Animal costumes are the new black.
Exceedingly aware that the black garb worn by demonstrators in 2020 informed President Trump’s apocalyptic view of Portland, Ore., protesters this year have gone to the frogs — and unicorns, raccoons, sharks, bears, dinosaurs and the hot animal of this particular pop culture moment, a capybara.
“It was just to contrast the narrative that we are violent extremists,” said Seth Todd, 24, whose appearance at Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility early in the summer as a bulbous green frog started the trend. “The best way to show that for me is being in a frog costume.”
Portland has long been a little bit different in how residents protest. Outside the ICE building, demonstrators against the Trump administration’s immigration policies have blown bubbles at ICE agents, formed a flash mob to dance the “Cha-Cha Slide,” held formal afternoon tea services and gone “ICE fishing” — tying doughnuts to poles and pretending to lure federal officers with the pastries. Cyclists are planning a special edition of Portland’s famed “naked bike ride” past the ICE facility on Sunday.
“Portland has a long heritage of ‘keep Portland weird,’” Steven Schroedl, 60, a retiree whose inflatable costume made it look as if he were riding an ostrich, said on Friday. “It’s something we didn’t necessarily cultivate. It’s just fundamentally who we are.”
But the arrival and proliferation of inflatable costumes at the ICE facility in South Portland has taken the city’s penchant for irreverence to new, surreal heights and eased some of the tension, at least as both sides wait for a court to decide whether President Trump can bring in the National Guard.
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The post Among Portland Protests, It’s Frogs and Sharks and Bears, Oh My. appeared first on New York Times.
