Monday, July 7, 2014

purple


pastel on Uart
 Recently I was reading about the color purple (my favorite color.)
Did you know that police worldwide quell rioting mobs with water cannons enriched with purple dye?  The semi-permanent  purple "tags" protesters for later retribution by the police.  In the last twenty years, protestors in Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, and (most recently) Uganda have all been purple soaked.
It seems to be a shrewd move by police, but as Slate's Explainer's column explains the tactic can backfire. In 1989 , a group of anti-apartheid protestors marching on Cape Town's Parliament were ordered to stop, then soaked in purple dye. A protestor seized control of the purple dye cannon and turned in on the reigning National Party headquarters and the historic, whitewashed Old Town House nearby. "What about the purple people?" implored a Cape Town editorial the day after the "Purple Rain Protest." Graffiti on the Old Town House provided an answer that became the rallying cry of the ant-apartheid movement: "The Purple Shall Govern!"
If you want more stories and mini factoids about color check out the book,
ROY G. BIV -an exceedingly surprising book about color by Jude Stewart

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