YORKTON — A Yorkton family has crafted a unique response to a recent hate crime.
In an interview with Yorkton This Week and SaskToday, Becky Willems said someone spray-painted a homophobic slur on her family’s garage, house and shed. The incident occurred late on Aug. 11 and was discovered the following day.
Two of her three children are members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Willems recalled that her son discovered the graffiti after he exited the home to go to work.
“He quickly stopped and sent me a picture. So, when I woke up, probably around 8, that’s when I found out what had happened,” said Willems.
The vandalism was noticed in stages. They initially observed the damage to the garage. Then they saw spray paint around a house window, and a day or two later, they saw a slur on the back shed. Willems is certain all three occurred at the same time.
After calling police, Willems contemplated how she could quickly remove the spray paint so her other kids wouldn’t see it.
“A neighbour actually messaged me early in the morning and said, ‘I could come over and help you get rid of it.’ That [removing it] was my initial thought,” said Willems.
But she also didn’t want to act like it embarrassed them, because having gay kids isn’t a source of shame for her.
“I felt like if we just quickly tried to erase it and hush it up, that we were the ones that were embarrassed. We’re not embarrassed. We’re proud of our family,” Willems said. “So then right away I just thought we should make it a celebration instead of something that was meant to be shameful.”
The message on the garage started with “Family of”, and was followed by the slur, which Willems said she found “quite offensive”, because the individual attacked her family.
“He knows that he’s attacking the family and he made sure to include that it’s the whole family that should be ashamed, and that bothered me,” said Willems. “I feel like family is such a beautiful, positive word. I wanted to leave that part of his message, and then just fix the rest of the message to show what is really true about us.”
They brought out some paint, decorated the message and made it positive, she said.
"It’s not a permanent solution, because I’m not a very good artist. None of us are. We’re not going to leave it up like that forever. We’ll have to repaint it,” said Willems, who called the effort healing.
The message on the garage now says “Proud family of 2SLGBTQ+”, with a rainbow painted over the slur. Willems' daughter wanted the black graffiti on the house gone, so she painted flowers over top of everything. One of her kids’ friends, who is artistic and can paint, came over and painted over the back shed with a flower and a quote.
Willets’ son drew a rainbow all the way down the sidewalk in front of their house using chalk.
“People came over from across the street and stopped in to say how they felt about what has happened, and to offer their support and love. It was a beautiful day. We had people messaging us and phoning us, too,” said Willems.
She put up a post so her close friends could see what the family had done. By the end of the day, they felt surrounded and supported by the community.
“My son said ... ‘I never understood why people talk about small towns, and how great small towns are,’ because for him, and he’s gay, sometimes that can mean bullying and isolation.
“But that day, he said, ‘I finally think I understand why people love being in a small community, because it did feel very much like family’ ... because it felt almost like the whole community was behind us. The mayor reached out and some school principals that we know reached out.”
On that day, they found out how much their kids are loved and supported in the community. Her children didn’t cry when they saw the vandalism, but they cried when people showed their support or expressed their dismay at what happened.
A lot of little gestures occurred, ranging from words of support and encouragement, to one person dropping off a couple of Pride flags they had at their home.
“Once all of those little things added up, it was like a mountain of things, and you couldn’t look at the original hatred and feel like that was the main thing. It wasn’t the main thing, the main thing was how people responded, and I just thought that was amazing.”
This is the first incident of this kind in Yorkton that she knows of. Her kids were bullied a bit in school, she said with slurs directed towards them.
“We do feel like it is one specific person, not the whole community. I don’t think it needs to be a dark stain on our community, because it’s not.”
After the hate crime happened, Willems said people encouraged the family to purchase security cameras, only to find out they are expensive. So friends sent her e-transfers and started a GoFundMe campaign, which allowed them to purchase a security system.
“I’m pretty sure that will be a good enough deterrent to keep them from doing something like that again,” said Willems.
An arrest has not been made in the incident.
