A billboard advertisement with a cryptic but controversial message — “Used-Mexicans” — was removed Monday after it spurred complaints from passing motorists on Interstate 35 near New Braunfels and from civil rights leaders.
New Braunfels City Manager Robert Camareno said in a statement posted to Facebook that the advertising company that owns the billboard removed the sign Monday afternoon after learning of its content.
The League of United Latin American Citizens said the company, Turner Outdoor Advertising, had donated the billboard space to the organization effective immediately “for placement of a positive message.”
Camareno said New Braunfels officials received complaints about the sign over the weekend and throughout Monday.
“The billboard is not located within the New Braunfels city limits or within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city of New Braunfels,” Camareno’s statement said. “However, we do acknowledge that the billboard is offensive and not representative of our community’s values.
“We worked to locate the owner of the billboard and contacted them. They were unaware of the billboard and said it had not been approved. Once they were notified of its offensive messaging, they worked swiftly to address the issue.”
The billboard, located just north of a truck stop at the York Creek exit off I-35 in Comal County, displayed “Used-Mexicans” followed by the website suffixes .org, .com and .info.
Those visiting the websites found a message saying: “Used (Yoozd) Adj.; a) deceptively led into a relationship to gain something of worth. b) no longer of value, depleted.”
In bold letters, the sites define Mexicans as “people of heritage that are good at what they do” and adds, “You are being Yoozd!”
The man who put up the billboard, Charles Abernathy, said its message was that Hispanics have been used by the Democratic Party, are conservative at heart and ought to vote for President Donald Trump.
“It’s meant to be inflammatory, but, I mean, if I put up a sign and it said, ‘Hispanics for Trump,’ everybody would have just driven past it and gone on about their business,” Abernathy, 55, of Houston, said in an interview.
“If I put up what my true intentions are, which is showing the Hispanic population of this country are being used, then I think it has much more impact in driving traffic to the site,” he said. “I’m going to be called a racist anyway.”
Abernathy transports oversized equipment for the oil and gas industry in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming and other states.
LULAC spokesman David Cruz said those behind the sign had a right to their views, “but not at our expense.”
He added: “This was a billboard that was on its face offensive. It constitutes hate speech because it denigrates a community. In this day and time when people are facing a pandemic, and they’re trying to make ends meet and survive and going into an election, this is the last thing our country needs right now.”
Abernathy said the billboard had been up for about a month and generated a few thousand hits on the website used-mexicans.org. He said he chose the location because it’s a corridor for freight out of Laredo.
Truckers and other motorists, close to 70,000 a day in some cases, pass by the billboard en route to Dallas and beyond, he said.
The sign only recently drew attention from locals, including a resident who said she has mixed-race children and “is hyper-sensitive to what is going on in our town.” She asked not to be identified, saying she feared retribution.
“Why spend money on a billboard here?” she asked.
Some saw the billboard as especially concerning in light of recent tensions over motorcades staged by Trump supporters in New Braunfels.
The weekly motorized demonstrations by a group called Trump Train NB have grown to hundreds of vehicles. Some residents have complained about threatening conduct during the vehicle parades and menacing social media posts.
Residents complained that one pro-Trump motorist yelled a racial epithet at an African American. They also pointed to a YouTube video that showed a white pickup dragging a Black Lives Matter banner.
New Braunfels Mayor Rusty Brockman last week issued a call for peace and good behavior.
An organizer of the pro-Trump rallies, Randi Ceh, said participants have been asked not to honk their horns but that she wasn’t aware of anyone using racial insults.
In a statement, her group said, “Anyone that joins this organization with the purpose of spreading a message of hate is not welcome.”
Comal County Judge Sherman Krause said he hadn’t seen the billboard but did receive a call Monday from someone worried about it. He said local law enforcement authorities and others had examined social media posts “and potential threats that might be out there” and were ready to respond.
Rodolfo Rosales, a LULAC state director, said his organization reached out to officials in New Braunfels. The organization said the billboard “denigrated Mexicans” along one of the nation’s busiest highways, the San Antonio-to-Austin corridor.
“The sign referred to Mexicans as ‘used’ and was clearly meant as a racial slur against our community,” Rosales said. He applauded Camereno, Brockman and Mike Turner of Turner Outdoor Advertising for acting swiftly to resolve the issue.
It wasn’t the first time Abernathy has used shock billboards to put a spotlight on a hot-button issue. He said he put up another provocative billboard in 2012 in Clovis, N.M., in response to the federal government’s “Fast and Furious” gun sting operation on the southern border, which he said resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans.
A photo of the billboard published in the Eastern New Mexico News shows its message: “Who cares about a few hundred … MurderedMexicans.org.”
Told his latest sign was also provocative and would get attention, he replied, “It’s what we want. Murdered Mexicans was inflammatory, too. I was called a racist after that.”
Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Sig, become a subscriber. sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe
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