Zooming Through An Awesome Community Meeting On Racism

So, I certainly didn’t know what to expect when 21 people got together for the first-ever New Tampa and Wesley Chapel Zoom community meeting on racism on August 25, but I have to say that it was shocking, eye-opening, disheartening and heartwarming all at the same time.

How could it possibly have been all of those things at once? 

It was shocking because, from my meeting co-host — District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell — to military veteran April Lewis to my friend Nikii Lewis (all shown on this page), some of the stories told by the black and white people alike who participated in that meeting showed just how prevalent dealing with racism in our area and this country truly is and seemingly always has been.

It was shocking for me to hear that Rep. Driskell, a Harvard University and Georgetown Law-educated Tampa-based attorney originally from Polk County, has been assumed to be either the court reporter or the client/defendant as often as she has been assumed to be the lawyer.

It was eye-opening to hear Nikii, who lives in a mostly white neighborhood in Wesley Chapel, tell the story about her six-year-old daughter, who told her — at age 3 — that she’s afraid of white people, and that when her daughter was drawing pictures of people, she wouldn’t use a brown crayon because, she said,  she wanted the people “to look normal.”

And, it was disheartening to hear that April Lewis, a recent transplant to New Tampa who is suffering from PTSD after six years in the Army with two deployments, who also is a Gold Star wife whose husband was killed in Iraq, doesn’t feel safe when she walks into a store and doesn’t feel the same equality as I do.

But, the Zoom meeting also was heartwarming because several of the attendees who were white said that they were participating because they felt the need to do something in the wake of the recent shootings of black people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and others by law enforcement officials and the civil unrest that has followed those incidents across this country.

When I organized the event I didn’t know what my goal was — and I still don’t — but I do know that I truly do not want it to stop there.    

“I can’t even tell you how many times, as an attorney in court, that people have assumed that I was the court reporter or the defendant.” — State Representative Fentrice Driskell

“If my black skin is good enough to fight for this country, I can’t understand why my blackness isn’t good enough to receive the same equality as everyone else.” — New Tampa resident & Gold Star wife April Lewis.

“In one of the neighborhoods where Ronnell grew up in Tampa, there was an elementary school called Robert E. Lee Elementary, and that was just considered a normal thing. And, for too long, it was considered taboo to even talk about racism, so meetings like this are definitely a step in the right direction.” — Live Oak residents Ronnell & Brittaney Curtis

“When the George Floyd incident originally started, there were people in our own neighborhood patrolling in golf carts and (carrying) guns, which was kind of concerning to us.” — Wesley Chapel residents Sara & Kyle Hill

“My son is half Hispanic and it was only recently he told us he was discriminated against in school. When I asked why he never told us, he said he didn’t think my wife and I would believe him.” — New Tampa hotel owner David Larson

“I was working as a prosecutor in Pasco County and got pulled over by a cop because prosecutors have their plates blocked out. He didn’t believe I was a prosecutor until he called one of my associates he knew who told him I was.” — Attorney & Wesley Chapel resident Cornelius Demps

“I grew up in a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania and we had no black people in our town. I remember we had a community pool and we were going to have a swim meet at the pool , but people in the town were concerned that something bad would happen if black people from other communities would be swimming in the pool. I wasn’t raised that way and I remember being shocked that anyone would think something like that.” — New Tampa resident Donna Harwood

“I worked as a speech language pathologist in the Pasco elementary schools and I am learning a lot about racial injustice in this country. I would like to do something about helping to change that situation, but I realize that (as a white person) I can’t lead that but I am here to learn and follow..” — New Tampa resident Naomi Lang-Unnasch.

Masks, Bars & The Response To My Call For Help

After I wrote about the aftermath of the George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks killings in our June 9 and July 7 Wesley Chapel issues and our June 23 New Tampa issue, I was very pleased at the number of emails/letters I received from both black and white reader — of, apparently, a number of different races, religions and political viewpoints — who appreciated my take on the current situation and offered words of advice and encouragement and something much more valuable to me than just the kind words. Many of those who wrote to me have offered to help start and/or get involved with a local grassroots movement that might help stem the tide of systemic racism and build better communication here.  

And, even though not all of the response has been quite so positive, there seems to be plenty of people interested in trying to figure out what we can all do to help — even those who have very different viewpoints about whether or not systemic racism even exists in our country.

One of the New Tampa readers who responded to my email wrote: 

“Your editorial is complete (bull____). I get it’s your opinion but I suggest you understand the definition of ‘systemic’ as you didn’t provide any instances of that.”

Well, silly me, I thought the fact that I had unknowingly tried to pass a counterfeit $100 bill at a bar and didn’t end up with anyone kneeling on my neck for 8:46, as George Floyd ended up for passing a counterfeit $20, was at least representative of the difference between how white and black people are treated in similar situations. 

I guess my mistake was that I just didn’t think I needed to give examples of the proof that systemic racism exists in our country because I believe in my heart that it does — as, yes, I have seen a few examples of it throughout my life. 

And, the important thing, to me, as the person who wrote the editorial, was that not only do I believe it exists, but also that I would like to somehow try to find a way to be part of the solution, even on a very small scale. 

Plus, every time I put my opinions in writing and directly mail them to more than 120,000 of my closest friends, I fully expect some people to disagree with me — and I’m even OK with it if they are vehement in that disagreement. That’s the risk I take for having opinions and I’ve never wavered from being willing to take those risks for the last 26+ years and — because I live in the United States of America — I still always believe in everyone’s right to their own opinions, even when they differ from mine. That’s just who I am.

I am still looking for additional people who also want to help. At this point, I’m thinking about organizing a Zoom meeting for everyone interested in an open dialogue with people who may or may not share your viewpoint on the topic of racism. If you’re interested in being part of this initial attempt to try to find a better way, please email me at ads@ntneighborhoodnews.com. And please, if you already emailed me after reading last issue, you don’t have to mail or email me again to get involved. Everyone who already has sent me an email on this subject should have received an invitation to that Zoom meeting before this issue reached your mailbox. Thanks, and stay safe!

My Take On Masks Now

OK, I’ll admit it, I absolutely hate wearing a face mask out in public. But, unlike apparently too many people, I have been wearing masks in public places since just after St. Patrick’s Day.

When we first started wearing them, Jannah and I couldn’t find disposable masks anywhere, but we did find some nice homemade cloth masks being sold on the Wesley Chapel Community Facebook page, so that’s what we wore, although we sometimes just cut T-shirts to make our own masks when the others were being washed.

At that time, when most of Florida in general and Pasco in particular had very few cases of Covid-19, many people mocked me for wearing the cloth masks, saying that they have been proven to not stop the spread of the virus, etc. 

All I knew was that cloth masks were all we had and I wanted to at least wear something when I walked  into Publix or Walmart.

As Florida has been reopening the last several weeks (seemingly too quickly, however), and all kinds of face coverings have become much more readily available, the thing I have had trouble understanding is why so many people still have such a problem with wearing them — and no, I’m not calling you out if you have a true medical reason for not wearing one. 

I have been told by more than one local resident that the pandemic is a hoax because they didn’t personally know anyone who had died from the virus, as well as many who have just said, “I’ll never wear one, no matter what.”

I hope that, with Florida setting new Covid-19 case records almost every day at our press time —  and with bars in Florida not being allowed to serve alcohol on their premises since June 25 because so many of the new cases are younger people who still seem unconcerned about wearing masks or social distancing — more of us will be willing to adapt to this new “normal”…for quite a while still to come. For me, this is a public health issue, NOT a political one, so I wish more of us could stop politicizing it and do the right thing for all of us.