Neighbors and extended community members in Tenino, Washington banded together to try to fix racist vandalism perpetrated in their living space. Marvin Phillips and his wife and children had left to go on a camping vacation last week. While they were gone, some person or persons crawled out of their coward’s hut and painted a series of racist slurs and statements on the Phillips’ property. Covering their truck with “KKK” and other such obscenities, as well as painting similar ignorance on their home. The Phillips’ neighbors saw this hate and quickly went into action.
Community member Heidi Russell said, “He’s got small kids and they couldn’t even enjoy their vacation. I couldn’t let this happen. If I have to be out there by myself, I’ll do it.” So she posted an all-call on Facebook.
“It’s too cruddy of a world to have this kind of stuff happen in your own community and not do something about it,” Mike Vanderhoof, who works for the county fire district, told CNN affiliate KOMO. “Main thing is we wanted to make sure the family didn’t see this. Nobody [should] see this kind of junk in their life. Nobody needs that kind of hate speech.”
Russell posted this Facebook post on the Tcyfl Tenino Beavers Youth Football & Cheer page:
The community rallied around and by the time the Phillips family came home, most of the damage had been fixed.
Fighting back tears, Phillips said what touched him the most was a photo he saw of the cleanup. He said his friend was "holding her 2-year-old daughter and she was holding a paintbrush painting out the n-word."
"I'm grateful it happened, because my kids continue to act like we just had a big greeting party when we came home. When they go to practice today, it's the same old thing as it was the last day they went," said Phillips.
"But what I think mainly, even though we want to ignore it, even though it happens, there is still more love out here than hate."
You can watch a news story below.