Graffiti started in low-income communities in New York around the hip-hop revolution. During this time people that lived in these communities were mostly minorities, African-American and Latinos. The jobs that these people could get were mostly factory jobs that oppressed all type of individuality. In these factory jobs everything is scheduled and everyone looks the same. From uniforms in a dark navy color to bells indicating break time and lunchtime, everybody’s day looked the same. Schools just like these factory jobs do the exact same thing, especially public schools. Graffiti was a way in which kids from public schools or anyone working in these factories could express themselves. The individuality that comes along with graffiti is what made people very attracted to the art. With graffiti everyone had their own name that they represented in their own style and their favorite color and in their favorite places. “Turning to art, graffiti writers posted their names in as many places as possible, in essence to let the world know that they were still conscious and were still human beings” (Werwath ,2006). The creativity that was put in to the pieces gave people the feeling of being their own, something that was clearly trying to be taken away from them at school or work.
The fact that doing graffiti was a representation of the writers true identity made it popular. At work or at school the managers or the teachers would just see the artist as another worker or student but in the graffiti culture people knew you because of how many places you got up on or what type of style you had. Everybody is born an individual and these institutions try to repress that, and that’s why graffiti is such a powerful, useful and popular tool for expression.