Whitey

"Don't Trust Whitey" T-shirt design by James Kochalka

The Michelle Obama "whitey" canard has got me remembering. When I lived in Seattle, I was really into old-school wild-style graffiti. The kind with the big, balloony, semi-abstract letters, created with multi-colored spray paint. Near where I lived, there was a slice carved out of a hill along the road which was covered with a large flat vertical expanse of concrete. Pristine white concrete. Perfect for a graffiti masterpiece. But doing anything illegal there would be impossible--this was a busy road through a fairly well-to-do suburban neighborhood.

Anyway, I was telling a friend that I wanted to do a big graffiti piece there, and had even thought about approaching King County for legal permission to do so. She said, "That sounds like a great idea. But you'd have to have some message that King County would approve of. So what would the message be?"

I thought for a second.

"Get Whitey!"