Tattoo Acceptance In The Workplace

by Brent Michael Canle at Dr. Ink Tattoos

There has been a cry lately in the subculture for tattoo acceptance in the work place. Spearheaded by Steadfast brand, this lamentation soundlessly chants such slogans "Tattooed And Employed" or "I Want A Tattooed President." Which are nice slogans, bringing a sense of comradery to the industry which should be fraternally inherent yet still somewhat transient. The thINK Equality movement seems legit, that a person shouldn't be excluded because of the modifications which they make willingly to the own bodies. That a person's desire to be tattooed and their value in society are not very much in relation to one another. At least not any more. And the more demographics getting tattoo and calling for acceptance will inevitably bring it about. But largely the ones flying these acceptance flags are tattoo artist or peoples submerged in the tattoo culture. Something unsettles me about this.

The foundations of American tattooing stems from a counter-culture, one of hellious bikers, mentally despondent sailors, rock n' rollers, rebels, sideshow freaks, thieves, pirates. These were people breathing and eating on the outside of societal norms. These were aberrant peoples unmindful of rules and regulations. They were tattooed because they were different.

Juxtapose this richly degenerate history with the shirted slogan "I Want A Tattoo President."

This is not to say that I am against change. Moreover, I am of no part of the pirate roots of tattoo culture and am wholly a part of what Michael Malone disdainfully called the 'black shirts.' That next generation who knew nothing of what it meant to be a tattoo artist. And I don't.

So then why, when we were 18 and just legal, did we stumble into those tattoo parlors, full of giant and misunderstood men, and ask to receive through injury what they have? Why did we brand our bodies with skulls and daggers and scenes of desolation? Why did we scribble on ourselves war cries: can't hold me down, death before dishonor, only God can judge me? 

Did we want to be hard and tough? Did we want tattoos because we thought they'd help us get laid? Because we previously couldn't have them? Because the singers of all our favorite bands have them? Curiosity? Boredom? 

Or was it because we innately felt that we should be tattooed, that tattoos gave physical aesthetics to something we harbored inside, something that we were bullied in high school for, something we alienated ourselves in effect. Did we get tattooed because we were different? Or did we get tattoos because we were akin?

This is the question which arises when we stammer on about a tattooed President. Tattoo were suppose to (at least in my mind) represent an alternative culture and what could be more mainstream then the President of the United States of America. 

How disparaging, right? So then, what would happen if we gain our tattoo acceptance? What would a tattoo be if tattoos and being tattooed was so widely accepted? A simple answer would be that in such popularity, tattoos would cease be cool, giving raise to the alt.culture of anti-tattoos (echos of straight edge?). Lyle Tuttle portrays the theory of the butterfly tattoo on a mothers breast and the child in having started at it for all their life rebels by rejecting the entire, now institution of, tattoos.

Think any one of your peers who is openly against tattoos, now think of karate chopping that person in the effin' throat, now try not to smile. 

But in this tattoo accepted world the openly anti-tattoo are the cool kids. Tattoo acceptance in the workplace opens this paradigm

Look, I am down for tattoo acceptance. I encourage you to buy all the Steadfast shirts there are. I do not think that a tattoo should have the stigma any longer. But I'll admit I've rolled down my sleeves before and worn long pants. I've hid those little 'cool' markers on my body as to not be judged. But there was a explicit of delight to the chicanery. To know that my body was marked and to live in the guile. I could never fully be a part of their windsor knotted, memo e-mailing, god fearing, nine to five buffoonery. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't be them. 

So why would we want them to be like us?