Whitey Ford
09-01-2020, 07:47 PM
‘Like our own Charlottesville’: America’s culture war lands on tiny, mostly white Lopez Island
Lopez Island in the San Juans has long had a special reputation, which they advertise before you come.
“Don’t be startled,” the visitors bureau cautions, “when people wave at you from their cars. This is the ‘Friendly Isle.’ “
But that nickname has become a rueful joke to some Lopezians this summer, as the bitter cultural and political fights of the nation suddenly broke out on the rural island.
Somehow it’s gotten so tense that as the summer closes, small bands of islanders have taken to staying up all night holding vigils, by the side of the road, to guard against the destructive trespasses of some others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgVPxi0hKZI
t all boiled over the morning of Aug. 12, when Dwight Lewis, a well-known island local since 1974, showed up near the island center of Lopez Village with an excavator. According to sheriff’s deputies, he used the machine to mow down a series of Black Lives Matter memorial signs that other locals had put up along the roadway.
The signs feature local artists’ depictions of Black men and women killed in recent years by police, along with flowers and brief memorial inscriptions. When some other islanders tried to save the signs, Lewis allegedly swung the excavator arm at them.
“I felt I had to make a statement,” Lewis said. “I’m getting this Black Lives Matter shoved right down my throat all the time … I don’t want to go home to Lopez Island every night and see Black Lives Matter and have it shoved down my throat.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-our-own-charlottesville-americas-culture-war-lands-on-tiny-mostly-white-lopez-island/
Lopez Island in the San Juans has long had a special reputation, which they advertise before you come.
“Don’t be startled,” the visitors bureau cautions, “when people wave at you from their cars. This is the ‘Friendly Isle.’ “
But that nickname has become a rueful joke to some Lopezians this summer, as the bitter cultural and political fights of the nation suddenly broke out on the rural island.
Somehow it’s gotten so tense that as the summer closes, small bands of islanders have taken to staying up all night holding vigils, by the side of the road, to guard against the destructive trespasses of some others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgVPxi0hKZI
t all boiled over the morning of Aug. 12, when Dwight Lewis, a well-known island local since 1974, showed up near the island center of Lopez Village with an excavator. According to sheriff’s deputies, he used the machine to mow down a series of Black Lives Matter memorial signs that other locals had put up along the roadway.
The signs feature local artists’ depictions of Black men and women killed in recent years by police, along with flowers and brief memorial inscriptions. When some other islanders tried to save the signs, Lewis allegedly swung the excavator arm at them.
“I felt I had to make a statement,” Lewis said. “I’m getting this Black Lives Matter shoved right down my throat all the time … I don’t want to go home to Lopez Island every night and see Black Lives Matter and have it shoved down my throat.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/like-our-own-charlottesville-americas-culture-war-lands-on-tiny-mostly-white-lopez-island/