Someone Turned This Racist Graffiti Into Something A Lot More Welcoming

A man is being praised across the internet after ingeniously 'remixing' some racist graffiti in Walthamstow, London.

Chris Walker, a Walthamstow-born digital designer, digital art-worker and multi-disciplinary illustrator who tweets at @doodlebank, shared his work online, writing:

Wow. Standing ovation for Chris, everyone.

Other Twitter users were equally as impressed by the simple but effective move, with one replying: "Chris, you utter legend."

Another said it was a 'great response'.

Chris told Indy100 he spotted a photo of the graffiti on Twitter, which was when he decided to work his magic.

"I saw it via a tweet from Stella Creasy. My first response was 'how vile'," he said.

"Whoever was responsible clearly has no idea where they are living. I was born in Walthamstow and have lived here on and off for 40 years - it has always been a vastly multicultural community and that's what makes it so great.

"I saw they'd left me quite a bit of space around their 'artwork' so I thought I'd fill in the blanks."

The racist graffiti is apparently one of many to have sprung up in the area recently - but judging by the outpouring of love following Chris' tweet, the sentiments aren't shared by most of the area's residents.

"I seem to have captured some spirit," Chris said.

"Some people thought it was real though, so I've had a few grumbles from those who didn't realise it was a photoshop job.

"I can't please everyone, so I had a lot of requests for all the languages I've missed out!"

Chris did get a bit of stick for his spelling of 'Punjabi', but he says he got the typo from the Waltham Forest website.

"Apologies for the misspelling of 'Punjabi', but you can blame the Waltham Forest website for that as it was a cut and paste from that site," he explained.

"I'm not sure my little protest can stop things like this happening, but the response to it has - I hope - brought the community together in speaking out and served to reassure that this is a minority view and that everyone is welcome in E17 and always will be."

Little or not, this protest was pretty incredible, so well done Chris!

Topics: UK News

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman