CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — A crosswalk meant to inspire support and inclusivity has been defaced with white spray paint.
In June of 2022, Cleveland Heights Mayor Khalil Seren held the city's first-ever Progress Pride Flag Raising in front of Cleveland Heights City Hall to commemorate the beginning of Pride Month. Pride benches and crosswalks were also revealed.
"Pride is the insistence—in the face of intense resistance—that the LGBTQ+ community deserves real respect and substantive access to the rights that we all expect to enjoy," Seren said last year in a press release.
Cleveland Heights resident Amy Eugene described the city as "wonderfully diverse" and supportive.
When they saw in a Cleveland Heights neighborhood chat on social media that the pride crosswalk at the intersection of South Taylor and Superior was defaced, they immediately thought, "That's what you got?"
"It doesn't erase us. It doesn't cover us up. It covers a sidewalk that gets driven across by thousands of cars a day. You can't invisibilize us. You can paint it over, you can spray paint it, you can do whatever. It will not take us away," Eugene stated.
Another Cleveland Heights resident, Drew Herzig, said he feels the same as Eugene. He, too, found out about the vandalism through social media.
"It seems like minor vandalism, but it's the tip of the iceberg," he said. "There's a national campaign to force people like us to be invisible, to criminalize our existence, and we have to stand up and fight back."
Herzig said while he and his partner feel safe and welcomed in Cleveland Heights, they want to continue to feel that, and vandalism as such causes harm.
"The motto is all are welcome, and [the City of Cleveland Heights] really worked hard on doing that kind of thing. At the same time, prejudice and hatred exist everywhere as well, and there is no safe space unfortunately. There is no safe space currently in the country," Herzig added.
When City of Cleveland Heights Councilman Jim Petras found out about the vandalism, he told me he tried scrubbing the spray paint off the asphalt the other day.
"Some types of spray paint can be removed with detergent and so I found a bottle that was almost empty, added some water, came out here... just tried my best to scrub the paint out," Petras explained. "Unfortunately, I didn't make much of a dent, but I didn't want to use any solvents or anything in case it could further damage the crosswalk."
Petras said he alerted the city's Public Works Director, to whom he said he was told these pride crosswalks are repainted every spring.
"We’ll be okay. We're all in this together and a spray-painted sidewalk doesn't take away our joy in our community, our love in our community, our celebration in our community," Eugene said. "We're human beings. We're humanity and humanity just keeps doing what humanity does, and there's nothing that's going to stop that or invisibilize that or us."
While the crosswalk will be repainted soon, according to Petras, both Eugene and Herzig said they hope whoever did this is caught and faces some sort of consequence.
"I don't want to push anybody into counseling or anything like that, but some engagement maybe with my LGBTQ+ community to make them feel like, 'I don't have to be afraid of these people,'" Herzig said.
Eugene added, "If they should catch this individual, I really hope they have to do community service for a month at the LGBT center [and] pay for repainting the sidewalk."
As soon as we find out when the crosswalk will be repainted, we'll follow through.
