FORT LANGLEY: New rainbow crosswalk defaced by heavy tire marks
Skid marks on public art installation ‘hurts my heart,’ says councillor who backed project
No more than a day after a rainbow crosswalk was put in place by the Township of Langley did it see its first visible act of opposition.
A photo shared on social media shows that at some point Friday evening or early Saturday morning a driver laid rubber over the crosswalk at Glover Road and Mary Avenue.
Langley artist Elaine Brewer-White, one of the people behind putting in the colourful crosswalk, said she wasn’t surprised to hear it had already been defaced.
“There is sadly a history of vandalism of these crosswalks across the country,” she said in an email Sunday. “A small group of angry people feel the need to do damage because they feel threatened.
“My first instinct was to also react in anger, but I realized that the whole message of the rainbow crosswalk is to cultivate loving kindness and inclusion, even to those who wish to cause harm.”
Brewer-White and some other artists first pitched the idea more than a year ago after 49 people were murdered inside a gay nightclub in Florida.
As part of their proposal, they raised all the funds needed to paint the crosswalk.
She said she believed the majority of Langley supported the installation of the crosswalk, which is meant to highlight inclusion, especially for people who identify as LGBTQ. The rainbow colours represent love, she said.
Brewer-White and her group brought the idea to Langley Township Coun. Angie Quaale, who brought the proposal to council. The local business improvement association also threw its weight behind the idea.
“I was looking at it as more of a public art installation,” Quaale said Sunday. “Art is something that not everybody loves. If we had painted blue chickens in the road, somebody would have been opposed.”
After careful consideration, council voted for the project. “It wasn’t done willy-nilly,” Quaale said.
Quaale was proud of the political statement that installing the rainbow crosswalk made about her community.
“Can you imagine living anywhere your local government didn’t want inclusivity?”
That someone had sought to vandalize the crosswalk disappointed, but didn’t surprise her as other public art installations in the community have been vandalized in the past.
A series of ceramic horses were installed, but were quickly vandalized, she noted, as were some newly planted heritage trees, which someone destroyed by running them over with their car.
“I don’t know if this was about a crosswalk or about being a jackass,” Quaale said. “It makes me sad. It hurts my heart that somebody would treat things so badly.”
Still, she did hope there would be productive discussions among residents over the damage to the crosswalk’s colours. Brewer-White had a similar hope. “This small crosswalk represents the beginnings of discussions we all should be having with our friends and neighbours in Langley,” she said. “I call on every religious leader and politician in the Fraser Valley to start generating these conversations and to lead with love.”
Brewer-White said she had encountered some people Friday who still weren’t happy with the new paint job. That disappointed her, she said.
“It’s time Langley evolved into a community that is inclusive and loving of everyone, no matter their race, religion or sexual orientation.”
Several communities in B.C. have installed similar crosswalks in recent years, including Vancouver and New Westminster. The New Westminster crosswalk was vandalized the same day it was installed in 2015.
Rainbow crosswalks have also appeared in Squamish, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo, Victoria and Kelowna.