San Francisco Chinatown mural defaced with profanity, ‘your mom’ jokes
By Carl Samson
A popular mural in San Francisco’s Chinatown could not be salvaged after vandals reportedly defaced it with profanity last week.
The mural, known as the Tiger Dragon, was painted on the side of a store located at the corner of Commercial Street and Grant Avenue.
Taggers vandalized the artwork with profanity, inappropriate shapes and “your mom” jokes, according to reports.
“It was just not appropriate because we have a lot of families here, so kids are definitely going to be seeing it all the time,” artist MaCannaYo, who painted over the mural, told CBS SF Bay Area.
Luke Dragon, the artist who painted the mural five years ago, told NBC Bay Area that “the nature of street art is organic,” and it is expected that other artists build on existing artworks. While he is “not angry about the vandalism,” he is critical of the people involved in the recent incident.
“It doesn’t look like typical street graffiti,” Dragon said. “It looks like it was done by some amateurs, people who didn’t really know how to hold a spray can.”
Some believe the incident was not meant as an attack against the Asian community since the taggers did not include racist remarks.
“If it was saying something derogatory about the Asian community or something like that, I would lean toward [calling it] that, but to me, it just seems like run-of-the-mill, opportunistic graffiti,” resident Max Woodson told NBC Bay Area.
Meanwhile, the owner of the store asked MaCannaYo, who runs the Chinatown Visual Arts Association, to “do something” about the mural. Dragon said he could easily redo the mural if asked, especially since the original could not be salvaged.
As of this writing, a specific project has yet to be determined.
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