Two non-Black women were found tagging a Starbucks building with the Black Lives Matter movement initialism during Los Angeles protests for George Floyd and were confronted by Black women.

The women, who were wearing all black and covering their faces, were seen spray-painting a Los Angeles Starbucks with “BLM,” according to TMZ. Black women, who were protesting, approached the women and urged them to stop because of the repercussions their actions would have on Black people.

“Hey, hey don’t do that. Please don’t do that,” a person off-camera can be heard saying.

“See that, look. I want you to know this, let me tell you this, this is not a Black woman who is putting Black lives matter,” the woman holding the camera says.

A Black woman can be seen walking up to one of the women, who is white, who stopped spray-painting and began to have a conversation. The second woman, who could be of color but is not Black, continues painting the establishment.

The white woman questions the Black women, asking “so what?”

“They don’t care about you guys, they don’t care about us,” the white woman says.

“But y’all doing that for us and we ain’t ask you to do that. Listen, don’t spray stuff on here when they’re going to blame Black people for this and Black people didn’t do it,” the Black woman says as the two women begin walking away.

“If we wanted you to do it, we would’ve asked. They not going to show y’alls faces on the news when they see that on their building, they going to blame that on us. Y’all are part of the problem,” the woman recording says.

“This is a Black person, if they wanted you to spray something, they would ask,” another voice can be heard saying.

As the Black women try to educate the taggers, the two women instead continue to walk away and regroup with the larger crowd.

The woman recording the encounter then turns the camera to herself and speaks directly to the audience.

“Stuff like this ain’t right, that’s what the problem is. We out here standing together, peacefully protesting without any problems. You got people of all races spraying on buildings talking about ‘Black lives matter,’ that ain’t even us. You got police officers coming to a peaceful protest spraying gas on us, we ain’t even did nothing,” she says, visibly frustrated.

She urges those watching to understand that although the mainstream media may blame the wreckage on Black people, no singular race is responsible for the damage done to buildings. She encourages those who witness vandalism to stop it if they can.

“Don’t let the media fool you. When they see the vandalism on these places, know that it wasn’t us. And when you see stuff like that, you’re supposed to stand up and say something. Don’t spray on these people’s buildings, that’s not our message,” she says.

Many people on Twitter have been pressuring non-Black people to take lead from Black protesters if they want to show support in the streets, not vandalize buildings. 

 

Los Angeles, like many cities experiencing uprisings right now, put a curfew in place from 8 p.m. Sunday to 5:30 a.m. Monday, reports Popculture. 

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