Let’s do something the Democrats always tell us to do, but now they don’t want us to do – “Say her name.” Her name is Iryna Zarutska, and she was a legal refugee from Ukraine when she boarded a light rail car in Charlotte, N.C., last year, where Decarlos Brown murdered her in cold blood.
The 23-year-old, slightly built female never provoked or even interacted with Brown before, when out of nowhere, he stabbed her repeatedly in front of other passengers who barely shifted in their seats to help Zarutska. This isn’t pleasant, but if you need a refresher on what happened, here’s the video, which stops just before the violence commences.
Decarlos Brown has been charged with m*rder after unprovokedly stabbing a woman on a train in Charlotte pic.twitter.com/PC9b205ka9
— 6ixBuzzTV (@6ixbuzztv) September 8, 2025
Since this happened, the forces of evil and the forces of good have emerged in this story to take a side. The forces of good have sought to remember Zarutska in many of the usual ways – through online posting, writing, and through the painting of public murals of her.
In Providence, R.I., artist Ian Gaudreau started work last week on a mural in memory of Zarutska. This shouldn’t be controversial, but it has become so. The large, partially completed mural adorns the exterior of a well-known LGBTQ night club called The Dark Lady, which is located in the downtown area.
Gaudreau has had to halt work on the project as members of the community and city officials fight over whether the mural should be permitted to exist. Yes, a beautiful painting of a victim of violent crime has become a political hot potato in a town that is so dominated by leftists that if you favor same-sex marriage and abortion up until birth, but you don’t believe a man can be a woman, you’d be called a conservative.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley has called to remove the mural, saying in a statement:
The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the county is I continue to encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than divide us.
Did you notice what Smiley didn’t do? He did not “say her name.” He would not say her name. He purposely decided not to say her name. He’s erasing her memory even with his words.
On the matter of funding, Elon Musk has made a significant commitment to fund murals of Zarutska across the country.
Smiley has a problem with where the money comes from to paint murals of Zarutska. While says he believes that efforts to memorialize and never forget Zarutska “divide us,” he and his ilk are the only ones creating division here.
The mayor and his allies on this issue have the option of joining with people from all sides for one common reason – to condemn the violent deaths of innocents in America’s cities. If he can’t do this because he doesn’t approve of funders, or if he can’t do it because that would require him to agree with conservatives for a change, then he’s the problem. A serious one at that.
BREAKING: Mural for Iryna Zarustka will be removed after Providence’s Mayor Smiley condemned it pic.twitter.com/Q5CsZ3oFde
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 31, 2026
The mayor is not a uniter in the name of compassion. He’s a divider in the name of hate. He’s willing to go as far as to further victimize a murder victim by marginalizing her memory.
When you see a mural of Zarutska, what you see is a victim of senseless violent crime. When Smiley sees the same mural, he sees his own hatred of conservatives, apparently.
Just last year in Providence, police arrested and authorities charged a man with vandalizing a mural the city seems to hold sacred, a “Pride” crosswalk.
Police arrested a man on Monday for vandalizing a Pride crosswalk in East Providence, Rhode Island.
Police said the crosswalk was vandalized Sunday night.
Antonio Formisano was charged and released on $2,000 bail with personal recognizance.
This is insane. pic.twitter.com/6Slwx1gEti
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) June 17, 2025
So what’s the moral of this story? It’s that the left lives in a parallel universe where evil is good and must be honored and revered, while goodness in its most pure form must be erased. This controversy over a mural in Providence is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the left today.
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