EXCERPT
Intelligencer
NOV. 20, 2023
The Posters and Me
Watching the angry, silent, futile proxy war.
By Mark Harris
I saw someone ripping down one of those KIDNAPPED posters the other day. I live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of those posters. I have no idea whether the person ripping them down is Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian, or none of the above. Honestly, their vibe was none of the above; their vibe was “college.” Their expression was blank and even and stony, the face people put on when someone asks them for money on the street and they are not going to make eye contact or break stride but they still want to manifest the plausible deniability of cruel intention that adds up to a performance of civility. This person was on a mission; part of the mission was that they were not going to engage about the mission. I wondered what the mission was. I don’t know. I flinched when I saw the tearing-down. It felt aggressive, though I am as sure as I am sure of anything that this person did not think of themselves as aggressive and would have taken offense at the word. The next day, the posters were back up, now entirely covered in clear tape; if someone wanted to get rid of them, they would have to use a box cutter.
Soon after that, they were box-cuttered down.
Soon after that, they were up again in new places.