A racial slur on an empty building: Who will protest?

The racial slur is spray-painted neatly, deliberately.

As if the author had plenty of time and wasn’t worried about being caught.

“F - - - N - - - - - s,” it says.

It’s a shock to see it, too: so brazenly outlined on the steps of the downtown Kitchener building that used to be Trinity United Church, near Frederick and Weber Streets.

It’s right across from the courthouse, for heaven’s sake.

At midday on Monday, people walked past the ugly message. Some were in a hurry and didn’t even see it. One man glanced at it and winced. “Nice,” he said sarcastically.

The words are hate speech, just as much as a swastika or the initials “KKK.”

It’s appalling to see them here, on a block that has such a history of welcome.

Most of this section of Frederick Street between Weber and Duke streets is comprised of empty buildings. Starting in the fall, they’ll be demolished and the space transformed into a 33-storey condo tower by IN8 Developments.

When they were occupied, these walls housed a church with a long and proud legacy of community outreach, a restaurant, and a barber shop with a multicultural clientele.

The other building on that block is the YWCA shelter for the homeless.

The slur is “disgusting,” said agency CEO Elizabeth Clarke.

“We have a lot of people in the shelter who are of different cultures and backgrounds,” she said.

“People at the shelter already don’t feel very welcome in the community.”

Police are investigating the message. A call to the developer requesting comment on the slur was not returned by deadline on Monday.

The Trinity United congregation sold the building and moved out eight months ago. Worshippers have a temporary home at nearby St. Matthews Lutheran Church.

The congregation tweeted Monday that it was “really heartbreaking to see this” and added a wish that the developer would remove the message soon.

At another church across town, Rev. Jenn Hind remembers the time she encountered hate speech.

Hind, who is gay, is pastor at Emmanuel United Church in Waterloo.

Last year, her LGBTQ-friendly church found the spray-painted words “The church shall remain holy” and a reference to Romans 1:26, which suggests that nonheterosexual acts deserve punishment.

The police investigated the message as a hate crime. No one was arrested.

At first, the congregation was shocked and horrified by the ugly sentiment.

But then “we started to realize quite quickly the community in general was outraged and shocked as well,” Hind said. “We felt a sense of camaraderie and solidarity with the wider community.”

That led to a sense of hope and inspiration. A new Pride flag was raised, “bigger and brighter” than before.

Hind said the words written in downtown Kitchener are a hate crime that “cannot be tolerated.”

But, unlike the situation at Emmanuel, this particular act of hatred has no obvious group to push back.

The building is in limbo. The congregation has moved away.

Now it falls to the onlookers to speak out.