by: Jessica Reaves
November 11, 2016
In the week following Donald Trump’s election, there has been a sharp spike in reports of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti and vandalism, including widespread use of swastikas and other Nazi imagery.
This is a small sample of the graffiti, vandalism and harassment that has been reported since Tuesday.
Racist graffiti, vandalism and harassment
- Signs outside a church in Silver Spring, Maryland, were defaced over the weekend of November 12-13 with pro-Trump, racist graffiti.
- On November 13, a church in Brown County, Indiana was vandalized with a swastika, "Heil
Trump" graffiti and homophobic slurs.
- A high school student in Redding, California, filmed himself handing out "deportation" notices to fellow students. The video, which was posted to Twitter, has been removed.
- On November 13, residents of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, discovered a swastika spray-painted on their sidewalk.
- The day after the election, a group of middle school students in Michigan were filmed chanting, "Build the Wall!" The video has been viewed millions of times on social media.
- The same day, white students were filmed carrying a Trump sign through the halls of Pennsylvania's York County Technical School, shouting "White Power!" Three students were suspended.
- In the week since the election, a number of Muslim women have reported having their hijabs grabbed and being verbally or physically threatened.
- On November 9, students at Texas State found fliers from the "Texas State Vigilantes" in men's bathrooms around campus. The fliers called for the “arrest and torture” of “deviant university leaders spouting off all this diversity garbage.”
- A softball dugout in Wellsville, NY, was defaced on election night with the words "Make America White Again," accompanied by a large swastika. Local police declined to take action, because the dugout is on private property. By Wednesday afternoon, the graffiti had been painted over by local volunteers.
- On election night, a student at Canisius College reported finding a black doll hanging from a rope in the elevator of a freshman dorm. College administrators responded with a sharp rebuke of the perpetrator and urged students to “celebrate diversity as strength.”
- Artwork at the University of New Mexico was vandalized on election night with swastikas and the words “Seig Heil Trump.”
- A swastika and the words “Seig Heil 2016” were spray painted Election night on a storefront in South Philadelphia. Nearby, an SUV was spray painted with the words “TRUMP RULES” and “TRUMP BLACK BITCH.”
- Bathrooms in a Minnesota high school were vandalized with racist graffiti, including "Go Back to Africa, Make America Great Again" and "F*** all porch monkeys, whites only, Trump Train."
- In New York, "TRUMP" was scrawled onto the door of a Muslim prayer room at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering.
- Students at a UC-San Diego trolley stop discovered a swastika painted on the road, accompanied by the words “Heil Trump.”
- A family in North Carolina found this message on the windshield of their car: “Can’t wait until your
“marriage” is overturned by a real president. Gay families = burn in hell! #Trump2016 #Repent #GodBless)
Anti-Trump protests
In a number of cases, offensive symbols and language were used to protest Trump and his policies.
- In San Francisco, internet pioneer Frederick Roeber raised hackles in his neighborhood Tuesday by flying a Nazi flag from his two-story home. Roeber said it was a protest against Trump’s campaign language, but some of his neighbors were unnerved and asked him to remove the flag. He did, replacing it with a rainbow-edged California state flag.