A Caltrans sign along State Route 128 between Cloverdale and Anderson Valley was reprogrammed Saturday night, July 13, 2024, to display a message reading “NIGGERS AREN’T WELCOME,” targeting Black people with incendiary racial slurs.
Caltrans District 1 spokesman Manny Machado said the vandalized message board, located near the Sonoma County line, was swiftly addressed. “On Saturday night, Caltrans responded to a message board vandalized with hateful language along Route 128 in Mendocino County. Staff immediately removed the message. The message board is operated by a contractor for an emergency culvert project in the area. The incident is under investigation,” Machado said.
Troyle Tagnoli, a community activist and prominent member of Mendocino County’s chapter of Black Lives Matter, condemned the act. “Some people are simply jaded and non-believers in the power of African Americans. So they sneak in the cloak of night and do things such as this sign. But never once do they step forward to engage in conversation. Because conversation is not what they want, what they want to do is to incite others, but the bleeding has stopped.”
Tagnoli further emphasized the impact and resilience of the African American community. “This is cowardly fear and stupidity. The struggle is real. I believe we are collapsing to resurface just like others all over this country. African American contributions to the built landscapes can be found in every aspect of the nation as they construct and design some of the most iconic examples of architectural heritage in the country.”
The sign’s message harkens back to the historical phenomenon referred to as “sundown towns.” Between 1890 and 1968, thousands of municipalities in the United States drove out Black residents or forbade them from living there.
According to research conducted by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, there were 111 known sundown towns in California, none of which were located in Mendocino County.
Instructions for reprogramming electronic road signs are easily accessed online, but those caught in the act could face criminal charges of felony vandalism.
This incident is not the first time a local Caltrans sign has been hacked. In October 2023, a Caltrans sign near Redwood Valley was reprogrammed to read “Fat cock.”
IGNORANCE & HATE ISN’T WELCOME!! So offensive & small minded. One can only assume this was done by an irrational, uneducated, sad, angry, simple brain, moron! Not to mention a coward. And how are these signs so easily hacked? It could be potentially dangerous, or life threatening even, if a nefarious actor puts false directives on those things! Better security measures, please!
It was probably a kid
They have a built-in keyboard that lets you program the sign. Sometimes construction crews don’t lock the cabinet that covers the controls. Also most of the signs have the same username and password because they tend to run on the same K&K system.
You would think they’d change the password at least.
Has a perpetrator been caught? No? Then let’s not jump to conclusions. For all we know it could have been a black lives matter activist that programmed the message in order to further an agenda. Without this isolated incident mr tagnoli certainly wouldn’t have much to talk about in Mendocino County.
??yeah, because a rural mendocino county road is the place you want to ignite a race war or some political movement with a false flag. Less Q’non, more reality!
You are right. Rural Mendocino is a weird place to host a racial political movement. Now that you mention it it is kind of odd that there is a black lives matter chapter here. What do they do all day? Must be real tough fighting racism in a county that has near zero racism.
Mendo like much of rural America has plenty of racism. This doesn’t surprise me for Mendo.
Care to point out any contemporary examples? Or are you just making stuff up?
This article is a contemporary example, are you that stupid?
We don’t know who programmed the sign, so you can’t really call it racism. Sorry to burst your prejudice bubble. Let’s wait for the facts before we start placing blame and calling people stupid…
You need to read the messages on Mendo Fever more often. Mendocino County is full of ignorance and hate. Mostly stupidity.
This isn’t the first time someone has corrupted one of these Caltran signs in Mendocino. Look up… “Hacker Body Shames Overweight Roosters Using Caltrans Sign Near Redwood Valley” into the search engine. Oct 2023 Any bets it’s the same twat?
This article is literally about racism in Mendocino county, which tells me everything I need to know about your flawed ability to recognize racism when you see it.
Are you just as outraged when you hear or see that word in mainstream media? Sounds like you don’t really want to solve racism. You just want to cry victim when it’s convenient for you. Snoop dogg, dr Dre, and the like can rap about killin’ N-words. They got rich that way.
Anyway, you don’t know who programmed the sign, so you can’t call it racism. An agenda-driven blm activist could just as easily be responsible as anyone else at this point. So let’s wait for the facts instead of being prejudiced? Ok?
And what’s the reality? Probably some dumb kids thinking they are funny….ornit does make sense it could be a fake race bait to gain attention for our local BLM chapter. Remember bubba Wallace and his “noose”? If you don’t know, look it up…or how about jussey smollet and his fake maga attack. He had all of Hollywood crying for him. It was the main feature in kamala Harris’ campaign..
Your attempted attribution of the noose found in the Talladega Nascar garage to Bubba is absolutely false.
Bubba didn’t find it.
A member of his team found it early morning, pre-race.
Bubba was first informed of it by the President of Nascar, post-race.
Nascar management chose to investigate internally AND called the FBI…NOT Bubba.
The FBI determined there was no hate crime AND that the noose had been present in that specific garage stall since the Cup race in mid-Oct 2019 when those newly constructed garages were first.opened and used.
Bubba’s team did not have access to that garage stall in Oct 2019.
29 tracks, 1684 garage stalls, 11 pull ropes with knots, 1 noose.
Jussie Smollet clearly planned and executed a hoax hate crime.
He paid friends to act as his attackers.
Went so far as to self-injure and seek medical attention.
He was rightfully convicted of 5 counts of disorderly conduct and pled out on the felony charge of “filing a false police report”.
Jussie is a fraud.
Attempting to equate Bubba Wallace with Jussie Smollet, even slightly, is somewhere between plain ignorance and intentionally disingenuous.
If you know better (and you should), it’s basically a form of slander and defamation.
Put your bias in check, sir.
The media sure was eager to paint the bubba “noose” incident as a hate crime. I don’t recall as much zeal in their campaign to correct the error after the fbi investigation turned up no wrongdoing. In this case you can’t accuse people of slander, defamation, or bias and keep a straight face. Either way AB’s point still stands on jussie smollett alone, so the bubba thing is kind of irrelevant.
Just because you didn’t see the media reports is not necessarily a reflection on the media.
If you search for it, you can easily see that the usual suspects had timely reports about the noose.
Do you come back on the comment board here to correct your own misguided speculations when the proof finally surfaces?
I have no problem keeping a straight face and stand by the accuracy of my statement.
Ab chose to attack Bubba’s character by attempting to put Bubba Wallace in the same camp as Smollet and race baiters without a single ounce of supporting evidence.
That’s on Ab. Not me.
Ab quite commonly shares rhetoric, rumor, and opinion as if fact.
Again, that choice is his.
Bubba has faced down years of mistreatment and less than coded language from several drivers, a few opposing race teams, and some of the nascar audience with his dignity intact by not stooping to their depths and lack of character.
For all we know?, evidently there are are some of you that don’t know much Lynda Stratton. For example if you were black and driving to the coast for some vacation time withy your family and came around a turn in the road and saw this sign how would you feel? Yeah, you don’t know if your not black!!!
I don’t see any problem with Lynda’s comment. What’s wrong with reserving judgement until we have more facts?
Are YOU black? How do you know how anyone would feel?
If this is the source of so much “outrage” then why is it acceptable for black people to casually throw around the N-word in both media and daily life? While blacks claim a monopoly on the N-word, many of them see no problem openly using derogatory slurs against whites, Hispanics, and Asians. I’ve never used the N-word, but I sure as hell have been called honky, cracker, and worse by certain people with malicious intent. I’ve never seen a black person called out in public when they freely use words w*tback or ch*nk. This glaring double standard must be addressed if we want any hope of stamping out racism.
Be cautious with your reply so you don’t sound, you know, racist.
Evidently I have been labeled as such since all of my comments have been deleted.
First of all there was nothing racist about anything that I wrote.
Furthermore if MENDOFEVER wants to exercise their right to censorship start with the discusting and offensive cover photo and delete the first paragraph of the article where the N-WORD is displayed in capital letters.
I think it was some kind of unfortunate glitch, because quite a few relatively benign comments disappeared.
If that’s the case then my bad and fair enough.
Certainly not the first time that I have made a mistake.
Overthinking and overreacting are just a couple of my many shortcomings.
Initially I had the same reaction as you. I appreciate your thoughtful responses.
The best we can do is admit our mistakes and seek truth.
Wow, someone with common sense, thank you
exactly, that’s what they do, try to create a problem where there is none, don’t be fooled by this
How do you know they were talking about “black people?”
Isn’t that assumption just driving home that “niggers” are black people. As I see it, they come in all colors.
https://youtu.be/Ui6HNB-1J20?si=Pf9QEbS1hsSr_DDN
Ab don’t be ridiculous, you know what the N-word implies! Are you stupid and a bigot?
The people who supposedly hate that word the most have reclaimed it and use it as a term if endearment. Have you ever heard rap music?
Seems to me a lot of the comments people posted have randomly disappeared. Strange.
This county is so f…ed up. You have supervisors stealing county funds, sheriffs doing stop and steals in the cannabis industry, a water shortage while trying to remove dams and this is what all the retards in this county are “outraged” about???
Omg these comments defending this are outta control.
This county is so ho dunk
No one’s defending it, it’s just a stupid prank and people need to grow up. No one is sending out the lynch mob. The article is unnecessary and just fanning flames
Matt LeFever, why is your site so glitchy? The comment section seems to alternate between different formats. This apparently leads to comments being randomly disappeared into the ether. Makes it difficult to have a meaningful discussion here. Also the website layout itself appears under different formats seemingly at random. Why?
Over a dozen comments have been randomly disappeared over the past 12 hours or so with no explanation.
In light of these website glitches I am wondering if mendofever donors or commenters should be concerned about their personal information being hacked and exposed to nefarious interests? I am hopeful Matt will remedy or at least attempt to explain this mystery! Thanks for all you do Matt!
Most of the population does NOT support this. This makes me sad.
it is a mistake to say there is no discrimination here. It is here in many forms, not just against Blacks but other races and religions. I don’t like to judge but we should get that straight. Trump has made racism more acceptable in this country and Mendo is no exception. But racism has been here at least 45 years, the length of time I have lived here. If you count Mendo’s truly tragic history with Native Americans you can go back hundreds of years, counting the Spanish/Mexican culture that has been here since the 1700’s.
You don’t have any evidence to back up your claim. You have to reach way back into history, more than 50 years, to find any clear cut examples of “racism” here. So there is no significant racism in Mendocino county anymore, despite what the agenda-driven activists would have us believe. These people would rather create fake boogeymen and pursue thought-crimes than address important issues.
“So there is no significant racism in Mendocino County anymore” What is your definition of “Significant racism” just to add some clarity to your statement. Funny how white people dismiss shit like the sign being hacked with a racist epitaph as some “Kids prank”. As for creating fake boogeymen that’s always been the expertise of the Racists! I read too many comments in the mendofever that are racist to say there is no significant racism in mendo county. Mr. Peckerman.
Sounds like you have some prejudice against white people. How do you know the race of any of the commenters here? You still haven’t answered whether or not you’re black. Im curious because previously you said other races can’t understand blacks’ feelings, but then you speculated on black sentiment.
Significant racism would be things like violent hate crimes, race riots, local KKK meetings, race-based employer discrimination. I’m asking you to provide some evidence of those things. Maybe a link to a newspaper article, at least. I already know that you can’t find anything.
You don’t know the race of the person who programmed the sign, and you can’t use anonymous internet comments as evidence of racism in Mendocino. The comments could come from anywhere, and the internet isn’t Mendocino. Maybe you should think this through before you start ranting again. There is no significant racism in Mendocino County. Hasn’t been for over 50 years.
“There is no significant racism in Mendocino County. Hasn’t been for over 50 years.” Only a racist would make a claim like that.
Get out of here with your gaslighting ad hominem bullshit. You’ve clearly got nothing to say.
Todd you have misinterpreted my comment. I referred to prejudice against Native Americans going back hundreds of years, but I did not say it no longer exists in 2024. Far from it. As for prejudice against other races and religions, as long as there are humans there will always be prejudice, no matter how well hidden. Mendocino County is no exception and neither are you or I. If you look deeply enough, you will find it in your own mind. No need to look further.
My last comment was directed to “oldukiahan”. I am more in agreement with your comments, mr tendencies. Except for your assertion that Trump somehow enables the spread of racism. Ironically Obama did a lot more to destroy race relations in this country compared to Donald Trump. Remember the “occupy wall street” movement? Big banks and big business had to do something to shatter the 99%. The US government and corporate media were happy to help. A lot of people mistake Trump’s border policies for racism due to corporate media taking his comments out of context.
Racism is obviously here, there and everywhere. It is a piece of human nature that is difficult for anyone to completely discard. To eradicate racism anywhere on earth you would have to be capable of arresting people for thought-crime. You’ll never stop some people from thinking the N-word, yelling it in their garage, or perhaps programming it to a road sign. That doesn’t mean the KKK is alive and well in Mendocino. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to label the whole county as po-dunk, backwoods racists. For what it’s worth Mendocino is a solid blue democrat county. I will reiterate that we still don’t know who programmed the road sign or what race they are.
And we are all aware of the historic racism and genocide against natives in the area, but the people who perpetrated that tragedy are long dead. What happened to the natives here is hardly evidence of contemporary local racism.
I am saying there isn’t any “significant racism” in Mendocino, which I specifically defined in an earlier comment.
To Mr. Todd Peckerham aka “mystery man”, since no such person exists anywhere as far as I can see (if you want to make fun of people who hide their identities in comments, at least put your own identity on the line):
You have contradicted yourself several times when you say racism exists and then that it does not exist. Your logic is not clear in the least.
However, current racism against Native Americans does rear its ugly head here in Mendo, in the form of poor law enforcement presence in Covelo, leading to numerous fatal attacks on teenagers and young adults, missing women (Khadijah Britton is an example, but I assume there are many others), and general crime in Covelo due to little or no help from the sheriff’s office. What more proof do you need? 1/3 of our tax money goes to law enforcement, yet this situation still exists.
Are you really calling sheriff Kendall a racist? He is a covelo guy, so I think he would take issue with your assertion. I believe the paltry law enforcement in covelo is due distance/remoteness and lack of funding. There used to be a resident deputy out there. It’s also notable that when the police do show up in covelo their presence is often cited by some residents as evidence of racism. The sheriff is in a “damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t” situation.
And I thought a native guy took ms Britton at gunpoint in front of witnesses, so that’s not a good example of racism either.
Racism exists everywhere, but it’s not significant in modern Mendocino County.
Jeez “Three Days of the Nudnik” is a classic movie that seems appropriate here. A guy sees an obvious bad sign on the road and fights to deny that it’s a bad sign. He goes to battle against the forces of anti badness to prove that he’s the good guy, and ends up looking like a dork. A film for our times. The great Charles Humperdinck plays “the Nudnik” and Wendy O Williams plays Mathilda Machismos in their breakout performance. 1974 Oscar Meyer nominated.
….Not to mention Russians, who were here 2nd, after the Native population….
I’m not touching this one with a ten for pole.
?Red and yellow, black and white, we’re are ALL precious in God’s sight.
I’ve never met a nationality I didn’t like. I have met evil…and don’t like it. I have been confronted with the evil in the mirror and didn’t like it. Ahhh, choices, choices.
And to my African-American brother, sister, you are some of the most beautiful people in this kaleidoscope of God’s human creation. God bless you.
Please don’t buy into all the racism propaganda. It’s only meant to divide us! I refuse to be deceived like that. ????
I’m sorry some evil spirited person is trying to cause division. I don’t know anybody who’s actually racist. Against mean people, yes against evil people yes, but not against various races and skin tones.
I just noticed that every place I put an emoji, the new format on Mendo fever put a QUESTION MARK.
Yellow? Red? I am pretty sure the woke police consider that to be derogatory language. And you forgot to mention brown, which might offend some. Also weird that you would place races on some kind of beauty hierarchy.
Ah, never mind, keep worrying about your emojis.
Red and yellow, black and white, we’re are ALL precious in God’s sight.
I’ve never met a nationality I didn’t like. I have met evil…and don’t like it. I have been confronted with the evil in the mirror and didn’t like it. Ahhh, choices, choices.
And to my African-American brother, sister, you are some of the most beautiful people in this kaleidoscope of God’s human creation. God bless you.
Please don’t buy into all the racism propaganda. It’s only meant to divide us! I refuse to be deceived like that. ????
I’m sorry some evil spirited person is trying to cause division. I don’t know anybody who’s actually racist. Against mean people, yes against evil people yes, but not against various races and skin tones.
Need to fix your headline because that is not a caltrans message board
I just wanna try something bear with me….
WHITE ASS HONKEY GOOD OLs AREN’T WELCOME HERE!
Hah! I almost spilled my mint julep!
If i would have rode up on the road message board that we all have been commenting on here I would have shook my head in disgust and said to myself what dumb fuck piece of shit would do such a thing?
Now If it would have said what you just asserted I would have laughed so hard that I might ran off of the fucking road and I’m a WHITE ASS HONKEY with a twisted sense of humor!
Perfect, so
you guys get how it can only work one way?
As in there’s a charge to words because of our past abuses. The word nigger is offensive. Honky is funny.
Fat cock is funny
Dirty cunt is offensive. See?
It’s about power dynamics, past actions, and the possibility of violence.
Thanks for dictating what should or shouldn’t offend people. How do you feel about hearing the N-word in rap music and other media? Is the word equally offensive if a blm activist programs it into a road sign?
Since “past actions and the possibility of violence” are of concern to you I invite you to review recent crime statistics released by the FBI. I’m not a fan of violence either, so i find it interesting what demographics account for the most violent crime.
I suggest you focus on the facts rather than letting emotions get the best of you.
And I don’t really care what language you use, because words don’t necessarily equate to violence. But I will reserve the right to think you’re an idiot.
So…we can’t decide what’s offensive, so . So you’re saying you understand that N word couldn’t offensive. So your foots in your mouth.
When someone isn’t welcome what does that mean? That they’ll get dirty looks or that they’ll get shot? Is that a threat or a statement?
Where’s all the mixed race kids at? Ukiah has so many half mexican kids there should be a book about it.
And finally can someone point out that maybe an employee did this? Is that possible? Or are we gonna blame it on a kid?
The fact is we can’t blame it on anyone yet. Despite your emotional rant I am not telling anybody what to think. Nobody is stopping you, or anyone else, from doing anything. I was simply pointing out some obvious double standards and prejudice.
There is no significant racism in Mendocino county anymore, hasn’t been for more than 50 years.
Todd some people find the N word offensive.
The way that it was spelled out on the board offends most of us for certain and it should.
But what if it had been spelled NIGGAS which seems to be the preferred nomenclature and exception to the rules?
Is it really reserved for blacks only?
Dave Chappelle did it!
Dave Chapelle gets paid and comedians are culturally sanctioned to speak about the unspeakable
This is a road sign for the public
What if someone writes “bomb threat ahead”
“Wildfire ahead” “kill all your redneck neighbors ahead”
The fact is the roads are dangerous enough around here, and someone should secure the road safely equipment. We get opinions shoved down our throats enough with our stupid phones, we don’t need it on road signs.
If they are secure than it’s a public employee.
What if the person who programmed the sign identifies as a comedian?
You made a pretty weak attempt at fear-mongering there, “saying it”. Rational people wouldn’t get so bent out of shape over a programmable road sign. It’s not like the sign is still up. And we still don’t even have a suspected perp let alone a criminal conviction. So let’s wait a while before we call it racism because we just don’t have the facts.
Feel free to continue your emotional rant, but there just isn’t any significant racism in Mendocino anymore.
No queremos los mayates
Me encantan Los mayates. Quiero tener 2 mil babies con cada mayate que veo
Someone needs to turn up the heat on this melting pot there’s still chuncks in it
Hope the racist chuckleheads that hacked that board get caught.
It’s free speech protected under the first amendment.
They spelled LIBERALS wrong.