Arlington, VA—They swept into the a South Arlington neighborhood like a well-organized herd of cats with their weapons of choice, 2.54 cm solid point sticks—made of chalk. They laid a line of block letters spelling ‘SHAME’ in various colors, tall and wide enough to see from a helicopter. For effect, they added giant arrows pointing towards the home of Russell Vought, Director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB). On the sidewalk at the edge of Vought’s lawn, they chalked “USAID Lives In Our Hearts—From The American People.”
The half dozen activists took about a half hour or so to complete the giant block letters. An unmarked security unit sat behind tinted glass in what appeared to be an unmarked police vehicle just feet from them but did not try to stop them. Their antics complete, the chalk affinity group stood in a line looking over their work briefly as if daring the security contingent parked there to come out. Then they faded into the daylight like cats do, as if they hadn’t even been there, leaving their chalk boxes behind like a cat’s paw prints.
The chalk contingent did not give their names or speak on camera but let their chalk do the talking. They were stirred up at the force behind the vast cuts of funding to federal agencies and in some cases was the financial force behind completely annihilating agency funding at U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Education, and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. That’s because as Director of OMB, Vought is the gatekeeper to funding approved for spending by Congress. If funding is approved by Congress, it then must go across Vought’s desk, somewhere in the Executive Mansion, the ornate building next to what has not yet been torn down at the White House.
The message to Vought occurred during a permitted community event organized by Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity (ANUH). But the permit did not allow for the message that was left.
Nearby, children chalked hopscotch boxes and played the game without balls and jacks. Other children played tic-tac-toe using some of the chalk. There was a lot of chalk for everyone to use. Many chalked messages in support of USAID and promised it would someday be rebuilt and return to service. Close by these chalked mementos, some other children painted rocks and left them out for the taking. “USAID Rocks” read one; another read “Speak Truth To Power.” The new generation of free range thinking children, raised on PDAs and internet conveniences, seemed to realize what fun their parents had doing the same in their youth. Some things never change from generation to the next.
These children knew what they were doing and knew why their parents were there: to fight for their futures and for their community and stand up for the federal workers now furloughed and those who had already been fired. They were there to defend their community from the leaders taking their careers and dismantling their government piece by piece. They were there to fight for the just country they wanted their children to live in.
Further away yet, a 1980s styled band played ditties from a decade when 1984 was still just a book and not a documentary playing out in real time. ‘Don’t You Forget About Me,’ by Simple Minds; ‘Under The Milky Way,’ by The Church; and ‘I Melt With You,’ by Modern English, were among the nostalgic hits they played. Several of the mothers who were in their 50s and 60s, danced with each other. Maybe dancing took them back a world of simpler times when their lives were not so misshaped by the current crop of toxic bureaucrats discriminately undoing nearly a century of government under the liberal vision of Rosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
At the end of the block, a series of speakers told of the achievements USAID federal workers and contractors had done around the world since 1963. They reflected their experiences in helping developing countries before Russel Vought’s scorched earth vendetta to dismantle that agency and its networks of global assistance. USAID had since 1963 helped stabilize many countries around the world by projecting a sort of soft power abroad through economic assistance to developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. USAID helped set up the infrastructure to create safe communities, support for women and children, fight famine, reduce hunger, and build public schools to educate developing country populations. The speakers told of how the projects funded with less than 0.3% of the budget, yet saved millions of lives over the years before the agency was defunded and dismantled by the new wave of bureaucratic minimalists under the Project 2025 far-right agenda, of which Vought was a co-architect. Now all that effort and achievement had been slashed under Vought’s supervision.
In fact Vought himself said of the federal workers that would be directly affected by Project 2025, “We want to put them in trauma, and ”We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” so that “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.”
So there was not much love-loss when the chalk affinity group served up their technicolor ‘SHAME’ message outside Vought’s home, although it was not clear then he was there at the time to see it. But not everyone was ok with it after it was completed.
One of the organizers of the Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity (ANUH), Sarah Nichols, was a former USAID contractor let go in January. She said the chalk contingent had acted on their own accord and had not coordinated their affinity action with ANUH. She said the ANUH event was permitted and intended to keep the community gathering a family friendly atmosphere to empower the neighbors. Many of the neighbors liked the chalk messages left along the block by others.
Soon after the SHAME message was chalked, Nichols confirmed several others removed the arrows and changed the message to a more positive one so as not to be seen as in any way doxing the location of Vought’s home. She also confirmed that the entire message and chalk had been power-washed away by unknown people early the next morning on Sunday.
Yet she also emphasized she as “a little tired of being scared and tired of people being scared.” She added that “Fascism and authoritarians apply fear as a psychological weapon and using that emotion of fear is effective to make people police themselves.”
She argued that by showing up and dancing they were showing their joy and resilience despite Vought’s attempts to dehumanize and traumatize them.
Chalking Preceded By Incident At Stephen Miller’s Home
An recent incident at the home of Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House, was still on the minds of many. The chalked sidewalk incident at Miller’s home was met with a flurry of press attention and repercussions towards Barbara Wien, an activist present at the ANUH event. Wein said that police confiscated her phone and still had not returned it to her as of Saturday. Wein said she had been involved with chalking at a location in the Miller’s neighborhood but not outside the Miller’s home. She has been interviewed by several major newspapers about her experiences related to police having confiscated her phone and she expressed her concern that her freedom to exercise her First Amendment rights was violated.
She warned that many other activists had their phones confiscated too. They were not breaking any laws. They were just exercising their First Amendment rights.
She contends she has done nothing wrong and broken no laws. She said her parents experienced the oppression of the Nazi party during the Holocaust and eventually emigrated to the United States. She was not afraid to speak out against events similar to what her parents experienced when Nazis came to power in pre-WWII Germany.
Since the chalking incident at Miller’s home, he has moved his family from the neighborhood to a nearby military base and placed his house up for sale.
ANUH Community Gathering A Success
The ANUH gathering was a success according to Nichols. “Everything we’ve done is legal,” she said.
At event after event, citizens exercising their First Amendment rights are having to come out defending themselves for exercising their rights. And this is the rub. Will citizens allow themselves to be intimidated to give up their rights or will they continue to show up?
Nichols said, “No matter what we say or do, we have to stand up. Even if it is legal, they are still going to use tactics to intimidate.” By showing up we’re leading by example and more people will show up, she said.
Note: This story was changed to identify the correct location of the neighborhood in South Arlington.
