On Saturday morning, neighbors in South Toledo spotted a racist slur spray-painted on a vacant, for-sale home in their neighborhood.
Residents immediately called the real estate agent selling the property, but they were at a loss for words to tell her what had happened to the Ogden Avenue house.
WATCH: Vandalism reported at 600 block of Ogden Avenue (The following video depicts explicit language.)
RELATED: Toledo woman arraigned after N-word spray-painted on neighbor's home
The man who called her, Monica Davis said, was too distraught to say exactly what someone had painted on the brick home. He offered to send her a picture of it, but she didn’t need to see. She already knew.
Pictures of the vile scene were sent around, though. And they spread quickly. Many in Toledo had seen the images by morning’s end.
This is not Toledo, they thought.
And just as quickly, people showed up at the scene with power-washing hoses in hand.
A cheerleading coach, her students, other neighborhood residents, all joined in to scrub the house free of the racist stain.
That is Toledo.
The scene reminded many of a similar community response last year when a Sylvania Township family found graffiti that cursed Arabs and included a swastika on their garage. The community responded by temporarily transforming the vandalism into a message of love: “Toledo (hearts) Arabs.”
And when Toledo and the nation were left reeling last summer after nakedly racist violence claimed a life in Charlottesville, Va., the region again had to reckon with what to make of the horror. A Toledo man was accused of killing a woman when he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at the white nationalist rally.
How did Toledo respond? With a rally at the Love Wall on Adams Street. Leaders wanted to remind the region that Toledo is not just a tolerant place, Toledo is a pluralistic place, a welcoming place.
The Ogden Avenue residents who witnessed the weekend’s vandalism and recorded it with their home security system led police to another neighborhood woman, 47-year-old Patricia Edelen. She now faces charges of ethnic intimidation, criminally damaging property, and criminal mischief.
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What she is accused of doing understandably shocked, horrified, and saddened her neighbors and the rest of the region. She is not who we are.
What the community did in response was no surprise at all. Shoulder to shoulder, scrubbing away the hateful message on a future neighbor’s home.
That is Toledo.
First Published July 16, 2018, 9:43 p.m.
