Watch Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz Denounce Hate at Rally in Adam Yauch Park
A few days after a park named after Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys was defaced with swastikas and pro-Donald Trump graffiti, community leaders held an anti-hate rally there. One of the speakers was another Beastie Boy, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz.
“I'm assuming we’re all here today because we’re thinking the same thing," he said in the video above. "Spray-painting swastikas on a children’s playground is a messed-up thing to do. And for many of us, it has special meaning, because this park is named for Adam Yauch, who was my friend and bandmate for over 30 years. But he was also someone who taught non-violence in his music, in his life, to all of us and to me."
He continued, “But this is more about someone in New York City linking Nazi Germany to Donald Trump in a ‘Hell, yeah’ kind of way in a park where children play, F.Y.I.” He then went to list numerous hate crimes that have been perpetrated in the past week.
"These incidents and this type of graffiti has been popping up all over the country," he said, "because we elected a president that's given our children the message that it's okay to write 'white power' in their high school hallways, that it's okay to attack women and girls, that Latinos and Muslims and Jews are bad people and that you can 'electro-shock the gay' out of somebody. This is real. It's happening at a rapid rate. We gotta stand up against hate."
Horovitz ran off names of organizations fighting the policies proposed by a Trump-Pence administration -- such as Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project -- and recommended donating money or volunteering time. He called out to artists, writers and musicians to "take what you're good at, and what you truly enjoy and lend your services to the causes you care most about. Because we can't, and we won't and we don't stop."
Horovitz concluded by saying, “Keep your eyes open, stand up for each other. Don't be afraid to step in or enlist the help of others, because this is homegrown terrorism, for real. I reject Donald Trump’s vision for America. New York City, I’m asking you to do the same.”
As part of the rally, the offending graffiti was removed and replaced with hearts.
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