Dori: If ‘Red Line’ is banned, what color is non-triggering?
Nov 16, 2019, 2:05 AM
(File, Associated Press)
(File, Associated Press)
As Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom first reported, Sound Transit will stop calling its north-south red metro line, the line that will eventually run between Everett and West Seattle, the “Red Line.”
Apparently, according to a press release, people complained to Sound Transit that it sounded like “redlining.” In the past, African-American families were kept out of certain neighborhoods in cities by being denied home loans or insurance. This type of segregation was known as redlining, and was prevalent in Seattle in the 1930s and 1940s.
What does that have to do with a light rail line?
“Red Line” is two words. “Redlining” is one word.
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The rail line is depicted on the future light rail network map as a red line. That’s what sets it apart from the Blue Line to Redmond or the Green Line to Ballard or the Purple Line to Issaquah or the Orange Line in Tacoma.
I really thought colors would be innocuous. I didn’t realize colors had to be so politically correct. It makes me wonder, if “Red Line” is forbidden, what colors can we use?
You hear references to white, black, and brown people all the time, so we can’t use any of those colors. That’s clearly offensive.
Blue — there are many people who suffer from depression. They feel blue quite often. Calling a rail line the “Blue Line” could be hurtful to them.
Orange? Trump is the orange Cheeto. We can’t have a line that is orange. It would remind people of Trump and trigger them.
So what color can we use?
Green is probably good. Environmentalists love going green. Getting into more specific colors, magenta and teal are likely inoffensive. Lavender is not okay, though — there are people who are allergic to scents and can’t stand lavender perfume when their colleagues wear it to the office.
So anyway, it’s time to say goodbye to the Red Line.
But seriously — remember the color of Kshama Sawant’s campaign signs? If we get rid of the Red Line, won’t we be alienating the socialists and communists?
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