BART Rejects Professor De La Rosa's Mission Gentrification Art -- Censorship or Good Taste?

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- The battle over gentrification in San Francisco’s Mission District flared as the American Civil Liberties Union backed an artist’s efforts to display his work outside BART’s 16th Street Mission station. The ACLU contends BART engaged in political censorship. BART officials, though, said they didn’t object to the topic of gentrification, but found one of the pieces too profane and mean. Victor De la Rosa, a San Francisco State University art professor, was one of five artists commissioned by the city to depict life in the Mission. His piece, titled “La Gente De Tu Barrio / The People of Your Neighborhood [The Mission Suite],” features four poster-style images with residents sounding off on gentrification. “Victor De La Rosa's work addresses the important issues of gentrification and inequality through imagery that enjoys full constitutional protection,” stated a letter the ACLU sent Friday to BART General Manager Grace Crunican.