White supremacists deface Oregon mural honoring George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery
White supremacist defaced a Portland, Oregon, mural honoring the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery over the weekend, but the community quickly pulled together to restore it.
The group, Patriotic Front, smeared white paint across the faces, then stenciled the name of its website in black and white across it, Willamette Week reported.
“The damage they did, the size of it, they probably had a team of people,” muralist Christian Grijalva told Willamette Week as he surveyed the defaced depictions of Floyd and Taylor, Black people who were killed by police, and Arbery, who vigilantes gunned down while he was jogging.
Grijalva put out a community call on Instagram, with photos of the damage.
“Community Mural Help--LETS HAVE A PAINT PARTY—Who’s in ??” he posted. “PATRIOT FRONT MY A---S!!--It has come to my attention this morning that ‘WE STAND WITH YOU’ NE Community mural for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor & Ahmaud Arbery was defaced late last night. I’m sad, confused and lost for words on how much HATE and ignorance is in our community... For White Supremacist haters to come vandalize and deface my mural and the community’s mural just blows my mind. I’m reaching out and asking for HELP today. Any donations are highly appreciated towards paint and materials to get this cleaned up TODAY!!***”
At least a dozen people descended to restore the art, Willamette Week reported.
One of them, resident and activist Amber Boydston, said the graffiti was “predictable.”
“I was born here,” she told The Oregonian. “I am very aware of the level of racism that Oregon is steeped in. This area is a historically Black neighborhood, so Black community knew this took place, so Black and brown and white anti-racist abolitionist community decided to take action.”
It was not the first time that haters had vandalized one of Grijalva’s murals, he said.
“I painted Frida Kahlo and Yuri Kochiyama at Southeast 67th and Foster,” Grijalva told Willamette Week. “They painted their faces white and wrote ‘f--k commies.’ "
Texas-based Patriot Front is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist hate group known for vandalizing murals and other artwork across the country. They allegedly defaced a bust of George Floyd in Brooklyn around Juneteenth with white supremacist graffiti.
