To the editor:

I am writing in response to the editorial from August 19 titled “We’re not racists.” This column admonished the growing number of residents and town officials drawing public attention to the subject of racism here in Barrington. I know a lot of people are asking themselves whether this problem is real or imagined. I think the 8/19 editorial was very helpful and informative on this subject, though not in the way I suspect it was intended. See, we can always expect our racist neighbor to tell us to mind our own business. But what does it mean when the publishers of our local newspaper suggest that Barrington residents should not speak out against racism every time we see it? Personally, I think the source and content of a message like that hints at where our community falls on the racism spectrum. You can decide for yourselves.

These past few months have had me marveling at how quickly and instinctively we white people shush each other on this topic. Where does that impulse come from? Making sure white people stay silent has actually been embedded in the racist structure for hundreds of years and there are so many ways we keep this tradition going that we have almost forgotten its origins. White silence in America started during the days of slavery; when white people who spoke up or tried to help enslaved black people were treated as criminals. Our white ancestors learned the hard way to ‘stay out of it’ or risk being ostracized and jailed. They fell in line and passed the art of silent compliance down to us until we just started calling it “good manners.”

But it’s not good manners when we look the other way simply because the victim of a crime has dark skin. I think we need to call that what it is: racism.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Charleson

Barrington