expression... its just the usual anti-semitism that is found throughout society [[until shown otherwise). Again, the dismissive people either agree with the anti-semitism or just don't care.