Arthur Ashe Statue In Virginia Vandalized With 'White Lives Matter'
Last edited Thu Jun 18, 2020, 02:09 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: New York Times
"The statue of Mr. Ashe, a Richmond native, was defaced with "WLM" and "White Lives Matter." The letters "BLM," for Black Lives Matter, were spray-painted over the initial graffiti. By Sandra E. Garcia, The New York Times, Published June 17, 2020, Updated June 18, 2020, 12:25 a.m. ET
A monument to the black tennis legend Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Va., was vandalized with spray paint that read "WLM" and "White Lives Matter" on Wednesday. Mr. Ashe, a Richmond native, became the first black man to win Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the U.S. Open. His statue is on the city's Monument Avenue, a residential street that extends for five miles into Henrico County and is dotted with a number of prominent Confederate monuments.
Passers-by said they saw a man in a blue T-shirt, dark red baseball cap and American flag bandanna spray paint "WLM" on the pedestal of the statue. "We heard spray can rattling as we walked around the monument," said Betsy Milburn, 45, who was walking along the avenue with her friend Fatima Pashaei.
As Ms. Milburn and Ms. Pashaei turned to the man, whose face was partially covered by his bandanna, he spoke to them. "He said 'You guys tagged my statue so I am tagging your statue,'" Ms. Milburn said. The man then walked to a white car and drove off, she said. Someone also spray painted "BLM" for Black Lives Matter in pink over the initial "WLM" graffiti. Volunteers cleaned the monument, and all of the "White Lives Matter" graffiti was removed before the end of the day...
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/arthur-ashe-statue-vandalized.html
For more than two weeks Virginia has experienced protests against racism and police brutality, just like every other state in the country. Protesters were motivated by the recent cruel death of George Lloyd, a man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck for several minutes.
Protesters in Richmond on Tuesday night tore down the Howitzers Monument near Monroe Park campus, part of Virginia Commonwealth University/VCU. It was was the 3rd Confederate statue taken down by protesters in the state.
- Arthur Ashe, Tennis Champion and Legend, native son of Richmond, Va.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe
- Arthur Ashe, winning the 1975 ABN World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.
- Arthur Ashe statue vandalized. WTVR CBS 6 News, June 17, 2020.
-'White Lives Matter' spray-painted across Arthur Ashe statue in Richmond. In 1996 the city of Richmond posthumously honored Ashe's life with a statue on Monument Avenue, a place traditionally reserved for statues of key figures of the Confederacy. This decision led to some controversy in a city that was the capital of the Confederate States during the American Civil War...
sakabatou
(42,174 posts)Racists have come out of the woodwork.
riversedge
(70,299 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)Behind the Aegis
(53,987 posts)SergeStorms
(19,204 posts)Very juvenile, and probably perpetrated by a 50 yr. old MAGA hat wearing mutt, with full camouflage, no face mask, and couldn't spell out 'white lives matter' correctly if his life depended on it. And he's had it sooooo tough in life.
Jackass.
SunSeeker
(51,698 posts)2 here in California, in very red areas of the state.
Yeehah
(4,593 posts)Unfortunately it took this ugly incident for me to learn about it.
I watched him play a lot of tennis on tv. Always an upstanding sportsman.