Racism - The Real Elephant in the Room

By Rachel Mendell

Inquirer Edi­tor

This news­pa­per has been called upon to deal with the issue of the racial slur uttered dur­ing an open meet­ing of the Galion City Coun­cil, Aug. 28.

If we are to deal with this, then we must deal with the root issue. Galion is a racist town. Like it, or not, we carry this rep­u­ta­tion in Mans­field and other towns in the area. (A his­panic friend of mine said the two cities he and his fam­ily steer clear of are Galion and Shelby.)

In my few years writ­ing for this paper I have heard sto­ries of teach­ers treat­ing black stu­dents with dis­re­spect, even going so far as to hurt them, and the inci­dent is cov­ered up. The fear of retal­i­a­tion is so strong that I have been sworn to secrecy.

I have heard sto­ries of local stores call­ing the police because they assumed peo­ple of color were shoplift­ing, even though there was no evi­dence. This is now called racial pro­fil­ing. It is still wrong.

I have per­son­ally wit­nessed young peo­ple call­ing a black man by the old 1960 insult, just because he was in the cof­fee shop at the same time they were and they felt they had the right to say it. Those young peo­ple were kicked out of the shop, but the prob­lem still remains.

I have been at meet­ings cov­er­ing the story for the paper and heard grown men, respected men within our com­mu­nity, make fun of every nation­al­ity. No nation­al­ity is left out, it seems. All are fair game for a laugh or a secret chuckle.

And do you remem­ber the gen­tle­man that came to town who had a British accent? Peo­ple even made fun of him, too.

If the city coun­cil­man who uttered the racist slur is expected to pub­licly apol­o­gize for the insult, then there are other apolo­gies that must also be forthcoming.

I ask that all the Galion school stu­dents that whis­per racist com­ments in class, walk­ing home from school, shop­ping at Drug Mart, hang­ing out in the park and stop­ping for a drink at McDonald’s please apol­o­gize for mak­ing fun of all those stu­dents and adults that are dif­fer­ent than you are.

I ask that all par­ents who utter racist jokes and com­ments at home please apol­o­gize for pass­ing this ugly habit on to your chil­dren and promise to lead your house­hold out of the 1950s.

I ask that all store keep­ers honor all those who are not white and serve them with the same respect as they do every­one else.

I ask all teach­ers and coaches to nip in the bud all remarks or cheers that have any­thing to do with lynch­ing the competition.

I ask all those who say directly after a racist com­ment, “I was just jok­ing” to under­stand that it is not a joke. What comes out of your mouth speaks of what is in your heart. If you were not racist, you would never have uttered those words. Please respect all other per­sons that are dif­fer­ent than you.

If you haven’t already heard this, then you need to know that sev­eral folks have spo­ken in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions with me of a curse being on Galion. This curse, it is said, is brought about because Galion has never pub­licly apol­o­gized for the lynch­ing of an inno­cent black man back in 1882.

You can believe that or not. The issue remains: The councilman’s com­ment is just evi­dence of a much larger prob­lem. We can choose to shrug and say, “You’re mak­ing a big issue over noth­ing.” Or we can decide today to be a bet­ter com­mu­nity, to strive to make friends with those we do not under­stand, to work together for the good of the city instead of point­ing fin­gers day in and day out at those we feel are worse sin­ners than we are.

We are talk­ing about respect.

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Aug 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.