If the calls for justice on behalf of any Black victim of police violence should be considered a no-brainer, we should definitely be uplifting the name of someone who was fatally shot during the botched serving of a drug warrant while unarmed and in the confines of her own home where no drugs were found. Unfortunately, racism doesn’t work in a way that considers Black humanity or even basic logic, and because racism is the way it is, someone vandalized a Louisville, Ky., billboard calling for justice for Breonna Taylor.
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According to CBS News, the billboard—located near the area of Lexington Road and Spring Street—was discovered Tuesday morning having been vandalized with a splash of red paint over Taylor’s forehead resembling a bullet wound.
The billboard is one of 26 that were erected around the city where Taylor lived and was killed earlier this month, courtesy of Oprah Winfrey. The 26 billboards—each of which includes a demand “that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged”—are meant to represent every year of Taylor’s life and they match the design of the September cover of Winfrey’s magazine, O, which marked the first time in the publication’s history that someone other than Winfrey was featured alone on the cover.
Here’s the thing: This isn’t like the defacing of Black Lives Matter murals painted on streets. Those murals are easily accessible and, well, we know racists reside all around those streets so vandalism should be expected. But one would have to be fueled with a lot of white supremacist energy to hike oneself up a billboard and deface it in a way that mocks the death of the person being recognized on said billboard. This act of vandalism is uniquely disgusting.
Fortunately, the billboard had been restored by Tuesday afternoon, according to ABC Action News.
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