Jae Sterling, "The Guide and Protector," 2020
A Black Lives Matter mural has been completed in Calgary's Chinatown after a proposed mural at another location sparked a backlash.
The new mural, painted by Jae Sterling, depicts an early Black cowboy in Alberta, accompanied by a woman riding a bull.
"It's kind of crazy, actually, that there's a debate around this because we're just debating Black people being represented in the city when we've been here the whole time," Sterling told CBC News.
The controversy started when Pink Flamingo, a Black advocacy group, received $120,000 in civic funding for a handful of Black Lives Matter murals. One of them would have replaced a 25-year-old downtown mural that has become a familiar landmark.
There were complaints about losing the earlier mural and the cost to taxpayers, as well as racist vitriol that prompted Pink Flamingo to put the project on hold in August.
Nevertheless, Sterling approached Pink Flamingo with his privately funded project, and began work in early September.
Sterling told Vice, a lifestyle and arts magazine, that he faced racial slurs, inflammatory online comments and people approaching the site to ask a security guard hired by Pink Flamingo if the artists had permits.
“Look at what's going on,” Sterling said. “It’s just a painting and people are literally abusing us while we work. To me, that proves everything.”
Source: CBC, Calgary Herald, Vice