As a former member of the Northampton Human Rights Commission and a member of the Disability Commission in Easthampton the recent incident involving racial bias at Smith College is ridiculous and profoundly sad, but what is even sadder is the fact that this student has no local resource with affirmative action within the city to develop dialogue and to come up with appropriate and fair resolutions within that realm to adequately deal with this situation.
This is a perfect example of what happens when a Human Rights Commission by its local charter is left without the power to deal with or inquiry into such acts on a local level and I think it’s time for our local officials to wake up and stop being complacent about bias and discrimination in our society.
Instead of turning to social media and having massive sit ins and protests every time a person of color is mistreated in their day to day life we need to do our part to ensure that people who are found in discriminatory and sometimes absurd situations have the means to deal with this and our local institutions need to have legal mechanisms to deal with this fairly for all involved.
These ridiculous incidents of calling police on people of color are wasting the taxpayers money, police resources which could be utilized for more urgent calls and exposing people of color to a situation which can lead to serious consequences for no logical reason.
It’s time to be proactive and not reactionary. I have nothing but sympathy for this Smith College student and hope that this situation can be dealt with in a proactive manner for all parties involved without turning this into an international incident. It is important for the offender to make amends for his or her actions but to do so in a manner which is not going to turn into a public witch hunt and to instead do so on a restorative justice level for healing and understanding to begin.
A progressive school like Smith should have a tight handle on this absurdity, but apparently work needs to be done and I hope it can be done in a positive manner which will open dialogue and develop a better community for the Smith student body.
Douglas Ross
Easthampton