Kitsap youth know racism is real

Snow White she is not.

Oh, her hair is black. Her lips are red. And she's just as sweet. But her skin color, if it had a name, would be Coffee-With-Cream.

Betsy Baker's mom is Chinese. Her dad is American. And like many kids of color will tell you, the Central Kitsap High School senior reports some days are rougher than others.

Yes, their skin is different from those students who can trace a European family tree.

And local teen-agers and some of their teachers say it must be thicker. Dense enough to repel the stares and the suspicion. Strong enough to withstand being called a nigger. Or a spic. Or a gook.

"My mom's always telling me that you have to be nice to people, even if they're not nice to you. And I was, like, why?" The 17-year-old pondered that thought, doe-eyed and innocent on the steps of CK high school during a recent lunch hour.

CK is probably better than most when it comes to racial tension, she says. But it's not nearly as swell as the students insist when clustered in a big group.

It's a refrain repeated by several Kitsap County students attending local schools.

Fear is an obstacle in the path of truth. So is school pride. The other high schools, that's where it's at. The other administrators. The other kids. That's who does it.

But one-on-one, and almost without realizing it, they tick off lists of racial incidents as long as their arms.

Prejudice does exist.

They claim it's worse out in the community than in the confines of the classroom. And while their elders often question teen-age views, the students say the adults have a lot to learn about accepting different cultures.

Local students express the sentiment that sensitivity is growing. A nationwide focus on racism has fanned the fire needed to destroy the invisible enemy.

But it's there just the same. Maybe there are no cross burnings. No people cloaked in white. No lynchings. But it's there, and unfortunately, Baker says, it's subtle.

"There's a problem," she says. "We just don't see it much. And it's scary because you can't see people's thoughts. I almost wish if people felt that way, they'd do something. At least then you know where you stand.

"You just know that there are some people who talk to you because they have to, like if you work with them. It's like they talk at you, not to you."

Students of color in Kitsap County feel racism. Many merely tolerate it rather than confront those who provoke it. They've come to expect they'll be treated differently.

Ron Atkins, 17, is a jock from Bremerton High School- a three-season athlete. Even though he's Afro-American, he says because he is a skilled sportsman, he's well-liked and well-respected by teachers, students and administrators.

"But if I had a twin brother that came to this school, played no sports and got okay grades and occassionally missed a few, say eight days of school, well, he'd be treated a whole lot differently," Atkins says.

Then again, the BHS senior stresses that different treatment isn't solely based on race. When it comes to a brawl, a cheerleader or an honor student would fare better than a gang member, who most certainly would be looking at disciplinary action, he says.

Donna DeMeyer, a BHS counselor and multi-cultural club coordinator, says the students might view punishments as imbalanced.

"There are two sides to every story," she says, adding the administrators probably feel they are being fair.

This issue, teen-agers say, is important. Some students say they are angered when incidents are labeled racial because they involve a student of color.

Sometimes it's a case of friends fighting for friends, not against foes of a different race.

At the AM-PM market in Port Orchard one Friday night, a group of South Kitsap High School students said that a gang fight between a group of Filipinos and a group of Guamanians was not racially motivated.

And Guamanians who isolated themselves at the South Kitsap lunchroom, forming an "island," weren't making a racial statement, some students say. They were just hanging out.

"Who says anything if a group of white kids take up an entire lunch table," asks Tammie Eisen, a 15-year-old sophomore at SK. "No one. But the seniors do the same thing."

At times, racism is not the root of the problem, Atkins says. It merely surfaces when other problems escalate.

"Racial tension. It happens at schools because of a fight or something," Atkins says. "It comes out afterward, but it's never been just, 'I hate the brown guys.' "

Yet there's no denying the day-to-day friction students of color encounter. Sometimes, it's a sin of omission. No hair care products or beauty salons for black people. No mention of multi-cultural achievements in history. Few minority role models.

But usually, the teen-agers say it's because people don't stop and think about what they're doing.

On the basketball court, Atkins tries to ignore comments like, "Oh, niggers never miss free throws."

Joking around at the Kitsap Mall with his girlfriend almost got him arrested, he says. It's not unusual, students say, for kids of color to be followed by security guards or asked to disperse if they're in groups, at the mall and other retail establishments.

"You know, I'm standing at the Foot Locker and all of a sudden the security guard wants an ice cream cone," Atkins says. "Or, they tell me and my friends we have to leave, and I just turn my head and there's a whole group of white kids."

In response to that accusation, Joanne Beard, the Kitsap Mall public relations director, said: "Everyone thinks that they're picked on ... It isn't just picking out by color or ethnic origin. We know who the people are who come here to shop."

Josh Anderson, a former North Kitsap High School student, says local law enforcers sometimes have been insensitve to racial issues and failed to respond properly to complaints.

However, at a recent meeting of Poulsbo civic leaders, police officials said steps have been put in place to streamline the reporting process and the official action that follows.

But for most in the area, racism is more a matter of the tongue than of the fist.

Seville Nichols, 17, says she had an insensitive junior high school teacher. During a film on slavery, the teacher joked, "Oh, look, there's Seville picking cotton."

The BHS sophomore recalls with some angst that she was punished last year for retaliating when someone repeatedly called her a nigger. But things are better now, she maintains.

Things just got rough for Chelina Logue, a CK student. She is white. But her boyfriend is a Native American.

"We get it when we go out into the community," she says. "I've gotten flak from wearing Indian stuff at school."

She's been called names she won't repeat. Interracial woes are not uncommon these days. Other students say they've experienced similar situations.

Eisen is white -- very white, in fact. Pale face, flaxen hair. Like Logue, she mixes in different cultural circles and thought nothing of attending a school dance with an Afro-American boy. Her mother, however, was not pleased, she recalls. She had to come home early.

What Eisen couldn't make her mother understand until recently was: "The more you're around people of different races, you start to believe people are the same."

And if kids like Eisen are educating the adults, that's just fine with Val Torrens, chairwoman of the Kitsap County Council on Human Rights. It took the testimonies of teen-agers, she says, to make people listen and admit there is a problem. Some see racism in the county as monumental. Others view it as miniscule.

The kids just know it's there.

"I really do feel that unfortunately, the burden has been placed on the kids because the adults don't want to deal with it," she says.

"But if they're the ones the adult community is finally going to have to pay attention to, then I'm going to have to ask them to help us."

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