On a Monday morning walk with her dog through Sabraton’s Outdoor Learning Park, Lisa Weihman didn’t expect to see racial slurs spray painted on a bench and trashcan.
“I felt sick when I saw the word and I thought how much worse it would be if it was a word that was directed at me,” Weihman said.
The WVU associate professor of English said she decided to take ownership of the problem and fix it. So, she went to Dollar General, bought two cans of spray paint — one green, one red — and covered the slurs.
The slurs were spray painted onto a red bench and a green trashcan in large black letters.
“It was just so upsetting,” Weihman said. “It occurred to me that I’m just a random white woman who happened to encounter it so my engagement to the word is very different than it would be if I were African American. I just didn’t want anyone else to stumble upon it.”
Friends of Deckers Creek takes care of the park and before deciding to take action Weihman contacted the nonprofit through its Facebook page.
She also took before and after pictures in case anybody stumbled on her painting the park’s equipment and sent the pictures to FODC so they would be aware of the situation.
“I’m really happy that someone who was so inclined to take action found it,” FODC Operations Manager Jonathan Suite said.
There are issues with the park such as people using it as a location to shoot up drugs, but Suite and Weihman both said they’ve never seen anything like Monday’s vandalism in the park before.
“Really it’s kind of a mystery to us,” Suite said.
Weihman said the location of both slurs were at the back of the park near the river where it would be unlikely for the culprits to be spotted while doing their vandalism — making the culprits both racist and cowardly.
She said she just doesn’t get the point of the act.
“This was just me taking advantage of an opportunity to do something very, very small,” Weihman said.
