Getting “Woke” with the Word On The Street(s)

The powerful use of words and images is playing an important role in directing the events that lead us forward, or backward. It is right for us to be alerted to fake news, although the recent bashing of news sources has more to do with de-legitimizing and seizing power than any sincere interest in truth.

Visual Resistance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

If anyone uses words and images to create fake news it would be PR companies and the related industries who have been creating entire campaigns and planting them in newspapers and in electronic media and Reddit and Facebook comments for years now. Posing as everyday folk or genuinely respectable “think tanks”, they tear down people, sowing fear, confusion, and disinformation. Their persuasive words are often effective.

The Chief Strategist for the President is reportedly telling the press to stop all their words all together , and Mitch McConnell basically just told Elizabeth Warren to sit down and shut up, so powerful are words.

We can divine a lot about a person by listening to the words, as well the ones they leave out. We always say that the street is a reflection of society back to itself and today we share with you these text-based messages that give you an idea of what people are talking about.

Street Art ™ (photo © Jaime Rojo)


“Were you thinking that those were the words—
those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?

No, those are not the words—the substantial words
are in the ground and sea,

They are in the air—they are in you.”

~The Sayer of Words, Walt Whitman

Political, social, straightforward, evasive, confrontational, poetic, strident, aspirational, inspirational, inclusive, loving, hateful, witty, simple, confusing; The average passerby regards, absorbs or dismisses the sentiment, feeling that their opinion is re-affirmed or neglected. Possibly they consider a perspective that is brand new.

Because of the anonymity and the lack of context, sometimes a well-placed missive appears as a message from the Universe, or from God, or another kindred soul.

As ever, beware the provocateur.

Chor Boogie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Word To Mother (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vudo Child (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanakapan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indecline (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Able (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Amberellaxo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Baron Von Fancy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Trek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Queen Andrea (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Morse (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jeff Gress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blunt. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Megzany (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)


 


This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

 

238
138
45