#BLM Protest Signs in Portland OR

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Our ‘linguistic landscape’ is not only the words, symbols, and signs that populate our environments but the spatial practice of deciphering and contextualizing the symbols that mark public space (Ben-Rafael et al. 2006). This process of deriving meaning from our environments relies on an individual's "social-cultural, geographical or physical” narrative (Kasanga et al., 2014). The aesthetics of our lingual landscape are are central to the production and maintenance of physical space (McCann, 2002).

Signs play a big role in our lingual landscape. BLM protest signs have incited a shift in Portland’s lingual landscape. The presence of visual protest in our lingual landscape acts as a ‘distribution of the sensible’ (Rancière, 2006). During this time of historic civil uprising it is absolutely necessary that we discern how protest signs convey the messages and demands of BLM.

After the grotesque murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 by the hands of Minneapolis Police, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement gained significant momentum and protests dominated the media spotlight. Since then, Portland became a internationally notable place of BLM activism, fueled by the historic displacement of indigenous, Black, and Brown communities as well as the local dynamics of a liberal city core clashing with rural Oregon's deep rooted white supremacy.

In Portland proper and inner Portland, there has been a huge change of the lingual landscape attributed to prevalence of BLM protest signs in residential, commercial, and public spaces. The increase in BLM signs is quite remarkable because they disrupt and re-appropriate space on multiple levels through visual presence and symbolic power (Seals, 2011).

Out of 41 survey participants, most agreed that their neighbors supported Black Lives Matter and a large percentage of these people mentioned that the presence of signs played a major role in this feeling of solidarity and support. The survey data when mapped, shows that the directional distribution of the agree and strongly agree answers are located in inner SE and NE Portland areas.

There was a lot of concern regarding performativity. One respondent said, "I see a lot of signs from unmotivated, trendy, NIMBY older white people... they care because it’s the cool thing to do". Another participant shared a similar concern said,

Protest and aesthetics are inextricably linked, as protests serve to disrupt that which is sensible. As the commonplace printed Black Lives Matter signs permeate the lingual landscape I wanted to draw attention to signs that disrupt the disruption. Specifically, signs that are handmade and indicate a level of time and effort, as well as signs that convey a call to action or inspire ideas of specific change.

When collecting data, the most common signs were those with more mainstream slogans. I found these on windows of homes, and businesses... as banners tied between trees, and poster board signs staked into the yard. The presence of these signs visually breaks into the scenes perceived as ‘usual’ by large parts of the US society and when examined presents hidden layers and structures (Schneider, 2017). This sea of printed BLM protest offers “text that anchor’s the spectator’s view" and provides a calm textual counterpoint to the handmade signs that continue to disrupt the sensible aesthetics of printed signs (Schneider, 2017).

Handwritten signs are among my personal favorites because give us a glimpse of the person behind the protest. Handmade signs had a wider range of messages ranging from generic statements, to calls for defunding in police and investing in communities. I found some really amazing personalized messages and a lot of larger displays that people clearly spent a lot of time and energy putting together. A lot of messages, although unique were sloganized, and some were more intimate.

In all acts of visual protest, showing the alliance with the movement reimagines a new self image for the protestor’ (Mirzoeff, 2018). This self image is often criticized in the context of performative activism. Activists often struggle with the idea that small, visual acts like posting on social media or taping a sign to your window give the protestor a false sense of accomplishment and allegiance and allows them to continue on at their level of privilege without making any significant changes to their worldview or seek any participation in activism. A survey participant relayed this skepticism in their response,

On the flip side, support and solidarity are nothing to turn one's nose up at. Neighborhoods are intimate shared spaces where communities interact everyday. Protest signs displayed on a storefront or a front yard can allow for “marginalized groups to create ‘spaces of representation’ through which they can represent themselves to the wider public and insert themselves in the discourses of the bourgeois public sphere” (McCann 2002). Additionally, neighborhoods can foster spaces of solidarity with BLM and incite meaningful conversations around race and ideological differences.

• What is the distribution of BLM protest signs in NE Portland? Do signs tend to be found in clusters or evenly distributed?
• Is there a relationship between presence of BLM signs and demographic data?
• Is there a relationship between handmade signs and demographic data?
• Is there a relationship between the specific messages communicated through BLM protest signs and demographic data?

For this case study I selected an area of NE Portland within the directional distribution of "strongly" agree answers, that historically has experienced a significant amount of displacement of Black and brown communities, and is seeing a fresh wave of gentrification exacerbated by the pandemic. This census block includes 3 block groups. I will be calling these; Block Group A, Block Group B, and Block Group C.

I personally surveyed this area and collected data for every BLM-related sign using ESRI collector. All data was collected by walking, and it was limited to signs I one could see from the sidewalk. Additionally, I only recorded signs that were put up to represent the views of a residence of building (ie. not signage on public property, or telephone poles). The fields that I recorded were: Sign Type, Building Type, and Message Type. Sign Type fields were: Handmade, Printed, Large Format Printed, and Large Format Handmade, eventually I combined these fields into simply Handmade and Printed. For Building Type the fields were: Residential and Commercial. I eventually changed these fields to Residential and Non-Residential. For the Message field I had 3 Categories:

• Tier 1: Generic statements and slogans that imparted a broad sweeping sense of support without saying anything too specific, ie. "In Our America", or "In this house", or "Equality".
• Tier 2: Specific and distinct Black Lives Matter signs, ie. "No Justice, No Peace", "Say their names", "Justice for _____", Black Power fists, and "Black is Beautiful".
• Tier 3: Calls to action, change or internal anti-racism work, ie. "Defund the police", "Abolish the police", "ACAB", "Amplify Black Voices", "Free the protestors", "Invest in Communities", and "Love us like you love our hair".

• Census.gov Portland Block Group Shapefile
• ACS 5-Year Median Household Income Data (2018)
• ACS 5-Year Race Data (2019)

The tools I used for analysis were: Join, Clip , Select by Attribute, Kernel Density, and XY Table to Point.

Ultimately, the findings of this small case study did generally align with my own observations and survey responses. There were the most signs found in the Block Group with the highest MHI, and lowest % of Black population. 52% of all handmade signs were found in the Block Group with the lowest MHI and highest % Black Population. Additionally, the signs that had calls to action were mostly found in this Block Group as well. There were the fewest signs found in the Block Group that houses the Police Precinct.

Moving forward, I hope to emphasize how neighborhoods are fascinating sites to study visual activism and protest. This scale offers a level of intimacy and local knowledge that really allows us to critically examine the nuances of politics and activism. Our everyday observations uncover statistically significant patterns and world views that deserve time and energy to make meaning. In the end, despite how skeptical many supporters of BLM are of performative and optical activism, displaying support through protest signage may increase the likelihood your neighbor will do the same. Changing the lingual landscape of protest disrupts the normal by perpetuating a discourse of of dissent. It is up to you to make sure that this discourse is also connected to substantive actions. Check in with your neighbors that have signs... what else can you all do as a neighborhood to do work on some of the calls to action that many of these signs display?

• Ben-Rafael, Eliezer, Elana Shohamy, Muhammad Hasan Amara, and Nira Trumper-Hecht. “Linguistic Landscape as Symbolic Construction of the Public Space: The Case of Israel.” International Journal of Multilingualism 3, no. 1 (April 15, 2006): 7–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668383.
• Cresswell, Tim. In Place - Out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression. U of Minnesota Press, 1992.
• Kasanga, Luanga A. “The Linguistic Landscape: Mobile Signs, Code Choice, Symbolic Meaning and Territoriality in the Discourse of Protest.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2014, no. 230 (November 1, 2014): 19–44. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2014-0025.
• McCann, Eugene J. “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City.” Antipode 31, no. 2 (1999): 163–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8330.00098.
• Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More.” Critical Inquiry 44, no. 4 (June 1, 2018): 795–96.
• Raiford, Leigh. “Photography and the Practices of Critical Black Memory.” History and Theory 48, no. 4 (2009): 112–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2009.00522.x.
• Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.
• Schneider, Nicole Anna. “Black Protest on the Streets: Visual Activism and the Aesthetic Politics of Black Lives Matter.” Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 18, no. 1 (July 6, 2017). https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.276.
• Seals, Corinne A. “Reinventing the Linguistic Landscape of a National Protest.” Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle 21, no. 1 (November 14, 2011): 190–202