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On March 23, city officials logged the latest incident of hateful graffiti in Portland: The bronze sculptures in Grant Park portraying Beverly Cleary's beloved children's book characters Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins were tagged with swastikas.
By last weekend, the swastikas in the Northeast Portland park had been covered up with competing graffiti: a five-pointed star on Ramona's forehead and the word "antifa" on Henry's.
The scrawl on the statues is just the latest exchange in a war of bad words playing out across Portland.
Since Nov. 1, officials with the Office of Neighborhood Involvement have cataloged 99 instances of what they list as "hate" or "political" graffiti in the city.
The Portland Mercury first reported in February that ONI was keeping a list of hate and political graffiti. WW has now exclusively obtained that list through a public records request.
It shows that the most common hate or political tag in Portland since the November election isn't a swastika or a racial slur. It's the phrase "Fuck Trump."
In fact, 46 of the 99 graffiti logged by ONI involved a reference to the president, only three of which could be construed as favorable. But swastikas were close behind: The city has recorded 24 reports of graffiti including them since the beginning of November.
Here are some of the graffiti phrases ONI has logged since Nov. 1. The full logbook, with dates and locations, can be found here.
