{"id":22945,"date":"2017-02-10T03:48:14","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T11:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=22945"},"modified":"2017-02-08T19:27:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T03:27:33","slug":"removing-graffiti-full-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/02\/10\/removing-graffiti-full-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Removing graffiti full-time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corey Fleischer volunteers most of his time to removing hateful graffiti. (photo from Corey Fleischer)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When Montrealer Corey Fleischer finished university, he was unsure of what career path to take. In the interim, to pay the rent, so to speak, he started Provincial Power Washing.<\/p>\n

Reflecting back on those days, Fleischer said, \u201cI hated what I was doing \u2013 washing a lot of trucks, houses, decks, residential and commercial \u2013 zero substance. I\u2019m a person who thrives off substance.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day, while heading to a job, Fleischer happened to spot antisemitic graffiti out of the corner of his eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was driving downtown here, in Montreal, and I saw a swastika on a cinderblock in a very busy part of town,\u201d he said. \u201cI had the equipment needed to remove it, so I got out of the truck and did just that. I got back in my truck, not thinking anything of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

From that day on, whenever Fleischer came across such graffiti, he would stop and remove it. As well, in the evening, after returning home from work, he would grab a bite to eat, shower and go out to look for racist, antisemitic and homophobic graffiti to remove.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would scour the city for hate crimes \u2013 back alleys, on walls, anywhere,\u201d said Fleischer. \u201cI found another one (swastika) and then another one. And then I started noticing, as the graffiti-removal side of my business began growing \u2026 I realized this was a real problem around town. It became my pastime. I quit hockey and softball and everything. It\u2019s what I spent all my time doing. It fulfilled my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first several years, it was only Fleischer\u2019s parents and close friends who knew what he was doing. Then, he received a call from the local B\u2019nai Brith Canada office to confirm his address, as they wanted to include him in a community newsletter mailing. While Fleischer refused to give out his address, he told the BBC that he had pictures of 40 swastikas that he had removed over the past five years, if that was of interest.<\/p>\n

The BBC representative, said Fleischer, \u201cliterally couldn\u2019t understand what was coming out of my mouth. She couldn\u2019t believe that\u2019s how I was spending my time. So, I sent her the pictures. They sent out a blogger to come and follow me, to do a story on what I was doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLo and behold, my life at that moment completely changed. People started seeing what I was doing and wanted to get involved. It went from removing 40 to 50 hate crimes in five years \u2026 [to] a couple hundred last year alone. The increase was pretty crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleischer now has thousands of followers wanting to get involved, so he has many more reports coming in, asking for free hate-graffiti removal. He said he has gone from spending about 10% of his company time removing hate graffiti to 95%. And, thanks to social media, the movement Fleischer started has gone global.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are calling me from all over the world, trying to figure out how to remove hate crimes in their area,\u201d said Fleischer. \u201cAnd, I basically put it together and have the removal done \u2013 wherever the people are calling from \u2013 with a local company.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most people dealing with hate crimes, it\u2019s not a comfortable situation. People don\u2019t know what to do with them or how to act when they see them. I happen to thrive in uncomfortable situations. I\u2019ll go and organize. If I can\u2019t find a local company to remove it, I\u2019ll contact the local government, mayors, statesman, whoever, to get it done.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, there was an attack on a Jewish cemetery in New York state. Their whole cemetery was defaced with swastikas and hate symbols. And somebody called me up from the town, saying they\u2019d seen my videos and they\u2019d been staring at these swastikas on their cemetery for two weeks \u2013 right around Yom Kippur. So, they called me to find out what could be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Fleischer hung up the phone, he began calling power washers. As it was a small town, it was hard to find someone, so Fleischer called the mayor and the local government. Within two days, all the graffiti was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people figure out who I am and what I\u2019m doing, they tend to spring into action quicker than if it was another situation,\u201d said Fleischer. \u201cAlthough I started the movement, it\u2019s not just me getting it done. It\u2019s people in the community, that I like to call \u2018my army.\u2019 I\u2019m just a tool that was given to these people in order to remove these hate crimes. I\u2019m just the instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

While removing the hateful graffiti is, of course, good, Fleischer pointed out that it does not deal with the root of the problem. So, he decided to collaborate with Montreal-based Overture with the Arts, a not-for-profit that provides mainly after-school art classes to high school students. One of its programs is targeted at educating students about the Holocaust through a series of spoken word workshops about Anne Frank. OWTA opted to include a talk by Fleischer in the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of thinking about the actual guys who are putting on the hate crime, I had to find another way to make a difference in our society and in our communities,\u201d said Fleischer of his speaking role. \u201cI had to think of a way to make another difference by educating our youth, our future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was growing up and was going to high school, I was never taught about the Holocaust. I was never taught about the biggest massacre, the biggest tragedy, in human history.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I started this whole movement, I didn\u2019t even fully understand…. I knew what a swastika was, I knew it was bad, but I didn\u2019t understand everything that was going behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first two schools at which Fleischer spoke were classroom-sized talks, but this quickly expanded into full auditoriums. Schools now flood him with requests to come and speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had two calls this morning from schools calling me, out of the blue, trying to figure out how I can come to their schools,\u201d said Fleischer in his interview with the Jewish Independent<\/em>. \u201cThe school tour is called Erasing Hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleischer received a peace medal last year from the YMCA (Young Men\u2019s Christian Association) for his efforts with Erasing Hate, along with 30 Auschwitz survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think I\u2019m even in the same bubble with people like that, with something I started doing as a pastime, because I followed my heart, is mind-blowing. It\u2019s really something else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we won\u2019t, in the future, be ignoring hate crimes on the street and the future \u2013 our kids, the kids in schools \u2013 will understand that you don\u2019t need to be silent. You can wake up, open your mouth and you can make a difference. That\u2019s what this has turned into.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, Fleischer is on Instagram (@ErasingHate) and Facebook.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corey Fleischer volunteers most of his time to removing hateful graffiti. (photo from Corey Fleischer) When Montrealer Corey Fleischer finished university, he was unsure of what career path to take. In the interim, to pay the rent, so to speak, he started Provincial Power Washing. Reflecting back on those days, Fleischer said, \u201cI hated what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[801,6733,3585,6716,1180,6718,2427,1959],"class_list":["post-22945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-antisemitism","tag-corey-fleischer","tag-graffiti","tag-hate-crimes","tag-homophobia","tag-quebec","tag-racism","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}