The “xenophobic” messages include “Fuck Tanya Woo—get her out” and “Tanya Woo Hates Black People”
By Erica C. Barnett
Last week, the Northwest Asian Weekly newspaper ran an article denouncing what the author described as “anti-Asian hatred and xenophobia” targeting Seattle City Councilmember Tanya Woo. According to the story, historic buildings and parking pay stations had been tagged with graffiti that “included hate speech, references to race, and evoked themes of exclusion.”
The image accompanying the story shows a parking pay station on which someone has crudely scrawled “fuck Tanya Woo get her out”—a phrase that, while disrespectful, isn’t hate speech. (Posters bearing similar messages about various council members have been seen on Capitol Hill for many years, generally targeting whoever happens to be the most conservative members of the council members.)
A quick afternon walk around the area identified in the NW Asian Weekly article—which, according to the Stranger, was submitted by Woo herself—turned up just one other clear example of anti-Woo graffiti: A message scrawled in two-inch-high letters in the alley behind the Louisa Hotel apartments, owned by Woo and her family: “Fuck Tanya Woo/Tanya Woo Hates Black People!” The Stranger apparently took a similar walk and turned up another example that, while hard to read, seems to call Woo racist.
During the city council’s weekly briefing on Monday, Woo said she had been reluctant to say anything about the “hateful attacks,” but was persuaded to speak up because “the graffiti was done on historical buildings and landmarks”—a reference, apparently, to her family’s own property. She also said the CID community “doesn’t understand politics” and would be more likely to think of “exclusion laws and xenophobia” when they saw the graffiti than booting…
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