Racist acts caught on video in New York, Minneapolis, Georgia and Kentucky may not seem relevant to the Snohomish County experience. The white population in Snohomish County might say, “Black lives matter here.” Although we, Snohomish for Equity, desperately want this to be true, we know that every day, black and brown people are profiled every time they leave their homes.
In March, an incident occurred at a popular Snohomish store. A white employee called 911 to escalate a false claim of theft against a young person of color. The young man showed he had not taken anything, but the woman insisted he leave the store. He complied, only to be met outside by four Snohomish police cars. No crime had been committed, and the police kept the situation calm, but as we have seen across the country, this situation could have escalated and turned deadly very quickly. This young man and his two friends were told they were not allowed to return to the entire shopping complex, despite no crime. This is blatant intimidation and racist.
Many white people don’t see themselves as racist, but they benefit from the inherent and ubiquitous racial bias that exists in every structure of our society from media, to banking, to policing and to business practices.
White people have been socialized to be unaware of how we benefit from the privilege of being white in a white-dominated society. Truly, it takes deep personal work to acknowledge our role in white supremacy and to recognize that if we are not actively fighting against racism and racial bias, we are complicit in its perpetuation.
We believe that black lives do matter here in Snohomish County and in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Snohomish for Equity is a community resource for exploring white privilege and structural racism. We are committed to anti-racism work in our community. www.snohomishforequity.org.
Rachel Escoto,Tabitha Baty, Lisa Odom, Joan Robinett-Wilson, Kathy Purviance-Snow, Troy Martez, Teresa Rugg
Snohomish for Equity Board of Directors
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