Many of you may know celebrity chef Tom Colicchio from his work as a judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, in addition to his ownership of many of New York’s finest restaurants. Colicchio is also very charitable – I’ve heard him speak at length about food insecurity, food banks and school meals. And of course he’s politically active, a long-time supporter of Democratic party candidates. Colicchio owns a home in Mattituck, New York with his wife Lori Silverbush. They put out a lawn sign for their local congressional Democratic candidate Perry Gershon. This is what happened:
This was in response for putting a @perrygershon yard sign up. What say you @leezeldin also my wife’s name a cross and a Jewish Star pic.twitter.com/vFKIJPaJhD
— Tom Colicchio (@tomcolicchio) August 21, 2018
That says “Cuomo = Death to America,” a reference to Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York. Silverbush also posted still photos of graffiti:
Woke up this a.m. to a swath of hate speech painted across the property I share with @tomcolicchio and our 2 little boys. Cute touch: my name & a defaced Jewish star. Wake up USA: POTUS tacitly applauds this. THIS is whats at stake in the upcoming elections. #Vote2018 #NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/8tp3HYka2p
— Lori Silverbush (@lsilverbush) August 21, 2018
That happened this week, and considering the fact that the graffiti seemed to be targeting them specifically because of their politics and because of Lori’s faith, you would think that this would immediately be investigated as a hate crime. You would be wrong.
The Suffolk County Police Hate Crimes Unit responded to the scene, though the case is not being classified as a hate crime, according to the Suffolk Times. Colicchio thanked the Southold Town Highway Department for cleaning up the spray paint “immediately” and also responded to fellow community members reaching out in support of him on Twitter.
Republican Zeldin posted a statement to his Facebook calling for the person responsible “to be identified and prosecuted.”
“I have no idea who this particular couple who lives there supports in the Democratic Party primary for Governor, but regardless, they should not be targeted for their political views one way or the other and especially referencing their religion as well was totally unacceptable and laced with hate,” he continued. “Settle your scores at the ballot box in our great country! There is no place whatsoever for actions like this in our political discourse.”
Honestly, I always think that this kind of bulls–t is more likely to happen where I live, in the South. We’ve had public property defaced with this kind of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, but as far as I know, there hasn’t been any private property defaced. I don’t believe that in this case, with Colicchio and Silverbush’s home, that it was just “one bad apple” or whatever. Silverbush is absolutely right – this kind of hate speech and hate crime is A-OK with Donald Trump and all of his supporters. And true story, it’s going to get worse as the midterm elections approach. Prepare yourselves.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I wonder why it couldn’t be charged as a hate crime
In Nazi Germany, they defaced the property of Jews with the painting of yellow David Stars…another step toward the path of genocide.
Yeah, here in Nashville our Obama and Hillary signs were routinely smashed and pushed down. Sigh. As for no larger spray paint vandalism on residences, well, the high ups here (old racist southern aristocracy in the state Capitol) still run this place like a plantation, so the deplorables feel secure. All the new, “it” city residents pouring in are white, and people of color are being forced out, as the whole city is basically a gated community now. We need to crush these racists utterly–after the Civil War they were allowed to keep running things in the south, and their toxic ideology has spread to other parts of the country. Time to get them out of power once and for all.
If you can get in or out due to the road construction. Man…Nashville is moving into Kentucky territory (my stomping grounds). Please reverse course as soon as possible! We’re trying…at least SOME of us are.
Anyone within a reasonable drive, we’re protesting at a big GOP/MAGA event tomorrow (August 25th) in Lexington. Telling attendees like Sarah Sanders, Mitch “Turtle Boy” McConnell, Andy Barr, our douchelord governor Matt Bevin, et. al. where they can shove it. And that we’re coming for them in November. This cycle, and all the rest to come.
COME ONE, COME ALL!!!!
I’m visiting Nashville in September and I visited once before. I didn’t feel entirely comfortable, I was clearly watched, but no one was overtly rude to me. A brown person knows when they’re being watched and followed in the stores. Downtown felt pretty okay, though and drunk guys grabbing you is pretty universal. What parts of Nashville would you suggest are pretty safe and welcoming? Thank you @adastraperaspera and @delphi for making me feel like there are cool people wherever I travel.
Life is such a contradiction. I love him from Top Chef. Then to read about his charities makes me care even more, and doesn’t surprise me at all. A good man. Then the other side of the coin, the evil side, which invades and defaces his property. Makes me sick. In the end, I hope the good guys win. But everyday something new, a college student missing and found dead, a pregnant mother of two killed by her husband. It’s rough being on this planet. We need all of the Tom Colicchios we can find.
So true, Nancy. I hope they don’t feel pushed away. It’s pretty traumatizing and not being able to have justice makes it worse.
Awful, and I don’t see how it isn’t a hate crime.
Sometimes local laws specify that “hate crimes” are only direct bodily harm, since hate crime charges are usually used to beef up repercussions in court. Like if someone beats a person up, and you can tack “hate crime” onto the battery charge, it makes it a felony and might carry an automatic sentence. In a lot of places, the hate crime designation isn’t going to apply to misdemeanor vandalism charges because there is no advantage for the court. If anything, it would only force the local district court to take on a case they could have otherwise dealt with very quickly, often without ever stepping foot in an actual courtroom. That then wastes the court’s resources. Source: my neighbor’s house was vandalized and even though it was clearly racially motivated, the charges were kept to a misdemeanor and the officer explained that hate crime charges can only be brought in cases of battery/armed assault. Probably not true *everywhere* but I wonder if it was a factor for the Colicchios.
I agree Kaiser. I expect to see this kind of thing where I live (totally red backwater), but I’m kind of surprised in NY.
Mattituck is in Long Island and they’re not really liberal or progressive out on the island. Sometime during the summer, the KKK was putting out pamphlets with bags of candy, obviously targeting children, in one of the towns in Long Island. I believe there was also an issue in another town with people waking up to find KKK pamphlets in the mailboxes. People are nuts! I was at Ikea in Brooklyn and watched some older white guy scream “go back to your country” to an Asian family right before the election. I nearly fell over after the initial shock. In Brooklyn ffs!
I’m from Suffolk County, Long Island and spent a few summers working in Mattituck. Suffolk County was the largest county population-wise in the country to vote for Trump. For a generally well-educated populace, they are your stereotypical, middle class, ‘family first so F everyone else,” “don’t tread on me” group of racist antisemites. Everyone, including people my age (Millennials), watch Fox News. These are people who campaigned HARD for Rick Lazio back in the day because they hate Hillary that much. They believe any conspiracy theory and are more than happy to blame their problems on a minority or a Jew. They HATED Obama for no good reason. I’m glad to be off of that Island and cringe whenever I go back with my young kids.
tl;dr – Suffolk County, NY is like a bunch of Northern hicks.
What do the cops think a hate crime is??? Holy crap.
I’m not that surprised. Suffolk County has more than it’s fair share of white supremacists and Trump supporters. I am surprised by that happening in Mattituck, though. Sleepy little vineyard town that it is.
My thoughts exactly! My parents live in a small town near Mattituck and I was surprised as well.
Parts of Long Island and most of upstate NY are basically Alabama. I’m not surprised.
There aren’t really Red states and blue states, it’s really an urban archipelago that votes blue.
Which is the case in most blue states. California is only blue because the population is centered around LA/San Francisco, with a little San Diego contribution (though SD is way more conservative because of all the rich retirees). Most of the state, though, is red. Go out into the central valley and you’ll think you’re in Arkansas.
I hope they have a security system with video.
I expect this kind of garbage will increase as the noose of the special prosecutor tightens around the neck of the presidunce and his cretinous offspring.
The South is bad, but I wish the narrative that racism only exists here would die. There is racism everywhere in the US and the world. It isn’t exclusive to the South. Most liberal places have racists within them that let their intolerance flags fly when confronted with people and views different from their own.
Having lived in many regions of the U.S., I agree with you. However, the southern states have operated as a block, and historically beefed up their racism by codifying it into legislation. Some of those laws were removed during the civil rights movement, but now we are in the terrible situation where (in the guise of a “conservative” GOP) they pushed things to the Supreme Court and got the Voting Rights Act killed. Now they’re working to destroy other protections and regulations. We need to return all American states to the American people by voting against them and shunning their racist behavior.
10 mins away from where I live, a guy snapchatted how long it took for him to be kicked out of a restaurant (that my husband and I go to) for saying the n-word, then stabbed 2 black guys walking down the street afterwards.
So yeah, it’s rampant, its everywhere, and instead of these occurrences being confined to places like FL, bigots are emboldened nationwide due to this Chump administration.
I cannot wait for it to end.
I live in the NorthEast and something similar happened to my elderly parents who put signs in their yard. They had to remove them because of fearing things like this. Someone was coming into the yard and vandalizing.
I had to remove my Democratic bumper stickers from my car. I was being run off the road and my car was being kicked and damaged in parking lots.
We are in a cold civil war, folks.