SALISBURY, MASS. (WHDH) - The owner of an auto shop in Salisbury has sparked controversy over an explicit billboard that depicts Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a cartoon character.
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The billboard, which hangs outside Rob Roy Auto, shows Warren wearing a traditional Native American headdress and a slogan that reads, “Keep America Great. No Sitting Bull S—.”
Roy says positive responses poured in when he first debuted the satirical sign.
“I’ve had 50 people minimum walk up the driveway to shake my hand,” he said. “Six hundred cars have been out there to take pictures with thumbs up.”
Some on social media disagree with the billboard’s message, calling it stereotypical and racist.
“I guess it kind of is but she faked being an Indian,” Roy said. “The only people that can complain, and I have been in talks with, is Sitting Bull’s family.”
Roy put up the sign after the potential 2020 presidential contender released a campaign video that claimed Stanford University professor Carlos D. Bustamante can prove her Native American heritage.
With the November elections just days away, Roy says he is glad the sign is getting people fired up and politically engaged.
“I got people talking about politics who don’t talk about politics,” he said. “Isn’t that what we want? We want people out there to be educated to go out and vote.”
Bustamante concluded that the great majority of Warren’s ancestry is European but added that the results “strongly support” the existence of a Native American ancestor.
President Trump, who has long mocked Warren’s ancestral claims, has repeatedly referred to her as “Pocahontas.”
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