An Iowa woman is upset after returning home from work Sunday afternoon to find a racist message written on her front door in permanent marker, the Des Moines Register reports.
According to the news site, Kirsten Grant, 20, found "white power" scrawled in huge letters on the door of her apartment at Southern Park Apartments on Payton Avenue. Grant lives in the apartment with her 5-month-old son and her boyfriend.
"It's hurtful and disrespectful," Grant, who is black, told the news site. "I pay my rent the same as everybody else. Why do I have to have 'white power' on my door? … I'm no different than anybody else."
The young mom first called her own mother before calling the police. Although the racist message did not directly reference the presidential election, both Grant and her mother believe the current political climate is behind the vandalism.
"This election seems to bring it out in people. … We've lived in this area all of our lives, and we've never had this kind of stuff going on," said Penny Grant, Kirsten Grant's mother, who is white.
According to the Register, Kirsten Grant has lived in the apartment for about a year and has acknowledged that she would sometimes hear some "sly comments" about her family's race, but she said that she has never before experienced such blatant racism.
Grant told the news site that a few days before the vandalism, someone had slipped a handwritten note under her door explaining how to take out the garbage. Grant said she is not sure what would have prompted the handwritten note or whether it was connected to the vandalism, which remained on the door as of Monday afternoon.
The on-site apartment manager for the building, Peggy Danielson, told the Register that she planned to paint it over soon.
"There's been more of an uproar [regarding racism] since the election," Grant said. "I don't know why that's breeding or why people think that's OK. … But that's never OK, ever."
Read more at USA Today.