SPOKANE, Wash. — Multiple “White Lives Matter” posters were found at the Second Avenue and Jefferson Street intersection in downtown Spokane Monday.
The posters share links to the “White Lives Matter” movement and feature sketches that include white and light-haired individuals.
On two of the posters, the number “14” is on one of the sketches.
According to Jeanette Laster, the Executive Director of the Human Rights Education Insitute, “14” is symbolic of the “14 Words” in the white supremacist slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Laster says, the group that put up the posters in downtown Spokane is a white supremacist organization.
Civil Rights leaders in Spokane weighed in Monday about how these posters are dangerous for all People of Color.
“It’s harmful because, it’s of course saying that they don’t want us here. That we’re not welcome. It perpetuates that hate in the community,” Lisa Gardner, the President of NAACP Spokane, said.
NonStop Local also met with Sheena Birdtail, the executive assistant of The Native Project, to discuss the harm of the posters.
“I think it’s a slap in the face. Because they are on borrowed land. This is Native land. And so, having those posted in our community…it is heartbreaking,” Birdtail said.
Gardner, Birdtail and Naghmana Sherazi, the CEO of the Muslims for Community Action and Support and the Environmental Justice Committee chair for the NAACP Spokane, agree that hateful language and rhetoric is always present below the surface in the Inland and Pacific Northwest. However, it pops up and surges a little bit more around heated political seasons.
“The rhetoric serves to divide…People in Spokane, I feel we need to be more cohesive. We need to come together to create this community where we all belong, where we all get our say, where we are all represented. But, if you’re only going to concentrate on one side and not on the other and try to minimize things, it harms all of us,” Sherazi said.
NonStop Local did contact the Spokane Police Department (SPD).
A spokesperson for SPD said they could provide more information Tuesday about the posters found.
