There’s been a news story I’ve been following, and every time I see an update it just continues to baffle me.
One of the cities close to my hometown painted one of their crosswalks with a rainbow flag, which was the result of a campaign organized by three sisters.
Within two days of it being unveiled, someone had vandalized it. The following day, someone was caught on camera defacing it again. The third time someone wrote a hateful phrase describing the flag, which isn’t worth repeating.
In less than a week, a symbol of inclusion and pride was ruined by people who made the decision to wreck something three sisters in the area had campaigned for months to have.
Robynne Henry The Henry Hype
I can’t fathom why someone would do that. What did they have to gain by writing the hateful graffiti or making it so tire marks ran across the colours?
A dedicated group worked hard to fundraise to cover half the costs for the project, and someone smeared all their hope with a simple action.
When a friend and I were discussing the instances, he told me about another conversation he had with someone who thought the rainbow shouldn’t have been put there in the first place because an instance like this could happen.
I think that person missed the point of why the girls wanted to have a rainbow crosswalk, and that it should be there to show support for the local LGBTQ community.
The defacing of the rainbow crosswalk got me thinking of graffiti that was found on one of the churches here in Bonnyville a few months ago, and made me wonder why people bother.
Neither instance were remotely funny, and forced people to come together to clean up the mess that was made. You could be charged, and likely hurt a lot of people with this one decision.
Even if the perpetrator doesn’t care about whatever they’re doing, there will be people impacted. You could be wrecking something people really care about, and, in some instances, the damage has a hefty bill to fix it.
This edition of the Henry Hype just comes back to my question: what’s the point of graffiti?
I feel like the effort put into defacing anything could be time spent doing anything else, that’s legal, and wouldn’t send hateful messages to those it’s impacting.
Instead of spreading negativity, grab some chalk and write words of encouragement to everyone who walks down that sidewalk. Spread positive words, and maybe it will drown out the bad we see in situations.
