Adrienne Coleman of the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora said there is an ugly truth about race in America.
“From the beginning, our black and brown children are starting out at a disadvantage,” Coleman said. “It’s very hard to play catch up.”
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Coleman was among a large group that came to the Aurora Public Library’s downtown facility Wednesday night for a forum on race relations that was hosted by Kane County Sheriff Donald Kramer.
A multicultural education specialist at IMSA, Coleman said that some people are oppressed because of their race, while others are privileged. She said there is not only individual oppression, but also institutional oppression that takes place in schools, governments and businesses.
It’s important to examine behavior and attitudes, both conscious and unconscious, when addressing oppression, she said. Everyone has bias, Coleman said, so understanding and checking that bias is important in order to see others for who they really are while remaining race conscious rather than race neutral or silent.
“Don’t say you don’t see race,” Coleman said.
And when talking about race, she said, also look at other aspects of identity.
“I’m black, I’m a female, I’m heterosexual, I’m educated, so it’s a lot to get to know me,” Coleman said. “Get to know your neighbors.”
Kramer said he hosted the forum because relationships between races in Kane County need to be talked about.
“Everybody deserves to have dignity and respect,” Kramer said.
Kramer said he would have liked to have thought he wasn’t racist at all but has been put in check by several people over time. If no one calls somebody out on racist or sexist statements, it doesn’t get any better, he said.
He brought three religious texts as props and said he’d read them all: a Quran, a Torah and a St. James version of the Bible.
“It doesn’t matter that I’m a Christian,” Kramer said. “I am not trying to force my values or my religion on anybody. What I’m trying to do is become tolerant of all religions.”
Aurora Deputy Police Chief Keefe Jackson said he grew up in housing projects on the South Side of Chicago. From the perspective of law enforcement, he knows the last few years have been tough, he said.
“A lot of the things we see on TV didn’t surprise me because I saw some of those things growing up,” Jackson said.
But policing as a profession starts from the top, and every agency is different, he said. Any Aurora police officer would tell you they’d expect to be criminally charged or fired if it was proven they acted against the law.
Sharron Mayes, of Aurora, asked a question directly to Kramer. Mayes asked what Kramer had done within his own department to address the issues driving the forum, and further asked why there weren’t more women and minorities in command positions.
“What steps have you taken in your own office to bring about cultural diversity?” Mayes asked the sheriff.
Kramer said he inherited much of his staff when he took office about two years ago, which included no female sergeants to promote, but he’s working on that, he said. While applicants are typically more white and male than the county’s population, Kramer said he has made a point of hiring minorities closer to the county-wide demographics.
He has hired 28 white males and six white females; eight Hispanic males and nine Hispanic females; three black males and one black female, making those hires about 62 percent white, 31 percent Hispanic and 7 percent black, according to data provided to the Beacon-News.
Kramer talked about going to high schools, trying to get young men and women engaged, and the junior deputy program he created, which has drawn in minority students.
It’s challenging in many areas, including the Aurora area, to attract minorities to law enforcement careers, Jackson said. A lot of that chalks up to historical distrust of the police, he said.
Jackson himself said he never wanted to be a police officer, until he was one. When Jackson, who has been with the Aurora Police Department about 22 years, decided to join the force, he’d been working on his master’s degree, his wife was pregnant and he needed a job, he said.
“Once I started in the profession, it became a different perspective,” Jackson said, “Being a black officer in a community that’s underrepresented by the police department, I think is a good position for me to share my experience and confront some of the biases that we have talked about.”
Coleman said people need to be aware of the issues concerning race relations in America. She noted how the work of Martin Luther King has meant so much to America. Because of it, she doesn’t have to sit at the back of a bus or drink from a separate water fountain.
“That was his dream, that this is my reality,” Coleman said.
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However, she said there is much work to do, and people need to take responsibility to bring about positive change for the sake of America’s future.
“Like me, there’s an unborn child somewhere counting on you,” she said.
Twitter @hannahmleone