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Activist’s truck vandalized with racial slurs and images

Posted at 10:18 PM, Jun 20, 2018
and last updated 2018-06-20 22:18:16-04

CLIO, Mich -- A family woke up Tuesday morning to their truck spray painted with racial slurs and images.

Hubert Roberts, the owner of the truck, found swastikas painted all over the truck along with the N-word and "Wite Pride[sic]"on both sides.

He says his truck always has different sayings on it to spark a conversation. People will stop him and ask what they mean and why he has them on his truck in the first place, including calling the United States racist. "I used that as a metaphor," Roberts said, "to put it on my truck to address concerns to wake people up with a dialogue."

His stepdaughter, Jiquonda Johnson, received pictures from him Tuesday morning of the damage done to the vehicle.

"He's an activist so he is heavily involved in mentorship, community programs," Johnson said, "He's a grass roots activist in Flint, so he gets attention, and he does protest."

According to Johnson, her parents have lived in the house where the truck was damaged for 14 years, but never has anybody come onto their property and vandalized anything.

"I do have a constitutional right  today, I don’t know about tomorrow, to have free speech and I’m trying to exercise that by really putting it in our faces that we have some tremendous issues with this construct of white supremacy and bigotry and racism ," Roberts said. "The motive is being black in America, I mean to say that to exercise you’re saying that did I provoke a white person or somebody to do this based on what I think and feel about America? Just like when they say you better stand for the flag or leave this country and don’t be a football player, again,  constitutionally, so far, I’m supposed to be able to speak with freedom."

The family says they don't know who might have vandalized the vehicle, but either way, they are not interested in punishing them. They want an opportunity to an open dialogue with whomever did it and to teach them to open their hearts with love, not hate.

Johnson said the Genesee County Sheriff's Department came out and towed the truck after dusting it for finger prints. Officials also walked the property to see if any evidence could be recovered.

The Michigan chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations is offering a $1,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest in this crime.

Anyone with further information should call the Genesee Sheriff's Department at 810-257-3407.