Trump-Hating Asian Student From U. Illinois Planted Burning Cross in Chicago Park
“During an interview with Chuck Goudie, Lu shared that he had little knowledge of the Klan.”
An incredibly offensive burning cross that was placed in a Chicago park this week, complete with a red Trump hat, was not the work of white supremacists but an Asian student at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Merlin Lu took responsibility for the display, claiming that he placed it there as a form of anti-Trump protest and that he didn’t understand the depth of the symbolism or the history behind it.
The College Fix reports:
Asian Chicago college student admits to burning cross as part of Trump protest
Another day, another hoax
An Asian University of Illinois Chicago student set up a burning cross in Grant Park in order to protest President Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, Merlin Lu admitted to NBC 5 that he set up the burning cross on June 9. He is now in police custody.
“Last week, Lu sent a scripted video to NBC, claiming responsibility for the cross burning but saying he had no affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, apologizing to those who were offended,” NBC reported. “In the video he also criticized President Donald Trump.”
During an interview with Chuck Goudie, Lu shared that he had little knowledge of the Klan.
“Did you make it all the way through almost four years at UIC without somebody teaching you that a burning cross is one of the most divisive symbols in America,” Goudie asked.
“No, I don’t really have any, like… I never grew up with religion, never really surrounded myself with people with it. My childhood friend’s they, I remember them going to, like, confirmation and stuff like that, but um…” he said.
Lu graduated from Neuqua Valley High School in the wealthy Naperville suburb of Chicago.
The student, who may one day stand trial for an arson charge, said he wants the president put on trial.
“I put a red hat to signify the MAGA hat, the Make America Great Again hat,” he said. “So that was, yeah, that’s what I tied on top.”
Lu denied that he was calling for a violent end for Trump, although he said he didn’t “want to wait until his term ends” in a separate video he sent NBC.
The part that really jumps out is when Lu is describing his hatred of Trump and what he wants. “I want…”
Who cares what you want? What about the millions of people who voted for Trump? What about what they want?
Turns out, the "KKK burning cross" found in Chicago was made by a socialist gay Asian: pic.twitter.com/l1ClC4QSd3
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 16, 2026
His parents must be so proud.
Here’s the full video report from NBC News in Chicago.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is still all-in on the narrative.
Brandon Johnson is asked about the guy who set up the burning cross in Chicago:
“It's a painful reminder of how hatred towards black Americans still permeates in our society."
It was actually an Asian socialist’s protest against MAGA. Other than all of that, dead on, Mr Mayor. pic.twitter.com/d8gIM4RCJV
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 16, 2026
The demand for right-wing hatred and bigotry far exceeds the supply, forcing the left to fill the gap https://t.co/vhnPuQphb7
— Northern Barbarian (@xnoesbueno) June 16, 2026
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
This is what passes for a “college student” these days. Too stupid to be allowed out of the house without close adult supervision.
Many are unable to comprehend the written word. But hey, let’s give 16 year olds the right to vote!
Democrats need ignorance and stupidity for their mob to survive.
They count on dumb kids and foreigners to make up for where buying votes and fraud don’t cut it alone.
“ Lu shared that he had little knowledge of the Klan.”
I think that this student has very little knowledge of anything. We are raising very uneducated, ignorant children today because of the left ! We have dumbed down our children, and I don’t see it getting any better. I think this is the fault of the leftist Professors and teachers out there today.
This kid is a total disgrace to many of us who are of Asian descent.
“No, I don’t really have any, like… I never grew up with religion, never really surrounded myself with people with it. My childhood friend’s they, I remember them going to, like, confirmation and stuff like that, but um…”
Two things we can draw from this. One he is an idiot. Two he is a liar. At any rate, his character and intelligence distilled down to its essence. I’m sure he’ll be quite successful in elite democrat circles where ignorance and deceit with a heap of TDS on the side are high virtues. .
What a jackass. It isn’t a “religious symbol” when you set it on fire. And a banana isn’t nutrition when it shows up on OnlyFans.
Like, are you certain, um, that this dude is, like, an actual, um, idiot?
Babylon Bee: “Gen Zer Hospitalized After Going More Than 5 Minutes Without Saying ‘Bro’.”
You get burning crosses from the media response to burning crosses.
Looks like something the SPLC funded.
Beat me to it!
“I never grew up with religion, never really surrounded myself with people with it.” So he is a true modern Democrat?
And I’m guessing he is doing the lazy thing of meaning Christianity when he says “religion.”
Me too.
Send him back to the communist utopia that is also known as the peoples republic. No religion, no friends, no freedom, just shared misery.
If he was born in theUSA, we can’t do that.
If you’re this ignorant about the history and culture of the country, maybe you shouldn’t vote.
I’m getting the impression that what passes for his thought process goes roughly like: “I hate Trump. Trump is a white nationalist because the idiot box tells me this. White nationalists are religious and religion uses crosses. Burning crosses is a thing that white nationalists do… therefore if I put a MAGA hat on a cross and burn it, I will be using their tactics against them. I is smart!”
“Sick burn!”
1970s HS literature (cultural) exam: Choose two important cultural, social, or economic shifts that occurred shortly following the period in which The Great Gatsby is set, and discuss how they are foreshadowed in the lives of particular characters in the novel.
2020s college student life (cultural) exam: What does a burning cross mean?
That question would have been too long for today’s HS students to understand.
So much for superior Asian intelligence. Well he must me from the bottom of their bell curve.
So much wrong with this story. The kid’s utter ignorance. The fact I thought he was a girl from the picture initially. That he is a college student. The moronic mayor’s take. This country is getting stupider by the minute,
The concerning part is that this shocking level of incoherence, ignorance and lack of logical thinking is not limited to this individual.
Pretty much defines the Democrat party.
As usual, the kkk actions come from democrat communist traitors
The Klan was the militant wing of the Democrat party. The dirty secret is they attacked blacks because they voted Republican.
Jim Crow was entirely about disenfranchising Republicans. That they were black was just an excuse.
That, and the fact that (unlike white Republicans) most black republicans hadn’t yet managed to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
SPLC working both sides again?
When someone is recognized for doing something good—like winning an Olympic medal or a Nobel prize—the headlines will proudly announce “Chinese-American” or “Korean-American” to celebrate the immigrant narrative.
But Merlin Lu did something bad so he is called an Asian American. This shows how the media shifts labels of individuals depending on the story, a concept called “success-sharing and failure-distancing.”
So when Lu, a Chinese American, commits a highly public crime like burning a cross, the media automatically uses a generic label like “Asian-American” or “man of Asian descent.”
A product of the Chicago teacher’s union. Upscale neighborhoods are not a fix for sorry teachers. How many other idiots has Neuqua Valley High School and other Chicago schools graduated?
Another Democrat burning crosses. Some things never change.
Not a single word from the usual woke suspects about how this is an example ‘cultural appropriation’./S
Sorry — as a leftist, this is now “the song of his people.”
Would the Democrats run him for President if he were old enough?
If this is just a ploy by this young Asian college student to get some of that sweet SPLC white supremacist incentive cash, he may be a bit late and is really making a weak pitch for it.
Misguided and stupid, like so many of his generation. Sad.
I read an article a few days ago, about how a certain University in Ca. found that some of the people wanting to go to that school could not even read properly. What I want to know is WHAT are the teachers today actually teaching, when people who graduated from high school are not even capable of being able to read properly? The subjects that I learned when I attended School are apparently not being taught today.
Methinks young Mr. Lu is a liar. I tech High School US History; Reconstruction and racism are part of the curriculum where I teach, and probably are covered in a lot of other districts across. the land. This is some kind of Antifa false falg operation.