Nestled along the North Shore of Lake Superior, Grand Marais, Minnesota is a short jaunt from Thunder Bay, Ontario. It’s a scenic part of the state, where thousands of tourists flock year-round. Two of those tourists, a pair named Tom & Linda, decided however that they were to be the arbiters of what kind of signage a local lodge got to have on their property.
The owner of Big Bear Lodge, Andy DeLisi, committed to the ideal of racial justice, had put up a Black Lives Matter sign on his property. And “poof!”, one day it disappeared. Undaunted, DeLisi made a more sturdy sign of painted plywood...and installed a security camera. And “voila!” he managed to catch red-handed a husband and wife taking the sign, and throwing it in the ditch.
Nice. Real nice.
The sign was clearly on the lodge’s property, so DeLisi contacted the Cook County Sheriff’s Department and showed them some stills from the camera in the hopes that the pair could receive a stern talking to.
The license plates were not visible, but the car was unique. It was pink, with the words “Mary Kay” on the door. DeLisi posted the stills on his personal Facebook page, and social media worked its magic, providing the names and location of the pair, who were staying at a nearby resort.
A sheriff’s deputy made contact with the pair, and the following conversation ensued:
“I told them I had photos of them moving a Black Lives Matter sign and asked what they were doing,” the report says.
[snip]
[T]he report says Linda told the deputy she’d gone to talk to DeLisi, but he hadn’t been there at the time, “so they moved the sign.”
“She told me she wanted to discuss the political subject and wanted to send a message,” the report says.
The deputy reportedly reminded Linda that the sign “was not her property” and therefore she should leave it alone or risk prosecution, and the couple allegedly agreed not to go back. The deputy reported back to DeLisi, and just like that, the case was pretty much closed.
While this story seems to end here, it is far from an outlier. I’ve talked to folks in my part of the state who have had their BLM or Justice for George Floyd signs taken from their properties in broad daylight. Seems that some folks are just too much of snowflakes to handle the sight of a sign that does not conform to their worldview.
In a related note, I’ve seen some Trump flags that have the phrase “No More Bullshit” on them. Yeah, and that’s exactly why I won’t be voting for Trump this fall, because I — and a whole lot of other people — are tired of his bullshit.