Faith leaders, community members discuss local race relations
by Mary Campagna
“There are several false assumptions people have when thinking about racism,” Dr. Wornie Reed said Wednesday at a gathering of 21 Roanoke area clergy and concerned citizens who met at the Episcopal Diocese of SW Virginia to talk about racial reconciliation. “People believe that it no longer exists; racism is just something that bigots do; only those racist people commit racist acts; and we just need to get rid of prejudice to eliminate racism.”
Reed, 78, is the distinguished Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech, Director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center on the campus and a dynamic Dialogue on Race (DOR) Steering Committee member in the New River Valley (NRV). “Actually, the arrow starts with racism and points toward prejudice,” Reed said. “People are not born with prejudice; it’s learned within the context of a racist society; historic racism in institutions like law enforcement, businesses and school systems doesn’t just go away without a lot of intentional, focused work by communities.”
Penny Franklin, 58, a DOR Steering Committee founding member, kicked off Wednesday’s meeting by explaining the steps the NRV group took when deciding how to begin talking about race within the community back in 2008/’09. The DOR spun out of the Human Relations Council (HRC) of Montgomery County initiated by the board of supervisors and the Community Group, an African-American civil society. These groups attempted to address racial issues and to bring people together to focus on racial inequality in education and employment, but they were not totally successful in bringing a diverse group of people together to talk about these heavily charged issues.
“We called the U.S. Justice Department at first, and then we knew the way to begin was to directly approach African-American citizens of Montgomery County,” Franklin reported. “In our initial meetings between 2009 and 2013, we discovered that Black citizens of the NRV had a lot of concerns.”
So the DOR narrowed down the major issues to bite-sized portions. Franklin was the chairwoman of the group that focused on employment and income gaps between White and Black salaries in the area. Reed’s group zeroed in on issues pertaining to law enforcement. Several other focus groups also emerged to take on concerns in areas such as education and White privilege in business practices.
“We talked to a lot of human resources folks in the county,” Franklin said, “and one of the things we found was that that people say ‘I know you or I know this person and that person,’ but if they all look like you and not like me, that’s a problem.”
Franklin, the first Black woman to be elected to public office in Montgomery County has long, flowing hair and an elegant, demure; but she drives a truck for Hubble Lighting and her portfolio of accomplishments is as long as both of her arms.
“In a diverse group everyone wants to talk about everything, but we are focused on improving the lives of African Americans in the NRV,” Franklin said. “Each group meets weekly to tackle issues like the high drop-out rates for African Americans in the schools, the achievement gap between Blacks and Whites, and racial profiling. Then we gather for a yearly summit to discuss our findings, our work and our progress.”
Franklin said that each candidate for sheriff in the county came to talk to the DOR about why he or she should become sheriff. The DOR also has monthly meetings with the Christiansburg Police Department; a move that appears to have dramatically improved the relationship between the police and Black residents of the county.
In response to a question from the floor about racial profiling, Reed said his group is compiling statistics from every arrest in the NRV.
“We have to demonstrate {with hard evidence} that a Black person should not have been arrested,” Reed said. “Christiansburg and Blacksburg have a joint 911 call center.”
“I’m concerned with the Roanoke City Police Department’s tactics,” said Rev. Alonzo Smith, minister of Price Memorial AME Zion Church and an African American Contemporary Affairs teacher at William Fleming High School. “They already don’t look like us and they refuse to get out of their cars unless they are arresting someone.”
Smith, who serves on the Executive Board of the Roanoke NAACP, and a number of others who attended Wednesday’s meeting were inspired to action by the killing of Kionte D. Spencer, 18, by Roanoke County police (Feb. 26) in the county; a killing that has only been investigated by the county police department itself, despite citizens’ passionate calls for a federal investigation.
“The city police read to children once a month at the Gainsboro Library,” Smith said, “but that’s not enough.”
Smith expressed his feeling that the national heartbeat of the country is full of violence right now. “People are feeling vulnerable,” he said. “Here, the police occupy the community instead of getting to know people and working with them.”
Reed urged that citizens define racial problems prior to attempting to solve them. “For example,” he explained, “some White groups attempting to fight racism and other issues have stated that they want to train Blacks to serve on committees, but the truth is that Blacks were not invited to the various committees in the first place. So people are blaming the victim and incorrectly defining the problem.”
A citizen from the floor expressed his belief that more love is needed in solving racial problems. Reed countered that, although love is great, problems involving institutional racism cannot be solved only by looking at the behavior or intent of individuals.
“Small groups are best in attempting to find solutions to these kinds of problems,” Reed said. “And you can’t simply change individuals; you’ve got to change the way the system works.”
“Some people have chosen to worship Jesus instead of following him,” said Rev. Melissa-Hays-Smith, a Deacon in the Episcopal Church and organizer of Wednesday’s Conversation about Racism for Clergy and the Community. “As a deacon, my job is to interpret the needs of the world to the church. We are called to minister to the oppressed and the impoverished.”
Hays-Smith is on Bishop Mark Bourlakas’ mission team. She said that the RT. Rev. Bishop Bourlakas has been with the SW Virginia Episcopal Diocese since the summer of 2013.
Bourlakas is, reportedly, very progressive, both in his ideologies and in his actions. He received a handsome greeting when nearly 1,200 people attended his Roanoke ordination service.
“There’s a great opportunity for the Episcopal Church right now,” said Bourlakas in earlier interviews for the Episcopal News Service and Epiphany, the diocese quarterly. He said that the church must focus on both mission and millennials.
“How … can we be more inclusive?” Bourlakas asked. “For the past 20 to 30 years we have attracted people who were already religious. The church that bishops are now inheriting is a totally different church. It’s a post-Christian America.”
Joan Wages from Justice for Kionte (JFK) chatted informally with Hays-Smith and Rev. Alonzo Smith before the meeting. The three activists agreed that Roanoke still suffers from the “Sundays- is- the- most- segregated- day-of- the- week- syndrome.”
“The young people don’t understand it,” said Alonzo Smith. “There are so many interracial relationships today, so they don’t see why there is still so much racial strife and injustice.”
“If people would just go out and talk to victims of racial violence like the families and those affected by Kionte’s death,” said Wages with tears in her large, sad eyes, “they would see the need for reconciliation among the races and the need for justice.”
“What about other races and cultures in the Roanoke Valley?” asked Saleem Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Jefferson College of Health Sciences, addressing his question to Reed. “Are you dealing with racism that may affect them?”
“The stats we are collecting measure arrests of all races and cultures in the NRV,” Reed replied. However, Reed emphasized the need to concentrate primarily on the plight of African Americans at the present time, while encouraging other racial and cultural groups to organize and share their experiences as well.
“Some people may be getting arrested, but we are getting killed out here!” Reed exclaimed. “I grew up in North Carolina,” Bourlakas said, “so I was familiar with southern segregation, but I’ve observed more segregated communities here in the Roanoke area than anywhere I’ve ever lived in the South.”
“That’s why we visit your church, your temple or your synagogue,” said Katie Zawaki, representing Voices of Faith, a local group committed to promoting interreligious understanding and relationships.
Zawaki said that Voices of Faith also hoped to encourage racial reconciliation, community dialogue and an appreciation of diversity within the community. On September 18th the group plans to visit Temple Emanuel, seeking to understand the sacred and what to expect in a Jewish service. Zawaki and others urged community members to break the cycle of segregation by getting to know people of other races and cultures.
“Get to know the African American people in your community,” said Franklin to the group of mostly Caucasian clergy and activists. “We knew we were diverse, but we’re still so segregated,” Zawaki said.
Following Wednesday’s gathering, Hays-Smith said that in the near future small groups would begin to organize to start the work of racial reconciliation in the community.
“We’ll start with the Justice for Kionte Coalition,” Hays-Smith said. “We need more activists in the church,” said The Rev. Alexander D. MacPhail of Christ Episcopal in Roanoke. “This continues to be the mission field for Christians; racial reconciliation is part of the ministry of Jesus Christ.”
