Messages of love and support were posted on a heritage building in Victoria’s Chinatown just days after it was tagged with racist graffiti.
On June 5, a racist message was discovered on a white column in front of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s Victoria Chinese Public School, located in the 600-block of Fisgard Street. The message appeared one day before a planned Black Lives Matter event in downtown Victoria.
Allen Ma, president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, told CHEK over the weekend that he and some of his colleagues went down and cleaned off the message themselves because they couldn’t find anyone else to remove it.
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However, this week new messages appeared out front of the Victoria Chinese Public School. Only this time, they were positive messages, cut out in heart shapes, and hanging on the fence out front of the building.
Many of the heart-shaped messages read, “You belong here.”
In a post on Twitter showing the building with the positive messages, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said “This is the Victoria I love! There is room in our city for everyone to belong.”
VicPD is still investigating the racist graffiti incident and are asking anyone with information about it to call 250-995-7654, and select option 1 for the report desk or anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.
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Nicholas Pescod
