SPOKANE, Wash. — Stickers with racist slogans were found at a busy intersection in Downtown Spokane on Monday.
The stickers were found on traffic lights near Jefferson Street and Second Avenue. They included hateful rhetoric like: “White man zone,” “Make white children” and “You are not alone, come home white man.” The stickers also had QR codes linking to a website.
Although the city quickly removed the stickers, their hateful message continues to be felt.
“Of course [the] NAACP is going to condemn it. Of course we hate it,” Spokane NAACP President Lisa Gardner said. “But what about the people who are the dominant culture? Do they hate it? How do they feel about it when they see it? Because we as people of color, we have to internalize it. We have to deal with it. We have to walk past it in our city downtown.”
A 2023 report from the U.S. Census Bureau estimated less than 20 percent of Spokane’s residents are people of color.
Gardner called on city officials to hold those responsible accountable for their actions.