@iamdiddy please speak out against this ignorance. This was programmed on a sign in Michigan pic.twitter.com/DnxixIrB

Racist Trayvon Martin sign

spotted outside of Detroit

By Jay Scott Smith 10:39 AM on 04/09/2012

DEARBORN, Mich. - Michigan State Police and Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) officials are trying to determine how an electronic road was changed to display a racist message about Trayvon Martin. The sign, which was located along I-94, at the border of Detroit and Dearborn, said "Trayvon is a Ni**er" and was discovered just before 1 a.m. on Monday morning.

"We were first notified at about 12:05 a.m. of the inappropriate message," said Rob Morosi, anMDOT spokesman, "Immediately, we dispatched crews to verify that the message had been changed, and it was removed by 12:45 a.m. and replaced with the proper message.

Morosi said that someone hacked into a portable electronic sign that was attached to a trailer and was able to change the message. He said that the person who changed it was able to access the password controls to make the quick change.

"The sign is there as part of a big project we have at the I-94/M-39 interchange," Morosi said. "Calls were coming in from motorists who were shocked, disturbed and every emotion you can imagine. The portable sign has a panel that was broken into. The message was changed and the keyboard was actually stolen."

There is an investigation pending, and Michigan State Police will check surveillance footage to see how the sign was hacked and by who. Sign pranks like this are often common at this time of year, with many of them harmlessly referencing aliens, UFOs, or Santa Claus. This was a case where a "computer savvy" individual was able to spread a hate-filled message.

"We've had instances before where we've had some quirky messages regarding aliens and goblins," Morosi said. "But rarely anything to this level of hatred that was depicted."
This is the second such incident involving racial slurs on a digital MDOT sign in a year.

On April 8, 2011, an MDOT sign in Ypsilanti, near Eastern Michigan University, was hacked and the message "God Hates Ni**ers" was displayed for hours before authorities removed it.

This incident also comes days after someone spray-painted "Long Live Zimmerman" on the Hale Black Cultural Center at Ohio State University. That incident led to demonstrations by black students at Ohio State over the weekend.

Morosi applauded the efforts of MDOT workers and their quick response to remove the slur from the sign considering the time of night and that most workers were off for the Easter holiday. He noted that better safeguards will be put in place to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

"We hope that people understand that message boards are meant to be a public service warning drivers about upcoming work zones, closed ramps and things of that nature," Morosi said. "We hope people are as offended by it as we were."

Follow Jay Scott Smith on Twitter at @JayScottSmith

>via: http://www.thegrio.com/specials/trayvon-martin/racist-trayvon-martin-sign-spo...

 

for 209 years America has been at war

GENESIS: Harry Belafonte / March 1, 1927

 

"If we do not seriously examine what the obstructions are to our freedom of expression, if we do not seriously analyze what stops art from black artists from reaching black people, we will have lost the vision to do anything. Because as long as we have to go through that other mechanism, we will never, ever -- trust me! -- ever be able to tell the truth about us and the world -- to the world."

-- Harry Belafonte

New Obama campaign poster: "HOPE... You don't get indefinitely detained." #NDAA pic.twitter.com/uStsgeqH