Community holds discussion on race after high school student gets called racial slur

By Christian Colón

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    ENFIELD, Connecticut (WFSB) — Parents, officers, and educators met to discuss racial issues impacting the town of Enfield.

This comes after police say a man yelled a racist slur at a 14-year-old boy who was fundraising for his football team.

Police say this incident happened last week and no charges were filed because technically no laws were violated.

However, the town feels that the conversation about race needed to happen on Tuesday.

“What needs to happen is look at ourselves and examine the fact that we are not better than this if these things keep happening. We are not better and its time we do the important work of figuring out how e can do better,” says Kamora Le’Ella Herrington the founder of Kamora’s Cultural Corner.

Herrington, a cultural humility educator, was invited by the town to spark conversations.

“I think it’s been interesting to see how people are reacting to other people, but I really loved the ice breaker where people had to find people they didn’t know, that didn’t look like them, and have a conversation,” says Enfield Town Manager Ellen Zoppo-Sassu.

However, some families feel there was an important group missing from Tuesday’s conversation.

“Hoping to hear more perspective from people that have these personal experiences that directly affect them and for me tonight, I felt like it was mostly privileged white people trying to problem solve issues that don’t directly affect them. To me, that is not productive and misses the mark,” says Enfield resident Colleen Badia.

As a mother of a multicultural family, Badia says she appreciates the conversation, but add some families might not have shown up because they don’t feel safe in Enfield.

“There’s just no equal representation until we have just more equal representation- in our leadership, our government, police force, schools. We’re not going to be able to solve any problems when these voices aren’t being heard,” says Badia.

Officials say Tuesday’s conversation will be the first of many.

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