Is Westport a racist town?
Are we antisemitic?
Listening to the local and national news — and reading some comments on this blog — the answer seems to be “yes.”
The other day, a Black parent tearfully told the Board of Education that her 2 daughters were victims of racial slurs and harassment, at Bedford Middle and Staples High Schools.
Dr. Carol Felder (right) and her husband Richard Anderson, speaking at a recent Board of Education meeting.
Barely 2 months earlier, a Jewish parent wrote in Newsweek that his middle school son was taunted so badly, he enrolled in a private school.
Both times, some “06880” commenters wondered what our schools are doing to punish the perpetrators of hate speech, and stop it from happening in the first place. (Privacy laws prevent administrators from discussing specific disciplinary measures, like suspensions and expulsions.)
Others noted that children’s attitudes are shaped first in the home. “You’ve got to be carefully taught” to hate, they wrote, echoing lines from “South Pacific.”
Deniers and apologists shared space in the Comments section. Emotions ran the gamut: rage, sadness, frustration — sometimes all in the same response.
But issues of racism and antisemitism are not new. When it comes to acceptance, Westport has a checkered past.
In the 1940s, a Black community thrived at 22 1/2 (now 28) Main Street. It included residents, a grocer, barber shop and church.
In December 1949, members asked the Representative Town Meeting to be considered for new affordable housing planned for Hales Road.
They were rebuffed. A local newspaper predicted “great loss of life” if a fire threatened the “slum housing” on Main Street.
Eight days later, 22 1/2 Main Street burned to the ground. Arson was suspected — but there was no investigation.
Burned out of Westport, the residents moved elsewhere. Soon, they were forgotten.
A 2018 exhibit at the Westport Museum of History & Culture included photos and text about 22 1/2 Main Street.
Two decades later, in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s murder, Westport’s interfaith clergy joined residents and Staples students to create an Intercommunity Camp.
Youngsters came from Bridgeport and Norwalk to Westport and Weston, for summer fun.
Not all Westporters were pleased. They opposed “busing” in kids from those town — and were even angrier when Project Concern (a program to bring Bridgeport students here) was proposed for the school year.
That controversy led to a recall effort against Board of Ed chair Joan Schine, who promoted the idea. The recall campaign — with antisemitic overtones — eventually failed.
For more than a decade, Project Concern thrived. Some of the friendships made in schools half a century ago continue today.
Walt Melillo teaching a Project Concern student, at Burr Farms School.
A successor of sorts is A Better Chance of Westport. For 2 decades, through a national program, academically gifted and highly motivated young men of color live together in Westport. Supported by host families, drivers and many others — including Black men who act as mentors — they give back as much to our town as they get from it.
For even longer, Westport has participated in Open Choice. The lottery program brings a few Bridgeport students here, beginning in elementary school. Participants have long described a variety of issues, including feeling “different” and ostracized, and — though there is a “late bus” — being unable to participate in after-school activities because of transportation difficulties.
Westport’s checkered past is religious as well as racial.
Stories of homeowners not selling to Jews — and country clubs excluding them — are real.
But after World War II, Westport opened up. The town was known as “not Darien or New Canaan.”
Temple Israel was the first synagogue. Today there are 4. Non-Jewish 13-year-olds go to so many bar mitzvahs, they joke that they know all the prayers.
Yet in late December Colony Road was hit by brazen thefts of lawn signs with the Israel flag, supporting that nation after the terrorist attack by Hamas.
This person put an Israel flag lawn sign in the trash barrel, and wheeled it away.
There are plenty of Jewish families in Westport today.
There are far fewer Black families — though certainly more than when I was at Staples, in the 1970s.
“Hate Has No Home Here” signs — ubiquitous a few years ago — still stand on lawns throughout town.
There is also TEAM Westport (the town’s official multicultural committee), and Westport 10 (a networking and social group for Black men and their families).
Both are important. But neither they — nor any program, or all 4 synagogues, or any other one “thing” — will remove the glare of the media spotlight from our town, or ease the perception that this is a racist, antisemitic place.
The truth is, we are a socioeconomically segregated, relatively homogenous suburb, in a state that, while socioeconomically segregated, mirrors the ethnic diversity of America.
We still have work to do.
We — Westporters of all ages — still must be taught not to hate.
But not “carefully” taught.
Instead: Forcefully. Consistently. And ceaselessly.