AUBURN -As she sat in a meeting of white and black students Friday, Somali native Fartuna Ennaw said, “Who’d think I have a white best friend named Shea!”

She nudged Shea Flynn as she spoke. Both laughed.

Only two or three years ago, Edward Little High School’s climate was one of racial tension, said Ennaw and other members of EL’s student Unity Project, which works to reduce racism.

Thanks to students, “the school has changed so much,” Ennaw said during the group’s first meeting of the school year.

Before students began working to reduce racism, “It was whites hanging out with whites. Blacks with blacks,” Flynn said.

As a recently arrived Somali, in 2003 and 2004 at Edward Little “I felt unwanted,” Ennaw said. “I didn’t think the white people wanted to accept me.” White students looked at Somali students and “thought, ‘Wow. Look at them. They’re on welfare. They’re running our school.’ They were basically stereotyping.”

Some of that stereotyping included that Somali students didn’t know anything and would never fit in, “so you might as well stay on your corner,” Ennaw said.

Stereotyping wasn’t just done by whites. Ennaw said she did it, too.

“I was reacting ,too, in a rude way,” Ennaw said. She considered some of the white kids ignorant. She was angry. “I didn’t care.”

The tension led to physical fights between white and black students.

The fighting began the third day of school in 2004, said assistant principal Leslie Morrill. “It escalated throughout the year. Then the kids started to turn things around.”

That happened after the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence began working with students, said center executive director Steve Wessler. That was made possible by a grant from the fiancé of the late Morgan McDuffee, a Bates College student who was stabbed to death in 2002.

With Wessler serving as facilitator, black and white students met in their school, hashing out differences during an angry, two-hour meeting.

“We argued about race, about issues, about Somalians. About what happened during the fights, and why,” Ennaw said.

White kids said it was all right to use the ‘N’ word. Black kids told them no it wasn’t.

“During that meeting teachers realized things weren’t OK because of the way kids were arguing and feuding,” Ennaw said.

That arguing was the beginning of change, students said.

“We came together,” Tonya Cole said. “Now we’re friends. It’s not a white and black environment anymore.”

The atmosphere changed gradually. Unity Project students started speaking up when another student said something inappropriate.

“If there were racial comments in classrooms, we said no, it wasn’t right,” said Danielle MacDonald. “If people started arguing we said, ‘Stop.’ If somebody said anything, the ‘n’ word, or ‘That’s so gay,’ I’d turn around and say, ‘You don’t say that. That’s wrong.'”

McDonald said she was a little concerned that she’d become the object of ridicule, but she’d rather take that chance than not respond. And, “I had a lot of friends behind me.”

Racism hasn’t been eliminated at Edward Little, but students insist it’s less of a problem.

Many students’ circle of friends have expanded. “You’re not just hanging out with the same people,” Flynn said.

Ennaw said she’s happier, more open minded. When her middle school brother starts high school, he won’t have deal with as much racism, she said.

The Auburn students “did a phenomenal job” changing the climate, Wessler said. He’s brought several to Tennessee to work with schools there experiencing racial tensions, he said.

Change happens only “when students start taking responsibility,” Wessler said. “You can’t change the school climate by relying on teachers and school officers.”

Students said they have more work to do.

Upperclassmen need to teach what they’ve learned to underclassmen, said senior Tessa Matthews. “Make it known that racism isn’t right. Things need to be dealt with in the right way.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link