Someone painted Nazi symbols and slogans over the words “Black Lives Matter” in the Logan High School parking lot recently, prompting cultural tensions in the online discussion that followed.
Chris McGinty said he regularly walks by the high school, which is near his home. He “unfortunately wasn’t necessarily surprised, but really disappointed and disheartened” by the graffiti, which included two swastikas as well as other white supremacist and Nazi symbols, some in black spray paint and some that appeared to be in sidewalk chalk. The word “black” was scribbled out and the original message was altered to read “white lives matter.”
After thinking it over, McGinty decided to post a photo of the graffiti in online communities.
Mario Mathis of the local Black Lives Matter chapter responded to the graffiti, sharing McGinty’s photo to his own Facebook Page.
“As I have stated before, ‘If you know where you are on the map then you can get to your destination,’” Mathis wrote. “This is WHERE YOU ARE on the MAP, LOGAN and the rest of UTAH!”
Mathis told The Herald Journal he’s used the map analogy multiple times over the past year as he’s spoken at local events on the topic of racism.
“That’s four blocks from where I live, really, four or five blocks from where I live,” Mathis said.
Having experienced racism as a local black resident, the graffiti is “not surprising or shocking to me,” Mathis said. “It’s not frightening to me, either. But it is unacceptable.”
Logan City School District Superintendent Frank Schofield said the district is “disappointed in the imagery and the language that was used there.”
“Our goal as a district is to make sure that all of our students, regardless of their background, feel safe and supported in all of our schools and feel there are places where their unique personalities and background are respected,” Schofield said. “And unfortunately that imagery and those messages are contrary to that.”
It doesn’t look like the original Black Lives Matter message in the parking lot was vandalism, Schofield said, but part of a fundraiser where student body officers sell reserved parking spaces — and the chance to decorate those spaces themselves — to students.
Logan City Police Department Capt. Curtis Hooley said a school employee reported the incident, and it’s under investigation, but so far they don’t have any suspects. The graffiti appeared in the school’s west parking lot sometime Tuesday or Wednesday.
Hooley said it’s still too early in the investigation to know whether the evidence and information they turn up will fit the legal definitions of a hate crime.
To read more on the investigation, visit The Herald Journal.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.