Photo Credit: Rob Verhorst /Getty
The hate is real.
A mural of iconic singer Tina Turner was defaced during the week of Christmas in North Carolina.
Citizen Times reports:
A mural of the legendary singer that is hanging in front of the Static Age Records store in downtown Asheville was vandalized with a red swastika on December 23rd. Though it was drawn incorrectly, with three of the four arms going counterclockwise, the message of hate still resonates. The owner, Jesse McSwain, said the ruined art was covered with a black sheet by someone who is not connected to his store. The apparent hate crime is being addressed by the Asheville police and the Southern Law Poverty Center.
McSwain revealed that he was shocked that this crime took place in his store. He says:
“Occasionally some weird supremacists will rear their head around here. Not sure how organized this act was. Perhaps more organized than I’d like to think about.”
Following the incident, he then covered the swastika in black paint. Adding that in his 16 years of owning his store, “he has never experienced any hateful actions or threats towards the store.”
See the mural below:
This swastika graffiti is actually just one of a larger string of antisemitic vandalisms that have been taking place in Asheville over the past several months…
A quick thread.https://t.co/U9Ffmx0yUI
— Asheville AntiRacism (@avlantiracism) December 28, 2019