Following months of national and local protests against racial inequality, a cadre of community leaders in the city of Columbus and Lowndes County gathered Tuesday night at the Municipal Complex for a discussion about the racial dynamics in the nation and, in response, how to improve race relations within the community moving forward.
The event — titled “Let’s Talk, Columbus” — featured several public officials, including Columbus Mayor Robert Smith, Police Chief Fred Shelton and District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith. Other community leaders — including Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science Executive Director Germain McConnell, Columbus Air Force Base Commander Col. Seth Graham, Allegro Family Clinics President Amy Bogue, Bishop Scott Volland with The Bridge and Main Street Columbus Executive Board member C.J. Andrews — also served as panelists.
The event was livestreamed on the mayor’s Facebook page. Aundrea Self, news anchor for WCBI, hosted the event and took live questions from the online audience.
Mayor Smith told The Dispatch he hopes to hold the event at least once a month. The discussion was born from a conversation he had with CAFB spokesperson Rita Felton months ago, he told the panelists Tuesday night. Felton asked him to form a panel to talk about race relations, he said, and to encourage the public to join the conversation.
“We see unrest, we see pain, we see neighbors and fellow citizens angry at one another. Much of these actions are rooted in racial inequality,” Smith said at the beginning of the discussion. “We are not here to challenge (each other) or debate, but to understand each other and have a conversation.”
Several panelists said they felt the need for such discussion to take place following George Floyd’s death in May. Floyd, a Black man, died after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. His death has sparked national unrest, calling for racial justice and the end of police brutality.
The movement for racial equality gained momentum after Floyd’s death, Shelton said, largely because the death was documented on video. The video reached a wider audience than it normally would have, he said, because people consumed more content from social media and news outlets during the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, it happened, but it brought about purpose. And that purpose is that we as law enforcement officers, we’ve got to do better,” he said. “The other officers stood there, and they did nothing. They did nothing.”
Volland said the video offered live proof of a murder, which the audience cannot deny or look away from.
“You see another human being mistreated and ultimately lynched in the middle of a street,” Volland said. “It really was like a perfect storm to when (people) were vulnerable and emotionally raw, and it just resonated with people of all different culture bases.”
Bogue said she is not easily bothered by gory scenes as a health care professional. However, witnessing Floyd’s death on tape had an impact on her, she said.
“That video bothered me to my core,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of deaths in my career, but that’s the first time that I saw a murder.”
Within the local community, the movement against racial injustice — especially following District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders’ remarks that African Americans have remained “dependent” since slavery ended — needs to continue, panelists agreed Tuesday night. Sanders made the comments to The Dispatch on the record in June following his vote against the relocation of the Confederate monument outside the courthouse. Protesters from the community, as well as business leaders and most of his fellow supervisors, have since called for his resignation from the board.
Supervisor Smith said the movement carries on because the community is still hurting because of the comments.
“They can’t be swept away in a corner somewhere,” he said. “I realize that we have to grow, we have to heal, but … we got to address the issue.”
Addressing racial inequality, white privilege
Hoping to move toward racial equality, panelists said the first thing one can do to change the dynamics is to acknowledge the problem.
Bogue said she felt embarrassed that she had not acknowledged the difference between her and her Black friends. For her, she said, she had always assumed that “color-blind” was the solution.
“For me, being a Caucasian female, it was very nerve-racking to even acknowledge this. I’ve had several African American and friends of color throughout my life, but I’ve never acknowledged that we were different,” she said. “I did not understand the bias that was against them.”
Andrews said she realizes her privilege as a white woman.
“My son doesn’t cause people to clench their purses because of the color of his skin,” she said. “That reality … sometimes, as a white person, we forget that.”
Acknowledging the problem is a step toward having a candid discussion about race, which many panelists agree is necessary. McConnell said he used to have open discussions with his friends of different racial backgrounds. Creating a safe environment for people to step out of their comfort zone, he said, is an important step.
As an educator, Labat said teachers should set an example for their students in these race relations discussions. The district should offer a “culture diversity curriculum” — much like the 1619 Project by the New York Times, which aims to reset the beginning of American history to 1619 when the first Black slaves were shipped to Jamestown, Virginia — that teaches “truth” to students, she said.
“(It) is a moral imperative,” Labat said of the teaching of diversity. “If we can’t teach our kids the truth, then we are in a facade that this democracy is who we are as a nation.”
Church leaders should also help promote racial equality, Volland said. Some churches, however, have “perpetuated” the problem, he said.
“The church, in most cases, is playing catch-up right now,” he said. “Specifically the white evangelical church in America has been guilty of not simply condoning but even perpetuating racism and slavery. … The church needs to be a thermostat that sets the atmosphere in the culture.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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