An Oakland mural depicting Native-American genocide was defaced. It led to a debate on the street.

"OAKLAND - For nearly 20 years, Diane Williams has seethed whenever she walked by a street mural depicting the genocide of Ohlone people by Spanish colonizers - artwork she finds demeaning because the Native American men are depicted as fully nude. Just this week, plans to remove the wall art were halted at the last minute, after tenants of the building's apartments at 41st Street and Piedmont Avenue demanded that the history on display be left alone."

"Now, the Franciscan missionaries oppressing the Native Americans in the painting had arrows piercing their heads and bodies. Blood spilled out of the white men. In the same red color, a declaration had been scrawled over the artwork: "THERE, I FIXED IT." It was the latest twist in a saga that in recent weeks has divided the North Oakland community surrounding Piedmont Avenue. On Friday, the debate shifted from online circles into public view, engulfing the sidewalk facing the mural."

"Baird, who completed the work in 2006 with help from a $5,000 city grant, at the time described the 25-by-10-foot display as a testament that the "spirit of a person can't be boxed." At the center of the painting's complex imagery are missionaries bringing traditional Western clothes - blue pants, brown boots and a belt with a buckle - to a naked Native man. The man stands just beyond a vivid swirl of similarly unclothed American Indians with discolored bodies, a jarring"

An Oakland street mural depicting the genocide of Ohlone people and nude Native American men has divided a North Oakland neighborhood. Tenants halted plans to remove the mural after complaints about its nudity. The mural was later defaced overnight with paper cutouts and red paint, portraying Franciscan missionaries pierced with arrows and blood and bearing the words "THERE, I FIXED IT." The painting, by Rocky Rische Baird, was completed in 2006 with a $5,000 city grant and titled "The Capture of the Solid. The Escape of the Soul." The imagery shows missionaries bringing Western clothes to a naked Native man.

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