LEWISTON – The seventh annual Stand Against Racism event at the Lewiston YWCA took place on Sunday, and the women who organized the event are hoping the conversations that took place during the forum will spread to the homes of their community.

“At a place like the YWCA, where they promote healthy eating and healthy everything else, why not also promote healthy conversation,” said YWCA Community Outreach Specialist Saba Nagi.

The purpose of the event, said Board President Kristine Kittridge, is to “create a safe space for people working on racial justice and raise awareness about the negative impact racism has on a community.”

This year’s theme was ‘overcoming adversity,’ and a panel of three women told their stories about the challenges they have faced and how they were able to overcome them.

“Everyone goes through something, and it’s those experiences that make us who we are,” Nagi said. “It’s so important to have good conversations about different experiences and backgrounds.”

Panelist Tonya Bailey-Curry, a YWCA board member, shared the values and advice her mother impressed upon her growing up, and talked about the unique hurdles that she encountered having a white mother and black father, and how her own children and grandchildren face those same hurdles.

“I grew up in Androscoggin county, and there were not a lot of people who looked like me. Thankfully I had a really progressive mom,” Bailey-Curry said. “She told me there will come a time when you have to speak your truth, and it may be uncomfortable.”

Kirsten Daley of the University of Maine’s Office of Multicultural Student Life, said she came from a similar background — a white mother and a black father — but her father’s family was not involved in her life. She said she grew up in Aroostook County, “an all-white community.”

It was not until she went to live in Los Angeles for a short time, and found herself scared of her own people, that she realized the impact the culture in which she was raised had on her.

“The culture I grew up in gave me a predisposition to racism,” she said, citing a lack of black television heroes but an abundance of black criminals.

“Bias isn’t this thing we make up to blame people for our problems,” Daley said. “We’re not saying you can’t say a person is black or you can’t talk to black people. This is a real, cultural thing that we’re trying to change, and without talking about bias and discussing bias, it’s never going to change,”

Hawo Abdille, community relations coordinator for Lewiston schools and a YWCA board member, said ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, “things have changed,” especially her experience at airports. She told the audience how she must go through a full search when she flies, because she wears a hijab.

“It takes courage to stand up for your people,” Abdille said. “Get involved, don’t let anyone stop you and don’t be silenced.”

Daley also urged the audience to speak out and be heard.

“There’s something so important about making noise, because then you become hard to ignore,” she said. “Realize the power you hold.”

Bailey-Curry chimed in with her own advice.

“Deliver your message with love and you can’t lose,” she told the audience.

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