Hate Won’t Grow Here
After a clinic is bombed, a community chooses care over fear.
On May 18, 2025, the FBI identified a suspect in the bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California. The attacker, described as holding “nihilistic ideations,” deliberately targeted a place of care, science, and fragile hope. No deaths were reported, but the damage was real, to the building, to the staff, to those whose dreams of parenthood now come with a trace of fear.
This is the kind of violence that seeks to make us small. It aims to replace progress with dread, connection with suspicion. But as with so many dark moments in history, what happens next matters even more.
That’s why we made this poster.
“Hate Won’t Grow Here” reimagines that smoke-filled scene with something stronger than fear: people. A nurse protecting life. A community showing up. Strangers linking arms, saying not today. Not to this place. Not to these people. Not in our name.
We believe civic art can be a form of resistance — not in the sense of shouting back, but in standing up. In showing what care looks like under threat. In choosing to rebuild when destruction says don’t bother.
There are many kinds of courage. Sometimes it’s a nurse refusing to leave her post. Sometimes it’s a neighbor helping sweep up shattered glass. Sometimes it’s simply remembering that these stories — however painful — are ours. And they deserve to be told with dignity and defiance.
The ideology of despair will always try to burn something down. But it’s our job to make sure something better rises in its place.