When you go to the site below, click on the left hand side where it says "Eye the Statues".
GO HERE TO SEE WHAT THEY ARE WHINING ABOUT
Providence Journal R.I.
Chips are down on this potato
Figure at Warwick City Hall deemed racist by some
By JIM SEAVOR
Journal Arts Writer
One of the Mr. Potato Heads that dot the Rhode Island landscape is proving a bit hot to handle.
Two affirmative-action officials in the state are complaining that Tourist Tater, in front of Warwick City Hall, is racist. The figure, created by Kathy Szarko, of West Warwick, shows a dark brown potato with ill-fitting Hawaiian shirt and a wide grin.
The artist and city and state officials say no offense was meant. Szarko says she intended a potato with a suntan. Still, changes may be coming.
Onna Moniz-John, affirmative-action officer for the City of East Providence, first saw the figure when she opened The Journal's LIVE This Weekend section yesterday and saw a picture of Tourist Tater.
"I opened up the paper and said, 'Wow!' " she said. "It looks like a throwback -- big wide grin, darkness, the hideousness of it. The hat and little tiny shirt. When you put it all together it's, 'Here we go again.'
"I'm a collector of black memorabilia. It looks as if he belongs in my collection."
Donna Fishman, chairman of the Rhode Island Affirmative Action Committee, said in a separate interview that Norman Lincoln, a member of her group and chairman of the Warwick Affirmative Action Commission, brought the subject up at Wednesday's committee meeting. Members of the group, she said, "are definitely offended by the stereotypical look."
Fishman added that she is even more offended by the explanation that this is a tanned tourist. "Until we walk in the shoes of black people," she said, "some of us may be more insensitive of how [something] appears to minorities."
The controversy brought explanations, and quick promises that something will be done.
Artist Szarko said that the figure, which went up in May, had not drawn complaints until now. She described her creation as "just a potato -- which is dark brown anyway -- who had a suntan."
The figure, she noted, has blond hair. And in her original sketches, she said, "I even had his cheeks red. . . .
"I kind of rushed it," she said. "They had a date" by which the project had to be finished. "I looked at him and said, 'He shouldn't be offensive -- potatoes are brown.' "
She added that the photo in yesterday's Journal was "definitely too dark" to accurately portray her work.
Tom Schumpert, executive director of the state Economic Development Corporation, which coordinated the Potato Head tourism promotion, agreed with Szarko that the figure "is less offensive in person than the photo."
But, he said, "I can understand [the complaints] and, as an African-American, I can see why my brothers and sisters . . ." He didn't finish the sentence, but continued: "And if I saw it first, I would have said, 'We need to correct this.'
"We do not intend to offend one single Rhode Islander. I can assure you that no one from the artist to EDC saw this as being offensive."
Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, in front of whose City Hall the figure stands, said he first saw the Potato Head at a tourism luncheon in April, less than two months after taking office. And he said, while he can understand people's concerns, "we did not choose the Potato Head that was sent to us."
So what happens to Tourist Tater?
Schumpert says he has called Mayor Avedisian. The Potato Head campaign is supposed to be fun, he says, "and to the extent that it is not fun, we want to change it, and we will do so."
Avedisian said he would "call Onna [Moniz-John] tomorrow morning," and see what could be worked out.
Said artist Szarko: "I'll paint him pink if they want me to."
Copyright © 2000 The Providence Journal Company
-- 30 --
If you going to vent, don't bother with Salon. Go directly to the horse's mouth at: apancier@projo.com (editor).
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited September 29, 2000).]
