Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon
There was a bicycle race on Black Mountain Drive Saturday. Race organizers had spray painted encouraging words on the road: Shut up, Legs! You can do it. Not much further now. That sort of thing. This was all in white spray paint.
Another group or individual came out with blue spray paint and added these messages, two of four. I took the photographs this morning on the way home from Evergreen. Obviously, they’re disturbing. But more to the current point, they immediately reminded me of the spirit of Trump rallies where minorities, women, the disabled, immigrants are summarily belittled and mocked. Sometimes, violence ensues.
The cruel and awful thing about the Trump national campaign for the presidency is this; it gives the color of political legitimacy to sentiments like these, encouraging them to go beyond disdain and into violent territory. I don’t know the politics of the blue spray painter(s), but I do know that the sanctioning of hateful rhetoric and physical confrontations makes such attitudes much more dangerous.
