Dog whistles galore.
One of the most comedically satisfying troupes in our shared space is, undoubtedly, the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing. Founded in the middle 2010s, the organization set out championing equal pay, equal access and other noble ideals by, and here’s the joke, attacking women. The Andy Kaufman-esque routine, aiming for a complex laugh, has skewered Keala Kennelly, Bethany Hamilton and Jess Miley-Dyer, among others.
Now, in a development of further waggish material, the non-profit is setting its sights on a longboard shaper who used a rainbow motif on one of his craft. Todd Messick, whom the gang humorously described as “an anti-LGBTQI bigot,” had shared an image to Instagram, obviously opening the door for jokes and giggles.
The question, I suppose, does the rainbow actually belong to the LGBTQI brand or is it, rather, the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples’ who are the original inhabitants of what is now the San Francisco Peninsula. “As Guests,” Surf Equity pens on its chuckle-a-minute website, “we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples.”
The capital G for “Guest” and lowercases for “first” and “peoples” a likely racist dog whistle taking attention from the otherwise lighthearted fare.
In any case, whose rainbow is it?
Todd’s, Surf Equity’s or the Ramaytush Oholone?
More as the story develops.