Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/florida-deploys-police-to-stare-atOpen linkView original on midwest.social1064
Comments218https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/florida-deploys-police-to-stare-atOpen linkView original on midwest.social
So long as conservatives continue to exert exceptional effort to try and erase LGBT identity, people should attack Christian identity in equal measure. Tear down billboards with gospel on them. Deface publicly displayed crucifixes. Burn bibles in public.
Don't forget to remove churches from your communities..
I believe in proportionality. So long as their current actions stay in damaging inanimate symbols that's where it should stay. If they were to Remove places significant to LGBT+, then I'd consider it. If they were to start straight up shooting LGBT+ people, well...
These crosswalks were painted specifically in honor of the Pulse massacre where 50 LGBT+ people were murdered in 2016. 25 were injured or killed in a shooting in a Colorado Springs gay bar in 2022.
The shooting has been happening for years already.
The Pulse shooter wasn’t a Christian, so that’s not really a good reason to start tearing down and burning churches.
Which, I can’t believe I need to say this, is bad. I grew up in a small community that embraced Christian homophobic and transphobic abuse as a virtue, I think Christianity on the whole is more negative than positive, and I still wouldn’t destroy a random church because it’s a church. That is fash shit. You don’t target random places of worship because that’s the religion of your enemy. What is this shit.
Christian billionaires do fund a lot of the anti gay conspiracy media. I would specifically focus on those entities.
I apologize, I'm with you on do not attack random churches and should have called that out myself in my first post and can see how what I said could be interpreted as supporting it.
I was trying to point out that LGBTQ+ people are already under physical threat and have been and the first person's point about waiting until they are getting shot to take further action was passed already. I think the real physical threat is not understood by many. I do not think the action should be burning down random churches.
I like the cut of your jib.
I would destroy every single thing that I think has something to do with an irrational belief.
Tit for tat is a good tactic, usually. There is something to be said for a chilling effect, or "intimidation", as a way to not just punish current behavior but to forestall future escalation. The only key is that it needs to be selective, and not permanent, and then extremely reversed when they switch to cooperation.
They preach hate, you destroy their landscaping and signage. They remove your memorial and you burn down their building.
Meanwhile you praise the episcopal church and very visibly support fundraisers by the united Methodist Church.
It only alienates the people who were already too far gone. Others will tut at the disproportionate response but agree to the middle ground of "it's self defense, so it's justified in principle".
Gotta shift the center somehow.
That is what they want.
Right wing shitheads have been trying to paint themselves as the victims for decades. "The War On Christmas" being one of the best examples. And as much fun as it would be to burn down a church (but not Korean Jesus, that dude is okay), all it will do is provide them the evidence they have been trying to manufacture all this time.
Because news media won't be reporting "As retaliation for the murder of a trans person, a bible was ceremonially burned". It will be "The fucking gays are burning your bibles, go get them"
They've been riding their train of manufactured victimhood and rage for decades and found great success, they don't strictly need a reason to abuse people.
Staying your hand because your enemy might get angry and retaliate is the mindset of the battered housewife. People should stand up for themselves even if that means violence in the end.
Ignoring the sexism bordering on mild misogyny:
We've literally seen how this plays out. Walz calls trump "weird". fuckface calls for the murder of Kamala. "Both sides traded barbs".
The vast majority of christians don't actually hate The Gays. They insist "I don't approve of your lifestyle but I tolerate you"/"I don't respect or tolerate you but I also don't want to consider myself a bigot". It is why "bathroom bans" and the like are so popular. They are a direct attack on people's very self and a way to remove their ability to function in society but they also don't immediately seem like hate unless you think for even a few seconds.
But once The Gays are outright attacking christianity? Guess what? "Both sides traded barbs" becomes "They are literally coming to destroy your beliefs" and it is a literal holy war.
Or, to go back to your sexism: People love the idea of a victim standing up for themselves. When they do? Suddenly it just becomes "they are both a mess" or "they deserve each other" rather than "She finally struck back after her third visit to the emergency room".
Everyone wants to act. Not acting is the definition of helplessness. But it is also worth understanding that retaliation is a thing. The call of duty generation loves the idea of being heroic guerilla fighters who scream "wildcats" every five seconds. But it is worth looking at the actual "stay behind armies" and how so much of their equipment and doctrine was designed around resistance without ever pushing things far enough to lead to genocide and eradication. Whether that would have been successful is a very controversial topic but... that is the idea.
Lol. Ok Stretch Armstrong.
If you vote to hurt someone, you hate them. This isn't complicated.
Shit. So you're saying if we just left the Nazis alone they would have tolerated the Jews? Lol. I like how you consider direct Christian attacks on LGBTQ people as "tolerance". They are already actively degrading the quality of life of LGBTQ people. Do you expect people to just sit by and be subjugated in the hopes that they won't be subjugated harder if they do something?
Oof. You are trying so hard.
What planet do you live on? When a battered housewife (oh no I'm a sexist now) stands up for herself, I don't think she's a mess. What kind of fucked up logic is that? I'm happy for her.
Yes, it's a good thing when you are being oppressed. You are typing lots of words in defense of people not defending themselves. I'm not sure what's wrong with your brain, but you should fix it or find someone that can help you fix it.
Ugg you are so backwards on this. It is clear you see the mechanism behind how the media enforces the status quo, which is working just fine for a sliver of our population. But your proposed solution is what? Capitulation? Acceptance of second class citizenship?
Nah. Me personally, I am going to remind every Christian I know exactly how they fail to act in a Christian manner.
I am an atheist, but I am also a Red Letter Christian. I have read and thought deeply about the words Jesus actually spoke, there are versions of the bible where his words are printed in red ink.
There is plenty of dissent within most churches on these issues. It does the cause of justice no harm to remind Christians, im a pointed way if necessary, that they are failing to even attempt to live by Jesus’s direct teachings.
In the sense of stealing yule celebrations to attack Germanic people? Yes
In the sense of "Those pagan bastards are defiling the celebration of our lord and savior's birth"? "The War On Christmas" is a tried and tested method of mobilizing the troops.
Also in the sense of literally trying to outlaw Christmas. The Bible doesn't describe a Christmas festival and celebration, so many Christians felt that it was improper and unchristian for a very long time.
In the US the only real war on Christmas was fought by Christians. The soviets, the CCP and briefly the French revolutionaries are the only times atheists have actually pushed against it. The Nazis were in favor of a pro-nazi version of Christmas that was more about the state.
Ok. Time to make them actual victims.
This isn't fun and games anymore. They've ramped up their oppression. They've made it clear they are our enemies and won't stop until their boot is firmly on our necks, indefinitely.
If you don't end up fighting the schoolyard bully, they bully you forever.
I see that shit a lot too. And i live somewhere, where i don't even know anyone who is a real Christian who believes all that crap. No clue for whom it's for and how anyone looks at these and think: good thing they don't pay taxes so they have enough money to advertise to no one and hide their kiddy fuckers.
There's a significant number of LGBTQ+ friendly churches in Orlando. Presumably some of the dead could have been members of those churches. A religious-freedom argument could be made to sue for reinstatement of the memorial. I remember the time UCC and Unitarian churches sued for the right to perform gay marriages in a red state before it became legal nationwide.
The problem is that they already use this as scare to affect people who would otherwise be neutral that days, trans, atheists are after them.
The people who are responsible for this don't truly believe in God, they are using God to control other people.
They successfully painted trump as some kind of Christian savior, while he is embodiment of the 7 deadly sins and is much closer to be an antichrist.
I don't understand how people aren't killing each other out right to be honest.
But like, other people right? You wouldn't want to end up in jail yourself.
I would never advocate or incite for imminent lawless action. I would advocate for a change in public policy that included things currently held to be illegal.
As long as it makes a difference, the first amendment protects your right to advocate for changes to law and policy. You just can't tell people to right now go and break a specific law if you have reason to believe they might.
"People should shoot maga fascists dead in the street and hang them from lampposts" is protected because it's saying what society should do, not actively calling for people to go do this.
You got me, officer. I'm a coward who's all talk, I would never do anything I described.
If anyone created a high powered paint sprayer that could do it from the ground, I'm sure various people would use it to deface things. Not me obviously, but others would
Those already exist (they are basically just pressure washers). And plenty of protesters and activists DO use them.
Hell, a drone, a can of spray paint, a radio, and a servo can go a long way if you really want to.
Paint different crosswalks. How many crosswalks are in the city? I bet there are more than they have police to stand and watch them.
What's that meme that was going around? Cities have enough police for one ten thousand person protest but ten one thousand person protests would cripple them? Take it a step futher with the crosswalks
Paint the cameras ;)
As if any bike lanes will remain in this scenario.
Rainbow 🌈 bike lanes. Do you know the chalk holders used to make staves for music class? 🎼Also useful for graphs 📊📉 in math class and primary - school lines for penmanship. Make something similar that holds sidewalk chalk or paint and hang it off the back of a bike. Bonus for visibility of the bike lanes.
Why limit yourself to existing crosswalks? Male some new ones.
every intersection is by law a crosswalk unless labeled not for crossing. they're called marked and unmarked crosswalks.
So, rainbows at every intersection is what you're saying? I bet they'd have some difficulty policing that.
yesssssss
I think this is a particular one due to the Pulse massacre
You can symbolically erect memorials in other places, though, which is what OP is going for.
better to honor our lost at all than perfectly
Imagine being so insecure that you have to stop people from having a harmless shrine to a bunch of people killed in a mass murder.
Anyways, there's a lot of crosswalks and there's no way they can even long term focus on this crosswalk. Wait for them to leave, do it again.
You bring up a good point here. There are a lot of crosswalks. So what happens if people just start doing this at random crosswalks around the city?
Aha, a crime wave! Deploy the National Guard!
This would be funny if it was not true
Causing damage for political purposes - terrorists.
Death penalty.
Once they cover the city in guard to prevent gay crosswalks we just move to the next city
They just obama strike the place. The gays have taking over and can't be contained.
Obama?
Do the Andy Dufresne method of shaking colored paint/chalk out of your pant legs while you cross the street. They'll never see it coming.
I was thinking, what else can we rainbow up while they're all looking at crosswalks?
Postal boxes? Transformer boxes? Manhole covers? Park walking paths? Detention center fences? The houses of local homophobic politicians? Bike racks? Telephone poles?
Defacing postal boxes is destruction of federal property. Up to 3 years and $200k. Also, postal inspectors will absolutely dick you down and make local Florida cops look even way more dumberer.
Postal inspectors are kind of like game wardens. They are cops, but, they mostly get a pass and they do a lot of good.
Okay, so not those then!
...a mass shooting that took place LESS THAN A DECADE AGO
What an incredibly efficient use of taxpayer-funded police forces! Should report it to DOGE, they definitely need to cut funding for that
Yep.
We cant give medicine/healthcare that those that need it, cause its to expensive.
We cant give food to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
We can't provide shelter to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
but somehow, magically, when it comes to the police state and fascism.. Theres always an endless waterfall of money.
I guess when one is in a gold-plated conference room with oligarch friends and you collectively have a couple trillion dollars in assets to "protect," peeling away a few billion to pay some of the poors to shoot the other poors before they take your shit (or your head) seems like a pretty reasonable business expense.
When you look at them as the protectors of capital rather than the protectors of the people, it makes a lot more sense.
i mean, you dont even have to look at it that way.
cause it literally is that.
Police, since the begining, have existed to protect the property of the rich. Not the rights of the poor.
They've literally gone to the supreme court to fight against being held accountable to their own "protect and serve" bullshit.
The very first police officers were primarily slave catchers
Yep, the property of the rich.
There's no IRS, just stop paying taxes...
Only if they catch you
Florida has it own DOGE...
You never know when one of those cheeky crossings will turn gay on you.
I looked at the sky the other day after a bit of rain. Boom. Gay. Just like that. It could happen to any of us.
Damn, you caught the gay?
I'm so sorry bro. Want a BJ to cheer you up?
.... No homo.
There are over 70 confederate monuments in the state of Florida; none of which are yet painted in rainbow colors.
Pride and Prejudice.
I'll see myself out.
I looked at the map and was surprised to see 2 "confederate monuments" in the Bay Area in California. Turn out it's two buildings in Berkeley that have since been renamed. Whew!
Some confederate soldier statues in full drag kit and face would make quite a spectacle.
Quick! Paint somewhere else.
Paint everywhere else. Turn everything that's not guarded in to rainbows of defiance.
@BradleyUffner Well, I would suggest securing permission from private property owners. That's a very hard thing to kill legally. "You don't like how I paint my building? Get lost!"
now youre property tax assessment is in, turns out we under evaluated you before, heres your new shockingly high property tax.
Civilian chalk artists now need armed civilan escorts to protect them from police.
Police are going to shoot someone for putting chalk on the pavement to remember the victums of a mass shooting.
This is America.
Florida isn't open carry, and now that the fascists are in power, likely never will be.
I think it is as long as you say you're fishing.
Or hunting or camping. But that law isn't as weak as it sounds. For example, you can't even stop at the gas station on the way or you are in violation. There's no practical way to open carry unless your are directly involved in these activities.
I've just been to east Germany and saw in a museum the Incredible pettiness of the surveillance state.
They collected smell samples of supposed activists, and you could be labeled an activist for writing something sarcastic on a poster or newspaper. Also if you were labeled as such they could 'unofficially ' ruin your life (as in thwart your ambitions and goals.
So much money and effort was spent on policing the hearts and minds of the populace. And the frail religious conservatives who run America would probably love the idea.
I recommend chewable Tums for that.
Hah!
Well then lets hope the US Gov. also crumbles from the sheer amount of resources it takes to be that kind of a dick to its population. I mean they are on a fast track, spending billions they do not really have because of tax cuts to the rich.
Why do you think republicans are so keen on AI? The stasi had to rely on slow humans who might give a shit about accuracy. Republicans don't care if they arrest the wrong person. Particularly since they know that AI trained on a racist system is going to behave like a racist system.
I recently went to Germany too and there's such an uncomfortably large number of cops everywhere. Do you happen to have more info on what you talked about? Id love to read up on it and potentially want friends who live there.
I was in Leipzig, the museum I was mainly taking about was museum der runde ecke but this museum Was also very informative
Thank you!
Just this part alone is super fucked up.
Why do they have the resources to do this and not watch for cars almost hitting pedestrians at the same crosswalks.
simple, pedestrians aren't people
If they wanted to live, they should have gotten a car.
/s
And they could be black and or gay.
Russia: Rainbow Flag Illegal
USA: Rainbow Flag Illegal
So what's the difference anymore.
Russia has a capable (if thoroughly evil) leader?
It’s the same leader
Mmm, I'd say Ukraine makes that not the case. The capable part, not the evil part.
Maybe. I think Putin's main concern with Ukraine was preventing them from selling natural gas from the Donbas region to Western Europe and undercutting his main source of revenue, and he's achieved that even if he didn't successfully overrun the whole country.
That's almost certainly part of why, but he most definitely wasn't expecting to sink this much money, time, and personnel into the conquest. Continuing to do so is definitely not something a capable leader would do.
The US also has a very capable leader. As you can see with President Putin's implementation of his controversial policies in the US.
Oh you mentioned some orange old man hanging out in DC? Oh that's just the court jester.
Just wait em out? You're in a seige now, and hopefully the seiging army goes home. Then, you go out and make it a rainbow again.
Instead of defund the police, it’s now “run out the police budget”
Is it a crime to buy a vinyl decal for a car that says “rainbow painting” and drive around a city, occasionally stopping near crosswalks to check your phone? I don’t think so.
you'll never run out the police budget.
If you managed to even get close to it, government would step in and take more money from starving children and the ill, to keep their fascist oppressors on the streets.
We all literally just saw this happen.
ICE budget is multiplied by 10 because they "ran out of budget"
The decal should say "Gay Agenda Traffic Services."
Go and stand there with buckets of paint and a roller and wait them out. Even better if it's one can labeled "rainbow" paint.
Seems like a good use of their time. Police jobs are basically welfare for the mediocre low iq dipshits from high school.
Soon to be replaced with lower-paying ICE jobs for the schmos who don't even qualify to be cops. I personally wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out ICE is hiring undocumented immigrants, for the same reason everybody else does.
It pays way better than welfare.
Actual rainbow police.
Literal crossing guards.
Quick, someone send the Army.
Has anyone heard of Toynbee Tiles? These are interesting by themselves but the relevant point is how they are made.
You make a mosaic out of vinyl flooring chunks on a backing of paper and roofing tar as mastic.
You place them paper side up on asphalt pavement in hot weather. As cars drive over them, the paper and tar wear off revealing the vinyl mosaic.
Just a thought that a group of people could quickly make a rainbow crosswalk that can’t be painted over.
Toynbee Tiles
I've never seen one, but have read about them.
Really interesting from a guerilla art perspective. Also, the durability is innovative.
Yeah, it’s intriguing.
I have given it some thought and they could be made even more durable by using vinyl flooring adhesive to adhere the mosaic pieces to a backing of wire mesh.
The usual method uses only asphalt crack filler, which is still necessary, but it also requires one to assemble the design backwards. Adhering to metal mesh first would allow one to assemble it front the viewer’s perspective and reduce shifting of the pieces over time for more durability.
Not to mention that a basic CNC machine could cut the vinyl very precisely and in elaborate shapes. One could really take the quality and durability of the designs up a notch or two using the old noggin and modern Maker tools.
So now I am going to have to think of a place locally to do this….
Small squares as pixels would be time consuming, but would allow high detail even without a CNC.
Drag knife on a cricut wouldn't be strong enough for thick tile.Mill with a O-flute single flute plastic routing bit would be the way to go. 1/8" diameter, carbide, as fast the spindle will turn. Flute length as short as the tile thickness will allow. You'd want a few spares, you'll probably break a couple getting it tweaked. Start at .030 chip load, full width and depth, probably don't need a finish pass as the edge roughness will increase adhesion and won't be visible. Don't use coolant, don't breathe the dust, wear a P99 or P100 respirator, shop vac with HEPA for cleanup. Some tile may have abrasive fiber in it and will shorten tool life.
For fixturing, I think I'd use strap clamps and bars around edges. Use tabs between pieces almost like a stencil, lot of CAM software has a setting for auto tabs on profile cuts, cut from center to edges. Vacuum tables can be real temperamental, slow way down and still tab if trying to hold with vacuum. Double sided carpet tape can do it but has to be removed with acetone and IDK if that would effect the tile.
Just spitballing, I'd be afraid metal mesh might cause de-adherence over time, especially if it corordes. I really like the mesh idea. Loose cotton fabric like cheese cloth or maybe a little tougher would absorb the tar and might make it even stronger, just have to pour at a high enough temp. Fiberglass sheet might also work.
Yes, regarding the mesh. I was wondering if a flexible mesh might be better. Toynbee tiles seem to become illegible mostly because individual pieces shift over time and make them look more of a jumble, this becomes more pronounced as the individual pieces become smaller. I was thinking more fiberglass, too, but even burlap would be fine probably.
A good flexible adhesive on the back of the pieces then pressed firmly into the fiberglass/cloth and weighted until set up.
One thing to consider is that the asphalt crack filler needs to be pressed into and around the pieces, serving a role similar to grout in tile. So the order of operations would be important. That’s more of an assembly issue, I guess.
There are numerous open source tile mosaic softwares out there that will generate the tiling, including the needed gaps for ‘grout’.
And Armstrong Flooring makes VCT in a huge array of colors. A source for vinyl tile of specific colors
Super fun, I am going to talk with my local folks and find a good location for a small test of these ideas. Such fun, thanks for engaging
Let us know how it goes!
Bully the policists and paint other crosswalks.
I was expecting the onion... Wtf
It has to be hard to be an onion writer right now. How can you come up with a story more absurd than our current reality?
I've said for a while they should lean into it more. Embrace the absurdity and turn it on its head.
Something like "Trump correctly identifies all members of his cabinet during meeting" or "Trump to open H1B visas for ICE positions as recruitment dwindles".
The second one is pure genius.
Cause you know, that will stop all the horrible crime the GOP is talking about... You know how dangerous crosswalks are!
Fascists using government sponsored violence to protect their desecration of a memorial for a major mass shooting because they side with the shooter
Such are Republicans
Paint police instead? /silly
I know what you meant, but arguably this does make them the Paint Police.
You only need one color of paint (yellow, in case anyone wonders).
Speaking as a foreigner, this shit is so profoundly pathetic, United States. Get your fucking shit together. Not only should you all be well past shitting all over the queer community, but dispatching cops to guard crosswalks in any capacity other than ensuring school kids using them safely after school should embarrass everyone on both sides of the aisle.
Edit: *safely
sigh
Believe me a lot of us are fully aware of how stupid this shit is. A lot of us are fully accepting of the LGBT community and welcome them with open arms. It's incredibly exhausting watching floroda (and all other deep red states and the fed) doing stupid shit like this because the theater of doing it wins them brownie points with their voters.
I do not envy you that situation, it's what all the cool kids are calling "sub optimal".
On Lemmy 99% would agree with. In a random place in America probably like 80% would agree with you.
Your election results suggest otherwise.
Thanks for this very helpful and nuanced opinion
Not by a long shot, no.
Sorry. Our nation is a trash pile full of racists, religious sycophants, and the extremely ignorant.
It's only going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
I didn't like Florida that much when I lived there in the 80s and 90s. It sounds like it's gotten worse.
Good use of tax money. They should also help usher kids to factories while at it.
Last guy, we're gonna keep coming back. 👍
Id ask what's stopping people from standing in the vicinity with a big box of chalk but thats probably a great way to get chalk made illegal.
I mean... They outlawed unmarried women from parachuting on Sundays, and fishing while driving across bridges....
Why not chalk too?
Hold the cops down and paint them then
Where are the straights supposed to cross 😡
/s
It's not a straightwalk, it's a crosswalk.
👗
In my town, they said the rainbow colors are not the state description of crosswalks, might actually, effectively, erase the legal crosswalk, are confusing to drivers, and would increase pedestrian deaths. There's always some bullshit rationalization for being the worst possible person.
Marking the first time they probably have ever given a shit about a pedestrian death
Goddammit, I thought this was going to be an Onion type article. It wasn't.
We already live in clown world. We are beyond parody.
What a fucking great use of taxpayer money... NOT!
i understand this crosswalk has meaning, but until it is unguarded, let all unguarded crosswalks be rainbows! : D
be safe out there <3
Paint the Police cars!
Paint all the crosswalks.
These would be state police, wouldn't they? They shouldn't have jurisdiction on city streets. Time for that mayor to grow a spine and use local cops to chase them and the toadies who keep painting it black off.
Thats stupid
Lgbt are framed and put into jail in Florida
These comments are wild smh
This ends when we ban orginized religion
No. If Stalin's Soviet era showed us anything, it's that the dogma of religion can be replaced with the dogma of state. Getting rid of organized religion just kicks the can down the road. Education is paramount.
Pretending like the Soviet Union wasn't mostly Christian is some real Revisionist history.
Religon fights education in the modern world.
While I'm 110% supportive of LGBT+, I don't think people painting crosswalks anyway they like is OK. They are safety features, recognizable from a distance, and it's not far fetched to think that casualties may occur. Painting official building's walls could be an alternative, for example. Both are technically vandalism, but these walls would not be a hazard.
Vertical faces of entrance steps? that'd be cool!
Have you never actually seen a crosswalk before? Because I'm having trouble figuring out which part of these rainbow flag colored crosswalks makes them look any less like a crosswalk or makes them less visible or recognizable in any way. Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk. Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I've heard this week.
I dont understand why you all are getting on this persons case. They brought up a pretty reasonable point, traffic markings are better when they are standardized. There are avenues where having a memorial doesnt detract from that standardization. They gave reasonable alternatives in addition. They arent sitting here praising the motivations behind the enforcement yet you all are acting like thats the commenters motivation.
So because people already have issues with standardization we should allow less of it? This doesnt improve the argument you are trying to make. Stop being reactionary because of the subject matter here and take a step back first.
Its honestly pretty sane in this context when you step back instead of getting reactionary. Is the paint being used reflective? Is it causing the crosswalks to be less reflective in low light conditions? Its not like all the painting being done is standardized. Not all places in the world have cross walks painted out and in night conditions where we constantly have headlights blinding people and some that arent bright enough to compensate for those differences those painted crosswalks could have an impact on safety if the decrease visibility of them in low light conditions.
In the case of the original crosswalk memorial that got defaced by the fascists I am assuming there was reflective paint used, so if people are using something with the same reflective properties as regular road paint I dont see an issue at all with a colorful crosswalk. But when you have people without that style of paint covering up crosswalks it can become a safety issue in night conditions and you arent going to see stats/studies for this as there is not enough sample data to even make that case. Not every rule or standard needs to be written in blood sometimes we can use common sense before allowing people to get injured enough to make a study and dataset to back a point.
Having a memorial that is off the road one would be more visible and also take away the hiding of motivation when the fascists try to deface it by acting like its just a safety thing. Which they recommended, paint walls, the faces of steps etc.
Like I get this is a sore topic due to the state of shit right now but we need to stop fighting with those who are trying to be helpful or offer other valid viewpoints. If we want to fight back against the rising fascism around the world we need more unity which comes from being open to dialog not just being reactionary. All being reactionary is going to do is push people away and make us more fractured and disorganized.
Don't bother, this place is becoming Reddit 2.0
You could have stopped at dumbest. I believe I'm making a civil and reasonable comment.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors. For example, my mother, in her 80's is a surprisingly safe driver for her age, but her visual acuity is just not the same as before, and at night she may have trouble with a rainbow.
The crosswalk being painted to commemorate the Pulse tragedy is common knowledge and is described in the article body.
A rainbow is nonstandard but so was the murder that occurred in this community, which is why it's remembered this way. Anyone driving past this building, including your aged mother, should know about it for the reasons described above. And if she regularly struggles to see anything other than black and white, it may be time for her to retake her drivers' test.
Thanks for being civil.
What is non-standard here? Homophobia has been a constant through much of history. It's beyond disgusting and horrifying, but it's been there for ages.
If you read my post you may notice that I'm not against memorializing, or pro-police or town hall, and that I favor these actions, but where they are not a safety concern. Oh, and this isn't about my mother, but about the millions of drivers who may not have 100% vision, which is most of us.
Have you ever asked yourself why the vast majority of road markings worldwide are white on black, or yellow on black? Fancy? Fashion? whim?
Also, I 'd like to invite you to google "high contrast safety"
k
the person speaking doesn't get to decide how their tone is perceived. repeating "civil and reasonable" in the face of people who say you're acting oppositely in some way is unlikely to change their opinion. even if it did, there is no way to phrase "painting a rainbow onto a sidewalk makes it less visible" in such a way that your tone makes up for the fact that the claim is absurd on its face. doubly so when you're not providing traffic data to support the claim. also, 'reasonable' suggests you subscribe to some reasoning, but the 'reasoning' provided is "it’s not far fetched to think that casualties may occur." okay well, color me skeptical. why do you believe that. i'll give you civil for whatever you think that's worth on its own though.
Have you read the comment? My reply does not allude to content, but to the insult. Part of my job is ergonomics. I'm stating a fact. That there has not been a casualty yet, does not invalidate my point.
you aren't stating a fact, you're speculating that colorful chalk on the crosswalk could contribute to an accident in some unspecified way. I've asked for what data could support your opinion (by way of observing its absence) and- you'll correct me if i'm wrong here- you've just agreed that in almost the decade since the pulse shooting there have been exactly no incidents that can be traced back to this potentially dangerous political statement that you 100% agree with. do i have this about right?
I assume the original memorial crosswalk had reflective paint used on its markings, if people are just using chalk or regular paint now it would end up reducing the reflective properties of crosswalks which would effect low light visibility. Im not sure if people have been doing this for other crosswalks but if that is the case the person you are responding to does actually have a bit of a point, we are better off just painting walls, steps, or making signs as they originally suggested, considering the state isnt just going to accept and standardize rainbow crosswalks under this administration. That also removes the hiding of motivation for the police from this being a safety act to being purely bigoted which is important. Don't allow the fascists some reasonable cover to do what they do, force them to do it with their motivation on clear display.
The possibility that a random person would go to the lengths of adding micro-beads, or go to the trouble of procuring reflective pavement paint of the colors used seems a bit far-fetched to me. Could be, but unlikely in my view.
the crosswalk was painted at some point with highly the reflective white paint commonly found on american roads in the expected pattern for a crosswalk, but the paint has not been maintained for some time. it is dirty and not a very good reflector, even in places where chalk and standard-issue road grime has been washed off. I base this analysis exclusively on the image of the chalkwalk in the OP article. when you go back to review that image in the article, please observe the flooding overhead light directly illuminating the entire crosswalk. I would be willing to grant that, in the event of a power outage or service interruption on that light, the chalk would probably not be significantly more effective at catching a car's headlights than plain asphalt- or cracked, broken, flaking, dirty, generally neglected 'reflective' paint.
and yes you're absolutely right. there are plenty other crosswalks and walls for that matter in florida. They want that particular crosswalk to not be flamboyantly homosexual? well. there's more of us than there are of them, put it that way.
edit: and in looking up the government's line on this: ron desantis is plainly displeased with the fact that public property is being used for political speech. stop carrying the fascist's water for them. this argument is not made in good faith by the people actually carrying out the erasure.
https://x.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1958583393714667572
The article says "Paint", a whole different ball game from chalk. Visibility aside, I'm a motorcyclist, and I can assure you that slick paint on the road is deadly. Pointing out that there hasn't been an accident yet, and declaring it safe is a textbook example of logical fallacy.
Want data? Ask google for "high contrast safety". Here is a result, in case your google-fu is not up to date
it's hard to be up-to-date with google fu these days. I tried looking for traffic data on that intersection (eg pulse nightclub traffic safety before:2025-01-01) only to find it either doesn't exist as such or is so obscure to me that it might as well not exist. visibility on the road is a very different thing than slickness i hadn't considered, granted full stop.
I still need to be convinced that whatever paint it is they're using is actually causing the road to be slick before i retract or make any edits to previous statements, but that's definitely a more serious point in my opinion and thanks for specifying. like i could see latex as an issue but i wouldn't agree spray paint is an issue. and then the problem would be how should we both allow these people to memorialize a tragedy in such a way as to safely allow for the passage of traffic, not unilateral denial of a precedented memorial on grounds that can not at this time be shown to be supported by evidence, whatever you may say about the fallacious nature of my skepticism.
and not for nothing, but i just actually checked and, only the headline could have its ambiguity be interpreted to suggest the memorialists were 'painting.' at least according to this article, the floridian state are the ones using paint and the pulse memorialists are using chalk, and despite the OP's headline referring to "repeainting," the images of the crosswalk show it 'painted' with chalk within that article, so actually, are you sure you didn't just read the headline and come to a 'reasonable' conclusion and 'civilly' express your '100%' support for the cause while actually thoughtlessly supporting the erasure of a tragedy's memorial for some reason?
then, from your source:
are you honestly suggesting a colorful pattern instead of black would tend to reduce visibility? this is the part i was saying is absurd on its face earlier. and i'm sure you'll forgive me as i return the accusation of "did you even read this?" i was not going to slap you with this earlier because it's such an obvious retort as to be insulting, but, how are you not constantly struggling with visibility on the road with all the different colors of car?
I'd like to hear what florida state law or traffic data or the people actually using the crosswalk have to say about the matter, not this unrecognizable messageworks public interest group on the first page of a "traffic visibility" google-fu session, or some ergonomical motorcyclist who i frankly suspect will never come across this intersection in their life.
I have probably not explained myself well enough, or maybe you have not read, or understood correctly.
Here you clearly have a problem with reading comprehension.
Stating that something is safe because another event hasn't happened yet, is a logical fallacy. It's like stating that smoking isn't harmful because your grampa smoked until his 80's and didn't die of cancer.
no, you have this backwards and i'm not taking time out of my day to explain how to you.
It sounds like you made a point without thinking a whole lot about it, and now you're just doubling down instead of just saying "yeah you're right, my bad."
I made a thoroughly well though out point, and I'm replying with what I consider reasonable effort and arguments, which are countered with insults. Please re-read the thread.
If you bothered to look at the way these are painted you would know this isn't a problem.
As someone who deals with ergonomics as part of his job I KNOW there is a problem.
As someone who deals with UX and the psychology of recognizing and distinguishing things, I can tell you that you know jack shit about the situation here, and working in a field close to ergonomics is evidently not the expertise you think it is.
I did not say I work in a field close to ergonomics, I said that my work INVOLVES ergonomics. Also, pretending that someone who "deals with UX" has any serious knowledge of ergonomics, is like a chiropractic saying they are an actual medical doctor, or that a software "engineer" is anything near a real engineer.
The problem we're talking about is a UX one. The ability to quickly distinguish a visual sign / interface.
And I'm both an actual electrical engineer and a software engineer, I understand the distinctions between the two very well.
But do please cite your ergonomic data showing that rainbow crosswalks are hard to see, or you can admit that you're just baselessly pearl clutching.
Yet you have not been able to back up that supposed knowledge with ANYTHING
One of the first results from googling "high contrast safety".
There are a bajillion more, and many actual research publications. You really could benefit from reading.
It looks like reading AND comprehending isn't really your thing, bless your heart.
You come across as a “well ackchyually” dipshit. You might think you are making a point, but think this one through, is it a good one in this context? Is it even a good one at all?
I think you may have anger issues. If that is the case (I'm not trained to diagnose) you may want to explore professional attention.
I rest my case.
It's funny how they're only replying to comments with a somewhat "aggressive" tone, to complain about the tone while ignoring the actual point.
Which is? Please people, read.
I'm replying to many posts. The aggressive ones pretty much disqualify themselves. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" is very applicable here. People don't seem to read.
Objectively?
Based on what?
Based on you thinking that a specific series of white lines on a black background amongst a large series of white lines on a blackground is more distinct than a completely different rainbow pattern?
You spend much time working in UX, psychology, or vision analysis?
Why is your mom, at 80, driving around the part of town where there are nightclubs, alone, at night..?
I dunno? Freedom?
Aren't we a wee opinionated and with fascist tendencies? Surprising how you defend some groups freedom but deny others.
You do actually know why they're doing this, right? Because there was already a rainbow crosswalk to commemorate the Pulse Nightclub victims. It's so weird that there were no casualties in that one! The fascists painted it over because they're homophobic knuckleheads, and so now protesters are painting it and others back. You know, it takes zero effort not to be a pedantic but also ignorant ass just for the sake of it.
I could go on a flame war over "it takes zero effort not to be a pedantic but also ignorant ass just for the sake of it." as an answer to a civilized, reasoned comment, but I don't want this place to be Reddit. Insults really detract from your argument.
Please do tell us how rainbow is less visible than white lines that blend into all the other white lines.
Please do cite any stats you have that show increased accident rates during pride month or in cities with rainbow cross walks.
Nice try. Now back to the topic at hand...
I'm sure they are very concerned about savety and that's why they need to repaint them
Safety
Have I said that? I do despise the the motivation, but that does not detract from the cold facts.
Which are...? Surely you're able to innumerate them with actual real life evidence
I think you may have wanted to write "enumerate".
And no, I'm not going to give you a private lecture on high contrast visibility. Do your research. You may start with why ALL operating systems go to the trouble of having a high contrast mode. (Hint: it's not for looks)
Oh fuck... Well I guess I'm toast.