In prison and on the street, he said, some people are forced into hate groups and gangs to avoid becoming victims themselves. But later in life, a tattoo memorializing that hatred and violence works against them.
“Once you do something like that, you’re always going to be a victim,” Cutlip said. “If I can help that person, that’s my ultimate goal.”
The desire to cover hateful or violent tattoos isn’t new. One program that removed gang members’ tattoos began in Virginia in 2007. In 2010, a judge in Florida ordered a neo-Nazi’s tattoos to be covered with makeup during his trial; the Southern Poverty Law Center funded the removal of a skinhead’s tattoos the following year.
In this corner of Anne Arundel County, about a mile south of Baltimore, where Southside sits in a strip mall, its Facebook post brought diverse queries. Cutlip was asked about covering up an iron cross and a “Dead Man Incorporated” tattoo from a notorious white prison gang, among other pleas for help.
The challenge wasn’t confronting hateful ideology but figuring out ways to erase it. Examining a photo of a swastika tattoo a woman wanted removed from her lower back – she said it cost her young son a spot in a playgroup – Cutlip begrudgingly admired its dark color and clean lines.
“I hate to say it,” he said. “This is a great tattoo.”
He decided that the Random Acts of Tattoo Project would pay for laser removal elsewhere.
To cover up his Confederate flag, Stiles, who has about a dozen tattoos, settled on a replacement he deemed patriotic: an eagle. The coverup involved two hours-long sessions, with Cutlip’s tattoo gun humming as it injected black and brown ink under Stiles’s skin, the artist periodically wiping the blood away.
Casey Schaffer showed up at the shop with the word “white” on one forearm and “power” on the other. The 29-year-old said the tattoos were a result of a one-year prison stint at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Md., for assault.
I kind of did it to try to get in and prove myself to those guys
Schaffer said he fell in with gangs in a prison environment where “everybody sticks to their own kind.”
“I kind of did it to try to get in and prove myself to those guys,” he said. “They kind of took me in, taking care of me. I thought of it as paying it back to them.”
Schaffer’s out of jail now and looking for work. He said he thinks construction would be a good fit and is also interested in nursing, but he said his criminal record and tattoos might create obstacles.
Working with Cutlip, Schaffer decided to cover up the word “white” with a heart and roses drawn by his girlfriend. “Power” could stand on its own, he said, but he decided to cover it with a hawk.
“I think it looks pretty badass,” he said. “It works for me.”
I want them to feel that they have a say in this
Cutlip, who’s been tattooing for 25 years, said he’s seen plenty of people make mistakes with ink, even involving more mundane designs. Decades later, a customer might not appreciate, say, a tattoo of a dolphin or a college beau’s name.
He can’t fix every bad tattoo, but he can fix some of the really bad ones.
“I take each customer as they come,” he said. “I want them to feel that they have a say in this.”
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