County Council hears residents’ experiences with racism

Clark County Council’s three-part series intended to hear how systemic racism has affected those living in their jurisdiction continued last week, as a number of members of the public testified on what they have seen in their own experiences.

On Aug. 12 council took part in the second of three listening sessions intended to address systemic racism. Spurred in part from a resolution council unanimously approved earlier this summer acknowledging and denouncing such racism, council heard from a variety of individuals who recounted instances of discrimination by employers, the police and government due to being people of color.

Listening session moderator Nancy Retsinas acknowledged that “for so many people it’s scary to consider coming to the table and being honest with your experiences, especially when you don’t feel seen, or heard, or understood.”

“That feeling is one we can all relate to, to some extent, no matter who we are, where we come from or what the color of our skin is,” Retsinas said, asking for listeners to anticipate some discomfort while keeping an open mind about the discussion.

“We are stretching new muscles here, folks,” Retsinas remarked.

Adam Aguilera, Heritage High School teacher and former Vancouver City Council candidate, referred back to the first of the sessions where representatives of partner organizations spoke, including NAACP of Vancouver, the Clark County Volunteer Lawyers Program, YWCA of Clark County and the Southwest Washington League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

Aguilera said that during the first listening session July 31 the presenting organizations were “professional, eloquent and factual” in their overview of systemic racism in the county.

“They did their homework. They fact-checked their presentations,” Aguilera said.

Aguilera led off the members of the public speaking, pointing to the Clark County Council Chair’s position as representative of the entire county as well as council’s previous unanimous decision to approve the resolution about systemic racism, seemingly at odds with later statements from chair Eileen Quiring’s statement that “I do not agree that we have systemic racism in our county, period,” she made.

Carmela Lemon, also a local educator, said the lack of diversity in Clark County school systems left her “unsettled” in her roughly nine years working in the area.

“Up until three years ago I was the only educator of color in our building,” Lemon said. She said that growing up in a largely Black community she was able to see herself in educators, something she felt wasn’t available to students of color locally.

She recalled an instance of a guest teacher “looking for Mrs. Lemon” when entering her classroom, expecting someone who was not Black to be teaching the class, to the bafflement of Lemon’s students.

“But the hardest part is when other parents come to me, and they share personal experiences of racism in the district,” Lemon said. “I can’t be their advocate, because I can’t even be an advocate for myself.”

One speaker, Shanel Jones, recalled her son being called the N-word by a fellow student and having the situation explained away as a result of the other student’s apparent behavioral problems.

“It totally does something to your whole body when you’re called that,” Jones remarked.

Clark College Director of Student Equity and Inclusion Melissa Williams said there wasn’t reason to believe any elected officials or public leaders were deliberately intending to enact policy that harmed people of color, but that didn’t mean existing issues did not need to be addressed.

“It’s not that anybody created the policy to disproportionately impact people of color, but that’s the outcome,” Williams said. Allowing that outcome to persist was at the heart of systemic racism, she explained.

Resident Sidney Clark recalled being threatened by an individual he didn’t know at a local store who told him that he “would be a dead man” if he returned to work at his Washington State Department of Corrections job.

“I think the part that really hurt me the most, in terms of being in law enforcement and how I was treated (was) going through the process of trying to file a hate crime,” Clark said. “They were more nervous about not necessarily what was happening to me about bringing it forward and dealing with it.”

Nancelia Prince, a lifelong Clark County resident, compared her experiences with being pulled over by police compared to her neighbor, who had a similar experience growing up and attending the same schools.

“Growing up as a Black girl in Vancouver, I had to drive very carefully,” Prince said, adding that while she had been pulled over some 10 times between the age of 16 and 23, while her white neighbor had not been pulled over once in her life. Her experiences with systemic racism also affected her professional career, as she said even with an advanced degree, promotions have been elusive despite being qualified.

“The workforce constantly reinforces the notion that I am expendable and unwanted,” Prince said.

Vancouver NAACP member Shareefah Hoover expressed concern over inferred hostility from elected officials from Yacolt and Woodland, two municipalities that had rejected resolutions acknowledging and denouncing systemic racism. She also mentioned the presence of a Confederate flag displayed at the Clark County Fair, a symbol that in recent years has received renewed scrutiny in discussions about the symbol’s meaning with regard to bigotry.

Resident Shelly Prothero said that the systemic racism found in Clark County was comparative to what she had seen growing up in Bruce, Mississippi, which she said was a “stronghold” for the Klu Klux Klan.

Prothero recounted deficiencies in low-income housing access, as well as hearing from a neighbor who was passed over for work in healthcare.

“If a healthcare provider can’t be treated equally, how can patients be treated equally?” Prothero asked.

Several of the county councilors expressed thanks for the members of the public giving testimony at the end of the session. Councilor Temple Lentz appreciated people of color being willing to express what were often painful experiences they had faced through racism present in Clark County.

“Thank you for stepping forward, sharing your stories and making yourselves vulnerable to us so that we can hopefully take what we’re learning and move forward to make positive changes in the community,” Lentz said.

“I hope this is the beginning of larger and broader conversations moving forward,” Councilor Julie Olson remarked.

The final listening session is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 26, for members of the public who would prefer to share their experiences privately. The meeting will not be recorded, and a summary without identifying details will be provided afterward for the public record.