Graffiti reading “no Indians”, “whites only” and displaying swastikas was recently discovered in a public playground in Rapid City. Officials with the police department painted over the writings, calling them ‘extremely racist’.
Both Rapid City Mayoral candidates respond to the vandalism.
Incumbent Mayor Steve Allender condemned the graffiti in a long Facebook post. One line read ‘It is important to acknowledge feelings of racism exist in this country wherever there are human beings and Rapid City is no exception.’
While many were in support of Allender’s comments, some believe his post did not acknowledge local racism against Native Americans.
“One moron with a magic marker does not speak for all of Rapid City. And what I said was anyone could have done this. Well it is not safe to assume that there is a bonafide white supremacist who felt that the best target to attack was a lightly used park in North Rapid on playground equipment.”
Allender says he’s not ruling out that the motive could’ve been to gain attention on social media, and he doesn’t want to assume the vandal’s identity. He says the writings don’t depict the feelings of all residents.
Natalie Stites Means is also running for Mayor of Rapid City. She says the swastikas and wording are in line with white supremacist beliefs.
“Average citizens when out to express their own protest that this isn’t what Rapid city’s about, so we’re going to clean this up right away. But at the same time, it’s not simply an issue that you can clean up and wipe away, it illustrates some deeper issues going on in Rapid city.”
She says a quick reaction to condemn the symbols is a good thing.
“But also we need then to take the more critical thinking approach and really try to understand why this emerged here in our city as an incident.”
Means believes the graffiti messages on the playground are more complex and need to be addressed long term.