I was never an angel of a kid.
My friends and I would, unintentionally mind you, find ourselves in trouble with the authorities from time to time, but it was always for minor things, like trespassing on public property to get to swimming pools on hot nights or making too much noise in camp sites that annoyed our neighbours.
These were fairly harmless endeavours and if, or when, the authorities were called to deal with us, they would generally leave us alone after giving a stern warning.
But, despite our tendency to push the limits from time to time, we would never purposely harm anyone or damage or destroy someone else’s property.
I guess we were raised to have respect for those around us, and if anyone in our group had the urge to key a car or throw rocks through windows or something else that was criminally mischievous, the rest of us would step in and quickly nip the idea in the bud.
That kind of behaviour was unacceptable in our little society, and we looked down on other kids who took part in these kinds of activities.
Fortunately, in the community where I grew up, it was rare to see vandalism or other meaningless crimes against property.
So I was surprised when I came to work at the newspaper on the morning of June 16 to find a number of businesses and public buildings in Duncan’s downtown core desecrated with graffiti that included rude and derogatory messages in large red letters about various groups in the community.
I’ve always found the downtown core to be one of the most beautiful business areas on Vancouver Island, and I regularly encourage friends and family that have never been here to come visit and check out all the funky mom-and-pop stores, the ever-popular Farmers Market and the pretty streets and alleys in the area. So to see it defaced in such way came as a bit of a shock.
I tried to imagine what was going through the minds of the perpetrator(s) of this completely senseless crime while they did it.
Did they think they were being funny or making some sort of a racist and homophobic point that they wanted to inflict on the rest of us?
Whatever their reasons, I can’t imagine their parents would be very proud of them.
I talked to some of the business owners whose buildings were tarnished with the disrespectful and demeaning statements and they said they had them painted over within hours of discovering them on Sunday morning.
“It was an unfortunate surprise for all of us,” said Casey Thompson, one of the owners of the Duncan Garage Cafe & Bakery that was hit with the graffiti. “I’ve seen graffiti downtown before, but nothing like this.”
It must be disconcerting for downtown business owners like Thompson to see that people would show such disrespect to them and the community they work and live in.
Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples, who has always been a great advocate of her city’s downtown core, said the kind of hateful messages that the graffiti contained have no place in the city.
he said she’s sorry that someone thought there was space in the community for such disgusting and disgraceful statements.
“Let’s be clear, this does not represent who we are or what we stand for,” Staples said. “We stand for respect, for dignity and for each other. To those trying to spread fear or division, you will not win. Love, truth and community are louder and we will keep showing up for each other with courage and compassion.”
Staples is right of course.
The only way to deal with an outrage like this is to confront it head on, and show the hooligan(s) responsible for this that it won’t be tolerated.
So I encourage people to keep their eyes open while in the downtown core, especially at night, and report any activities like this to the RCMP immediately.
We simply can’t allow this type of perverse vandalism to sully our great community.
