Suspect arrested for racist graffiti sprayed on walls of college campus in Maryland

On Thursday, racist graffiti was found on the walls of Goucher College officials said, targeting Black and Latinos with hate-filled messages including a swastika sign, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Goucher College administrators confirmed in a statement that for the second time this month, the Townson school campus has been a hub for the hateful messages targeting people of color. The first swath of graffiti was found on walls Nov, 14.

The messages contained direct threats of at least three students and included their room numbers.

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“We strongly condemn this abhorrent hate crime that occurred in our community, and call on all community members to remain supportive and understanding of one another during this challenging time,” the statement said from the school.

Administrators from the school said police have arrested a suspect they believe is connected to the incidents. That student’s name has not been released but he reportedly has been banned from the school campus, according to a statement from Goucher president José Bowen, vice president and dean Bryan Coker, interim associate dean Nicole Johnson and director of public safety David Heffer.

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Targeted Hate against Blacks on the Rise

From college campus to the workplace, racist assaults against Black people have been on the rise in recent months.

In fact, at least nine Black General Motors workers in Ohio have filed a class action lawsuit charging the automaker with tolerating a hostile and toxic work environment that involved discrimination against Blacks who were subjected to hate symbols, the Detroit Free Press reports.

The complaint outlined the verbose abuse and racist symbols like a noose that were targeted at people of color in 2017 between March and May. The plaintiffs in lawsuit which was filed in September, allege that at least five nooses were found hanging from the ceiling at the GM Powertrain & Fabrications plant in Toledo.

According to the complaint, it lists numerous incidents that were aimed at Blacks that the carmaker failed to action on, including: “racial harassment directed at African-American staff, including swastikas, stick figures with nooses around their necks and ‘whites only’ signs painted on bathroom stalls; white workers wearing shirts emblazoned with Nazi insignia under their coveralls, and white workers telling their black co-workers to go back to Africa and calling them ‘boy.’”

“I was startled, really startled by it,” said Mark Edwards, an African-American employee who has worked for GM for 40 years. One of the nooses was hanging right above his work area.

“I couldn’t understand who in my work area disliked me that much or had that much hatred to hang a noose by my job.”

A Black co-worker Kenny Taylor, saw that noose and is also suing because of the toxic culture that GM allowed to persist in the workplace and its failure to protect its employees.

“When I’d go to the bathrooms, I saw Nazi symbols on the walls and “Hate blacks” and “Blacks shouldn’t be here,”‘ he told the paper. He has been working for the company since 1978.

The plaintiffs also made claim in the lawsuit that a white supervisor said during a meeting: “what’s the big deal about nooses? There was never a black person who was lynched that didn’t deserve it.”

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