ARLINGTON – Almost two months after a cross was set ablaze on a black family’s lawn, Arlington is struggling to heal the scar.
Community leaders met with Walter Atkinson of the U.S. Department of Justice last month to start mending the wound.
Tom Hudson, a black father whose daughter attends Arlington High School, said that meeting was a good start. But he worries that in the meantime, those efforts might have lost momentum.
“I felt that they should have scheduled another meeting within 10 to 15 days, where things would be fresh, and we didn’t have to backtrack,” Hudson said. “I think they missed that opportunity.”
Pastor Jason Martin, whose son, Tyshaun, was the target of the two white boys who admitted burning the cross, worried that summer vacation might cause further delay. He urged meeting soon so that a plan of action could be in place when school resumes in the fall.
Mayor Margaret Larson said the delay has not been for lack of trying. City staff and school district officials have been coordinating with Atkinson, trying to find a meeting date open to all.
“We haven’t forgotten,” Larson said.
In addition to the representatives of black, Asian and nonprofit communities who attended the first meeting, the city is planning to invite American Indians, Hispanics and students to the next meeting, she said.
In the meantime, some high school students have continued their yearlong quest to improve their school’s social and cultural climate, said Barbara Marsh, curriculum director.
The group, which does not have a formal name, is hoping by fall to focus ideas on what to do, including class meetings, assemblies, mentoring or leadership training, she said.
Hudson and Martin renewed their calls for the school district to more actively seek out minority candidates for administrative and teaching jobs. Those calls came too late in the hiring process for a new high school principal in April, but a vice principal position is open, and candidates have not been selected yet.
Shirley Case, the school district’s personnel director, said all job openings are posted on various school-employment Web sites. Federal rules prohibit the district from using race as a factor, but she said the district would be open to sending the job postings elsewhere if it would help.
Hudson suggested calling the NAACP or a group called Seattle Community Corporate Reform.
At the April meeting, Atkinson said communities that succeeded in rejecting racist acts did so because of organized, visible, long-term campaigns against racism.
Larson wants to build on the first meeting. The stories people told of their experiences living as minorities in her native Arlington gave her new awareness, she said.
“It’s very easy to say that’s not happening in my town,” Larson said. “Sometimes we ignore things, and they really are happening.”
That same spirit is helping his daughter at school, Hudson said.
“I know that she feels a little bit more free to talk to other kids that are in the same situation when she’s having the same problem, as opposed to getting into a verbal confrontation,” he said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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