{"id":142421,"date":"2021-04-29T01:01:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T06:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=142421"},"modified":"2021-04-29T23:17:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T04:17:55","slug":"ywca-holds-stand-against-racism-event-at-wassenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/04\/29\/ywca-holds-stand-against-racism-event-at-wassenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"YWCA holds Stand Against Racism event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Young people were among those who read The YWCA Stand Against Racism Pledge on Wednesday evening. photos by Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been more than a year since the YWCA\u2019s last Stand Against Racism event, and Director of Advocacy Kelly Houg knew that, compared to a pandemic, a little rain wasn\u2019t going to stop this one from happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a last-minute switch from the Wassenberg Art Center\u2019s Art Park to the center itself, Houg welcomed the approximately 100 masked area residents, both old and young, who attended the event, which was held in conjunction with the YWCA\u2019s mission that it is dedicated to \u201celiminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event included poems written on the subject of racism by three local students — Dru Johnson, Macy Johnson, and Olivia Ramos — music by Kaitlyn Schmit and Frank Stemen, and a keynote address by Van Wert Municipal Court Judge Jill Worthington-Straley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cStand Against Racism is an opportunity for us to unite our voices to educate, advocate, and promote social justice,\u201d Houg said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Worthington, the child of a \u201cmixed\u201d (interracial) marriage, talked about her experiences with racism growing up. From the physical education teacher in school taking attendance on the basis of race, to parents of classmates who didn\u2019t want their children playing with her because she came from a mixed-race family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a child, I struggled to understand why someone would just not like me because of the way I looked,\u201d she noted, \u201cwhen I didn\u2019t feel the same way about them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Judge Worthington<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Judge Worthington said she continually struggled against being pigeonholed as one race or another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always known that I was both, and I\u2019ve never accepted the idea that I could only be one or the other,\u201d she told the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge\u2019s childhood experiences with racism led her to purposely no check the \u201crace box\u201d on her application to law school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI reason why was I didn\u2019t want anyone to say that the only reason I got into law school was because of my race or color,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In fact, to her, the idea of race is really a moot issue, at this point in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRace, as we know it, isn\u2019t real,\u201d Judge Worthington said, explaining that genome decoding has shown that all members of the human race share 99.9 percent of their genetic information, while adding that there is more genetic diversity among the populations of Africa itself than there are between Africa and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Worthington also talked about privilege, for whatever reason (race, sex, nationality, religion, or any other identifier), as well as the terms institutional (systemic) racism, which is part of the national discussion now, and interpersonal racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that privilege means never having to worry about whether you can go somewhere or do something because you are the \u201cwrong\u201d race, gender, nationality, religion, or whatever, while interpersonal racism, for example, is a manager not wanting to hire a Black person because of his or her opinion that Black people don\u2019t work as hard as someone who is white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systemic racism is embedded into the policies of this country, the judge said, and gave the example of a company having a policy of not accepting job candidates from certain schools — which just happened to have predominantly Black students. While not overtly personal, having such a policy is still a covert (hidden) way to turn down eligible Black candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Worthington also gave a definition of race created by Dr. Camara Phyllis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kaitlyn Schmit and Frank Stemen provided music for the event.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRacism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call “race”), that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge also told at the event that racism in any form cannot, and should not, be tolerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur challenge today is that, once you do know better, that you act, and you cannot forget,\u201d she said, adding that not being racist is not enough, because that infers neutrality and silence is conforming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Worthington said people have to be anti-racist, since being anti-racist embraces the idea that all racial groups are equal; that there is nothing right or wrong about any of them, and that any racism must end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge concluded by noting that diversity should be America\u2019s strength, not one of its greatest problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn this world, diversity should not be our downfall,\u201d she said, while urging the audience to stand up right then against racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, those attending read the YWCA Stand Against Racism pledge (see above).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor It\u2019s been more than a year since the YWCA\u2019s last Stand Against Racism event, and Director of Advocacy Kelly Houg knew that, compared to a pandemic, a little rain wasn\u2019t going to stop this one from happening. Following a last-minute switch from the Wassenberg Art Center\u2019s Art Park to the center itself, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 09:41:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}