It looks like Marvel superheroes can exist in the real world after all. Citizens of San Francisco can now see Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani American Muslim teen named Kamala Khan, fighting against racism. How exactly is she doing this? By fighting back against Anti-Islam bus ads.
It all began when the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group that is sometimes classified as an extremist anti-Muslim hate group, purchased some offensive bus ads which correlated Muslims to Nazis.
Yuck! American fascists attempt to paint Muslims as Nazis – the latest in the Islamophobic ads on San Francisco MUNI pic.twitter.com/Iov2ajjm2h
– Anirvan Chatterjee (@anirvan) January 12, 2015
You may be wondering why these ads weren’t taken down immediately. Apparently, despite countless complaints from the public, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (Muni) could not take the ads down because of freedom of speech. In fact, Muni is even running it’s own campaign against the ads.
In the meantime, are citizens supposed to sit around patiently and just put up with the racist ads? Absolutely not. San Francisco street artists responded to these ads with none other other Ms. Marvel. The ads have been blocked with strong pictures of Ms. Marvel as well as statements such as “Calling All Bigotry Busters,” “Free Speech Isn’t a License to Spread Hate” and “Stamp Out Racism.” This brilliant response even caught the attention of G. Willow Wilson, the creator of Ms. Marvel.
Some amazing person has been painting over the anti-Muslim bus ads in SF with Ms. Marvel graffiti. Spread love. https://t.co/U8W2g01O2T – G. Willow Wilson (@GWillowWilson) January 26, 2015
So who says superheroes can’t exist in the real world? Ms. Marvel is certainly doing a good job with it.
Photos courtesy of http://www.pastemagazine.com/
