The media of communication in America, and indeed the world, are dominated by only a few dozen giant corporations. In this society it takes unimaginable amounts of money to gain access to the major forms of communication (television, radio, printing presses, etc) and thus access to large audiences. The common person has little or no access to "legitimately" broadcast his/her message to the masses. Graffiti, in fact hip-hop in general, is one medium of communication which does not discriminate on the basis of race, social, economic, or educational class. It is an outlet of expression that anyone can take part in and no one can stop, censor, or effectively control. Those who control the media control the masses. Because all people, regardless of economic class, can broadcast their thoughts and feelings through graffiti it is actually a threat the dominant class’s monopoly on power. In this manner graffiti is inherently subversive. It defies the control of the dominant. It also defies society's emphasis on property and materialism. It is an open rejection of "mine" and "yours." Graffiti by its very nature claims that this property, this space, this society is no more yours than it is mine.

The world is OURS. Very clearly then graffiti, hip-hop, and all other forms of popular communication are threats to those who think that the world is THEIRS. For this reason the dominant class uses other media of communication, ones that they can control, to discredit and delegitimize graffiti and hip-hop in general by saying it is destructive, ugly, costly or violent. To some people it may be, but to others it is a hope, a chance, an outlet, the one way in which they will be heard, the one way in which they can take back some of the power that the dominant have taken from them. It is their one chance to asymmetrically transmit to the world, rather than be asymmetrically transmitted to. Hip-hop and Graffiti should be recognized as one of the few modes of communication that does not discriminate rich from poor, black from white, smart from stupid, or popular from unpopular. It should be seen not as a social vice, but as a predictable product of a society in which the masses are silenced, misdirected, marginalized and oppressed.