This article contains discussion of offensive racist obscenities and imagery

After long bouts of harsh rain, the wall across from the math building in the breezeway reveals an obscene message. More than five years ago, out of school hours, it is alleged that an attendee of a sports event wrote out the n-word in harsh chemicals on a brick wall. 

“Last year we put a tarp over it so it wouldn’t be visible…We took the tarp down, and I believe they tried sanding it off, pressure washing, just different things. So you believe it’s fixed. And then you come back to a new school year, it rains and it’s still there,” Assistant Principal John Pichon said. 

This week, GBHS faculty has taken steps to permanently seal over the vandalism, ensuring it will never be visible again. Most recently, the slur reappeared in the breezeway wall in mid-December.

“This week, we brought in a company to apply a clear protective coat to the wall. This coating will prevent water from penetrating the brick and ensure that the previously removed vandalism doesn’t reappear,” assistant principal over faculties Sara Wetteland continued. 

The identity of the vandal was never found, nor was their school of origin, though to the left of the slur, “Casa Roble,” the name of a high school in Orangevale, is written out. The fading remains of the slur continue to appear seemingly out of nowhere, only after the brick and mortar is exposed to heavy rainfall. 

“The brick’s porous nature allowed the stain to seep deeply into it. As a result, during extremely wet conditions, the stain reappears on the wall,” Wetteland said.  

Each time the slur reappeared, some students saw it for the first time—at different times and in different contexts. Iman Tahir, a senior at GBHS, saw the slur on the wall her junior year. 

“It was February, so it was Black History Month. And from my knowledge, I thought that this was just written, like it was freshly written, because it kind of just appeared. And it was making me mad that admin didn’t do anything about it immediately, it was literally there for days,” Tahir said. 

Tahir is the current president of the Black Student Union, and when she brought the incident to the attention of her club, they were appalled. Other students did not have the same reaction.

“Everyone else around me was also staring at the same wall…and they were laughing at it. They thought it was funny,” said Tahir. “The way that it’s said when it’s derogatory is extremely harsh and it feels like a deep, deep, deep insult, because they’re just trying to hurt you.”

Tahir recalled seeing images of the vandalism across social media and hearing it as a topic of discussion around campus.

“It’s a very small minority group here, you’re talking less than 50 students on this campus that are Black,” said Pichon. “So when you’re already in a population where you’re the minority, and then you have to see something like that written on the wall, it’s going to make you feel very uncomfortable.”

When vandalism occurs, photos are shared with other schools in the district in order to identify the perpetrator. However, Gregory Sloan, principal of GBHS, described how this process has a low success rate. 

While the slur is invisible for most of the year, the few days that it appeared were heavily impactful on students and staff. 

“It makes the teachers feel uncomfortable, the adults on campus and the custodians who now have to clean that and also the kids that are not Black are uncomfortable too, because it’s like, what if I’m not I’m not black, but I’m your white teammate?” Pichon said.