Chapel Hill meeting looks to bridge racial divide

The town of Chapel Hill is actively working to combat racism through the justice in action committee, mayor-elect Mark Kleinschmidt said at a meeting Tuesday.

The meeting was held at the Hargraves Center with the aim of helping the community identify paths for racial healing.

“I know this committee well. They are going to take what they have heard tonight and put things into action in creating recommendations for the town,” Kleinschmidt said.

Emily Kelahan, spokeswoman for the committee, said it was the committee’s third meeting about race relations of the year.

“I think the goal of all of our meetings is to sort of take people out of their comfort zones and expose them to some of their own prejudices and biases,” Kelahan said.

“We’re kind of operating on the assumption that racism is a real problem, and we need to make solutions for moving forward.”

Race relations in Chapel Hill have recently been discussed after police mistakenly detained local barber Charles Brown, who is black, thinking he was a criminal they were looking for.

Committee member André Wesson said the Brown incident provides an opportunity for the town to solve any racial issues.

“I know Mr. Brown personally, and he feels the incident was a matter of racism,” Wesson said.

“This incident allows for Chapel Hill to examine how law enforcement deals with its citizenry.”

Kevin Hicks, an education committee member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Chapel Hill is good about promoting positive race relations, compared to other parts of the state.

“Chapel Hill lives in a bubble. It is seen by the rest of the state as liberal. Here things are blue, but out east things are red.”

Antonio Asión, executive director of El Pueblo, which advocates for North Carolina Latinos, said across the state, Latinos who are American citizens are racially profiled.

“I get called on a daily basis, and people say the police officer stopped me and took my money.”

 Asión said some Latinos are pulled over by police officers for what he called silly reasons, such as forgetting to use their turn signal.

Local poet CJ Suitt opened up the panel by reading a poem he wrote highlighting the racism he sees in Chapel Hill today.

“I’m no racist, I have black friends, it’s just the ones I don’t know that I’m afraid of,” Suitt said in the poem about the town.

Suitt said it is up to the Chapel Hill residents to solve problems relating to racism.

“In answering the question, ‘How do we heal the wounds?’ I think it lies in all of us to stand up for the things that we see happening,” he said.



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