In True Portland Style, a Racial Justice Billboard Was Defaced With Supportive Graffiti

Earlier this month, the non-profit Portland Equity in Action put up 25 billboards around the city with bold-lettered slogans like "Black Narrative," "De-Escalation Not Militarization," "Black Lives Matter," and "Where Was My Presumption of Innocence?"

The public ad campaign, according to the group's website, is aimed at "highlighting racial disparities in access to power structures and policy, as well as media coverage and representation within institutions throughout the Portland area."

And in a distinctly Portland brand of supportive but unhelpful vandalism, a "Portland…Is Your White Fragility Showing?" billboard on Southeast Belmont Street and 26th Avenue was defaced recently with a green spray-painted retort: "Yes it is. ACAB." (For those of you not up on your anarchist lingo, that's short for "All Cops Are Bastards.")

Left-wing graffiti isn't a new phenomenon in the Rose City.

Last year, WW reported that the most common political tags found in Portland weren't slurs or swastikas—though those were logged—but the phrase, "Fuck Trump."

Related: Portland Statue of Ramona Quimby Was Defaced Last Week With a Swastika—the Latest in a Wave of "Hate Graffiti"

Between November and March of last year, 46 of the 99 accounts of "political" graffiti logged by the Office of Neighborhood Involvement referenced the president.

Other common tags included, "Fuck Cops," "Eat Cops," and, yep, "ACAB."

This appears to be the only billboard in the campaign that has been tagged. Portland Equity in Action did not immediately respond to a request for comment.