I don't see why the attackers need to be homeless.
Try this on for size.
Two local yobs decide that they are going to use the almost deserted streets as an opportunity to "get" a random black person, like the good old days.
So they arm themselves with some kind of cleaning product, and a cord, and go out looking for a likely victim. (Someone smaller than themselves, black and ideally distracted.)
The recognise the victim on his way to the Subway, and decide he's the ideal target (black, liberal, gay, smaller than themselves etc.)
They then keep watch and "blindside" the victim, knocking him to the ground when he is on his way back home, before excitedly delivering their messages, (i.e. the cleaning product, the cord, and the babbled slogans).
I would have thought the messages are quite clear:
1. Cleaning product to wash the black off (or the "stank").
2. Cord to remind the person of racial violence in the past.
3. Slogans along the lines of (MAGA country is anywhere that right-thinking Americans are) i.e. don't you dare feel safe.
I'm really disappointed that a number of posters here do not have sufficient empathy to imagine a person's state of mind after being on the receiving end of something like that.