From: David L. Evans <dlevans@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Dec 30, 2007 9:16 AM
Subject: Racist Threats in Maine
To: Perry Gregg <pg@harvardsf.org>
Perry,
According to Friday's (12/28/07) New York Times (see article below) a
man threatened to shoot "any and all black persons" who attended a
meeting of the N.A.A.C.P. in Bangor, Maine earlier this fall. Maine's
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas Harnett, said that
his office receives 250 to 300 reports of bias incidents annually and
most are racially based.
Perhaps it's time to apply to Maine (and companies doing business in
that state) socioeconomic pressures similar to those applied to
Alabama, Mississippi, etc., back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Reminds me of something attributed to Malcolm X: "Things like that
happen down South, that is, south of the North Pole."
Best regards,
David
____________________________________
December 28, 2007
Threat in Maine, the Whitest State, Shakes Local N.A.A.C.P.By ABBY GOODNOUGH
BANGOR, Me. In October, the N.A.A.C.P. chapter for northern Maine
got shocking news. A man from a nearby town had threatened to shoot
"any and all black persons" attending the group's meetings at an old
stone church here, and state prosecutors were worried enough to seek a
restraining order.
Such remarks are not unheard of in Maine, the nation's whitest state,
which has fewer black residents 10,918 in 2006, or less than 1
percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau than some
neighborhoods of Chicago or New York. But nor are they usually so
blunt. The chapter has since held meetings at police stations and
canceled its annual Kwanzaa celebration, which normally draws people
from up and down the coast of Maine.
"It's discouraging and it's heart-wrenching," said Joseph Perry,
president of the chapter, which has 175 members from Augusta to the
Canadian border. "There are still people who aren't comfortable, who
don't feel safe."
The man who made the threat was Kendrick Sawyer, 75, whose doctor at
a veterans hospital in Augusta reported it to the police. Mr. Sawyer
also said that Maine "should be a 'white' state," according to court
documents, and that he owned a .45-caliber handgun. No criminal
charges have been filed, but law enforcement officers removed the gun
from Mr. Sawyer's home in Brewer, across a river from Bangor, and the
Maine attorney general's office filed a civil complaint against him.
"This man's threat was shocking in its specificity and the anger it
contained," said Thomas Harnett, the assistant attorney general for
civil rights education and enforcement. "It's not often you see
something articulated so clearly and so filled with acknowledged
prejudice."
Still, Mr. Harnett said his office received 250 to 300 reports of
bias incidents every year from around the state, most of them racially
motivated.
Many come from Lewiston, where more than 3,000 Somali immigrants have
settled in recent years. In July 2006, a group of Somalis were
worshiping in a storefront mosque there when a white man rolled the
head of a pig, an animal considered unclean in Islam, across the
floor. And last month, a Somali student at Lewiston High School said,
a white man threw sand and dirt in his face as he ran at a
cross-country meet.
Last year, a white man shouted racial slurs at a pregnant black woman
in Hancock, near Bangor, and kicked her in the abdomen, according to
Mr. Harnett's office. And in March, Assata Sherrill, a black resident
of Bangor, told the police that three white boys had thrown stones and
shouted racial epithets at her as she walked her dog near the city's
waterfront.
Ms. Sherrill who lives here with her teenage daughter, a high
school senior who "hates every minute of it" and wants to attend
historically black Spelman College in Atlanta says she moved to
Maine from Detroit in search of tranquility. After the attack on her,
she organized a series of community forums to discuss race issues in
Maine. This month she held an alternative Kwanzaa celebration after
Mr. Sawyer's threat led the N.A.A.C.P. to cancel its larger version.
"I'm not about to stop living and holding celebrations because
somebody else is sick," Ms. Sherrill said. "As long as your skin is
black and you live in the United States of America, you are going to
be confronted."
This month a state judge signed an order barring Mr. Sawyer from
threatening, using violence against or even speaking to any of the
chapter's members. It also requires him to stay at least 150 feet away
from anywhere the N.A.A.C.P. meets. A hearing has been delayed for six
months while Mr. Sawyer gets medical treatment and counseling, Mr.
Harnett said.
Ms. Sherrill said that from her perspective, Mainers were not so much
racist as insular and suspicious of anyone from, as they put it,
"away."
"Anybody from away, regardless of color or whatever, is different," she said.
Mr. Harnett said that he did not think Maine "more hateful" than
other states but that it was perhaps better at encouraging people to
report bias incidents.
"Because we have these systems in place," he said, "we are more aware
of what's happening and more responsive to what's happening."
Mr. Harnett's office provides civil rights training to more than
3,000 student volunteers a year, organizing them into teams to address
incidents of bias and harassment in the state's public schools. Many
of the state's hate crimes are committed by young men in their teens
and early 20s, he said, so the training starts in elementary school.
Bangor, a city of 31,000 people, does not yet have a civil rights
team at its high school, the largest in the state.
"I find that rather amazing," said Mr. Perry, the local N.A.A.C.P. official.
Mr. Perry said his chapter had been inundated with supportive calls
and letters since the October threat. He thinks membership may even
rise as a result. Only about 35 percent of the chapter's current
members are black, he said, and he wants to see more.
"We're active," Mr. Perry said, "but not as active as I would like.
We want to get more people involved, do more things."
Next year, he said, the Bangor chapter may hold a joint Kwanzaa
celebration with its counterpart in Portland, which covers the state's
southern region. Until then, he will search for ways to get people
talking more frankly about racial tension in Maine.
"Something like this pops up," he said, "and you realize you have a
longer way to go. You can't just say it was one of those crazy things
that will never happen again
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company