For Los Angeles’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, the protests have gotten extremely personal. After he imposed a citywide curfew, entertaining signs began to target the mayor himself. On June 2, hundreds of protestors staged a sit-in outside of Garcetti’s house in tony Hancock Park. One of his neighbors even joined the protest for a while, later telling a Fox affiliate that he supported the movement and wanted to listen. Three days later, Garcetti announced his intention to cut $250 million from the budget of the L.A. Police Department.
Across the country, others are engaging in a particularly mayor-like response to the situation. On Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser changed the name of a segment of 16th Street in front of the White House to “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” The street, where the Trump administration used tear gas to clear protestors last Monday, was also painted with bright yellow letters announcing the same. Along with a potential invocation of the Third Amendment, it was Bowser’s slightly playful attempt to thumb her nose at the federal government. But you’ll be forgiven for noticing that she had much less joie de vivre in the photos she took that day with Representative John Lewis than she did at the parade honoring the Washington Nationals for their World Series win last November.
On Tuesday, De Blasio drew a new round of disdain for his attempt to piggyback on Bowser’s gesture. At a press conference, he announced his intention to name a street “Black Lives Matter” in every borough. (That’s approximately one street for every $1.2 billion in NYPD funding, cartoonist Matt Lubchansky pointed out on Twitter.)
Last week, as De Blasio’s continued denial of police brutality and the failure of the curfew he imposed was roiling the city, one person found a clever way to express their disappointment. Newsday’s Mark Chiusano posted a meme to his account, reportedly sent to him by a former employee of the mayor:
It might just be the way we get through this unprecedented moment in American cities. Maybe hating the mayors is what can bring us all together.
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