Rachel Kurzius
After white supremacists lit the streets of Charlottesville, Va. earlier this month with tiki torches while shouting Nazi slogans, some other customers of the backyard lighting option feel the need to clarify their choice.
“Don’t mind our Tiki torches, the only things we hate are mosquitos!” says one sign on the corner of 13th and V streets NW, as first noted by Popville. Below, it includes a number of hashtags: #FuckTrump, #Resist, #LGBTQ, #FightSupremacy, #Sheetcake, #FightMosquitos, #NoHate.
The sign was one of two that Annie Dragolich and Jessica Kenley hung outside the home on Saturday. A couple in their early thirties who moved into the Cardozo home a month ago, Dragolich and Kenley ordered the torches “because we have legit mosquito problems and nothing seems to help, and then we realized it was an inopportune time to have them,” says Kenley, who works for a local boutique investment bank.
Dragolich, an operations manager at a tech company, says that their front yard is a “fishbowl,” easily visible to neighbors and passersby, and she didn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression about what the torches meant when they were using them to ward off the bloodsucking bugs on Saturday night.
“We knew people would see [the signs], we wanted our neighbors to see it, but I never thought it would be as popular as it is,” says Dragolich, who adds that they’ve only gotten positive feedback about it. She says if she had known the image would be photographed and shared, “I would have made a nicer sign.”
They want to update the sign with better quality posterboard and nix the curse words on behalf of the kids who walk by, but the gist will stay the same. “We just want to get the message across that we just hate mosquitos,” says Kenley. “Let’s not have [Tiki torches] be a symbol of hate. Just be a symbol of not liking mosquitos.”
The manufacturer of the torches used at the fatal “Unite the Right Rally,” TIKI Brand Products, also disavowed their product’s use in the events that led to the death of one counterprotester and the injuries of many more.
“TIKI Brand is not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville and are deeply saddened and disappointed,” the company wrote in a Facebook post on August 12. “We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way. Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.”
TIKI joins a number of brands, like athleisure company Fred Perry, that have become associated with violent far-right groups after members started sporting their goods. Even the Detroit Red Wings spoke out after a modified version of the hockey team’s logo was spotted in Charlottesville.
Another photo disavowing the appropriation of the torches went viral last week that appeared to show a display of the same tiki torches at a hardware store with a warning not to use them for “any racist crap.” However, that sign was actually created by Dashiell Driscoll, a senior social content producer and senior writer at humor website Funny or Die.
He went to a hardware store in Hollywood and affixed to the display a sign that said: “PLEASE DO NOT USE THESE TIKI TORCHES FOR ANY RACIST CRAP, YOU NAZI ASSHOLES. They’re for BBQs with friends, family, and your neighbor Steve with the lazy eye who kinda creeps everyone out but he always brings his killer homemade guac so you deal with his weird vibes because it’s easier than learning how to make guacamole”
Updated with comment from Annie Dragolich and Jessica Kenley.
