UPDATE: KRON reports that the mural has been defaced a third time, and that the vandals in this third incident were captured on video by a security camera as well. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. We will update with more information as warranted.
For the second time this month, the digital mural on Bryant and 24th Street at the Galería de la Raza has been vandalized.
The mural by Manuel Paul, a member of the Maricón collective, had been cleaned after an incident last weekend and on Saturday afternoon it was in good shape.
However, sometime between then and Sunday morning vandals covered the triptych of images with a black scrawl as if to scratch out the images – one of two men, a central image of a transgender person and a third of two women. Por Vida, or For Life the mural is called.
A person at the Galería said they had video footage of the incident that would be turned over to police. She did not know the time of the incident.
Paul and the three artists who produced the The Q-Sides an exhibit on queer and low-rider culture currently on display inside the Galería, have all been targets of homophobic attacks on social media.
The attacks contrast sharply with the reception the Q-Sides artists got when they approached the low-riding community to participate.
At the opening of the Q-sides show earlier this month, we spoke with Mark Navarrro, of the Bay Bombs Car Club, about the project.
Earlier Coverage
SF Gay Mural and Project Defaced and Defamed, June 17, 2015
The Q-Sides Opens with Style, June 12, 2015
Community members have been fighting to preserve traditional Latino heritage in the Mission, but sadly that heritage has often included intolerance of LGBT individuals.
Times do change though; same-sex marriage has been legal in Mexico City since 2010, for example.
And what is more upsetting are all of the comments on your Mission Local Instagram account spewing hate from many of our neighbors. When and how did all of this lack of tolerance happen?
You are right, and we should have been more on top of this. We have taken them down. Please let us know if you see anything else.
The LGBT community in the Mission will not be intimidated !!
Don’t the murals the Galleria puts up always get vandalized? Some quicker than others, maybe, but it seems to me they all eventually get tagged.
This is fairly clearly not “tagging” but a deliberate defacing of the mural so as to obscure its message.