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11 Of The Best Signs From The Juggalo March That Highlight Their True Colors
America has been weird in 2017. The ascendance of Donald Trump, a former reality star to becoming the actual president of the United States, responsible for shepherding the economy and government of this 241-year-old country (not to mention its nuclear weapons) through four years, has felt like a crowbar, prying opening up the weirdest aspects of the culture and turning everything inside out. Sports mingle with pop culture mingle with politics mingle with the internet's weird way of doing things, and it all cracks open as seemingly everyone marches in the street. There's probably no more perfect encapsulation than the Juggalo March on Washington on Saturday, where thousands of fans of the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse flocked to the nation's capital to protest the FBI over civil rights. And of course, the Juggalo March brought some incredibly creative signs.
The Juggalo March is a pretty bizarre turn of events, though, in protesting their classification as a gang according to the Justice Department (which can affect the ability of ICP fans to work at certain jobs, rent apartments, and how they're treated by police) they have a worthy cause. It gets even weirder as their protest coincided with the pro-Trump Mother Of All Rallies scheduled for the same day in D.C. as well. With a collection of far-right groups coming to Washington, and the leftist counter-protesters following them, it was a weird day, with the unlikely alliance of leftist organizers with juggalos in clown makeup. Of course, with a group as visually spectacular and strange as the juggalo subculture, it's unsurprising that you'd find some signs that went above beyond even the best signs from previous marches in 2017. Here are some of the best of them.
Hard To Argue With This.
Discrimination Comes In Many Forms
Predictably, Trump Was A Common Target
Juggalos Are Ordinary Folks, Too.
A Reasonable Request.
The Democratic Socialists of America Aren't Letting This Opportunity Go To Waste.
Rhyming Slogans Always Stick.
Now, Really, That's Just Uncalled For.
Not All Signs Come On Cardboard.
This Pun Is A Miracle.
Breaking News!
In this weirdest of all years 2017, it seems like the only way for a cause to differentiate itself from the dozens of others that are causing people to march in the streets is through its ability to really show off how weird and interesting it is. Funny signs have been important parts of the Women's March, the March for Science, and the Tax Day March seeking President Trump's tax returns. In a time when important matters of public policy are discussed on Twitter, the importance of a viral visual has never been clearer.
Take, for instance, the publicity that cuts to Americorps, perhaps not the flashiest of causes, accumulated when it was accompanied by hundreds of people marching in dinosaur costumes in Washington, trying to prevent the National Service program from "extinction."
The Juggalo March on Washington benefits from not only having a bizarre background but also a powerful visual that makes everyone pay attention. Who doesn't find people in clown makeup funny? That's literally the point of clowns! But of course, for the people marching, their cause is more than just a laugh or a party, but an actual civil rights issue. Civil libertarians have joined with them in condemning the FBI for monitoring citizens without the kind of due process that one would hope would protect them from their government.
The juggalos hope that they can use the attention that some funny signs and some out-there appearances get them to get people to focus on the much more serious concern of their classification. But in showing off their sense of humor, they are also able to point out the absurdity of calling these people a violent gang. What's so scary about people in clown makeup anyway?