A Dog Named Nigger
Is this town racist? Walker isn't saying that. John Hughes, a Hoquiam resident and editor and publisher of The Daily World in Aberdeen, thinks "there is racism here, but it's hard for me to quantify." His impression, he says, is that Hoquiam and Aberdeen don't have racist streaks beyond those of other small towns, though they might have less experience dealing with bigotry. "Of all the things in the world I hate, racism is at the top of the list," says Hughes, 61, who has two adopted Korean children. He has published letters and run stories on major racial incidents, including the assaults on Russell Dickerson III, 13, a black Aberdeen middle-school student who says he has been hit with rocks and raw eggs, called racist names, and was tripped in the hallway and stabbed in the back with a pencil. Daily World assistant city editor Dan Jackson recently wrote about the confluence of incidents leaving a "cloud of racism hovering over the Harbor," noting: "It gets me up in arms. It makes me want to do something, make a difference, and like so many other whites, it can make me overcompensate. . . . All anyone really wants, deep down, is to be treated normally." Author David Neiwert, in Death on the Fourth of July, his new book on the Ocean Shores killing, says police and communities who fail to act swiftly and conclusively to racism are begetting further acts. "Small towns are the kinds of place you're likely to find hate-crimes perpetrators, in no small part because of [the towns'] racial homogeneousness," Neiwert writes. The typical hate criminal, he says, is not the obvious redneck or skinhead "but is a fairly average person who otherwise fits in with his community—though, of course, he also likely subscribes to an array of prejudices." Editor Hughes says that even though "we all got tarred with a broad brush" in Neiwert's book, "we asked ourselves: Is there racism in Aberdeen, Ocean Shores? And of course there is, but we should try to put a stake through its heart. All decent people are just appalled whenever they find anything like that in their midst."
Sativa Miller
The Walker family. Top row: Jordan, Tashianna, Angela, and Tahj. Bottom row: Rico, Myhles, and Simmie.
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Hughes' newspaper reported on Walker's Department of Education complaint and has published several of her letters and others critical of her. One, from an Aberdeen woman who had met Walker, spoke of "Angela Walker's ranting. Walker knew all about this community before moving here, right down to the census report. She knew it was a logging community with a small-town way of life, Caucasians out-numbered African Americans and that racism could be a problem for her children. . . . Walker has hollered racism since I have known of her and makes it a point that you know her ethnic background. . . . Walker is very intelligent and an expert at manipulating situations, changing people's comments and written words to make them racial." Says editor Hughes of Walker: "I know she's bright and has a right to be livid if what she says happened really happened. But is there a veneer of hyperbole? The lady who wrote to criticize her is a straight shooter, in my experience." Walker begs to differ. "When the letter came out, I was furious. I told [Hughes] not only was that letter fallacious but it was also slanderous and had nothing to do with the issue or racism." And certainly she knew it was a white town, Walker adds. Does that make racism OK?
In part, Angela Walker's challenge is to determine what's in another person's heart. Good luck. Fifty years ago in Hoquiam, on Cherry Street, a white man had a black dog named Nigger. He called it at night: "Here, Nigger, Nigger, Nigger, Nigger." He was my neighbor. I grew up in Hoquiam, moving away in the 1960s. I have no idea today if Old Man Kramer, a nice enough guy, was a racist or a nitwit. I know my mom and dad didn't think the name was funny, and I learned from that. Hoquiam, while white, was a melting pot of immigrant Scandinavians, Germans, Slavs, and Poles, among others. I don't know the town well today. But I do not remember it having a taste for bigotry.
Angela Walker says she will just try to keep her eye on the prize, the safety of her kids. If promoting that takes a lot of noisemaking and ticking people off, that's how it will be, she says. Some people might wonder about her motives and try to guess at her politics: "One woman called me a hopeless liberal and, for some reason, a tree hugger. Tree hugger? My husband works at a sawmill!" But if nothing else, she is helping prod white folks to discuss race in a small town, one that would rather talk about its championship basketball team or a minus clam tide. A community group has been formed to discuss minority issues, recently drawing 45 people to a meeting, and there are plans to set up diversity training for cops. "It's a start," Walker says. "It's encouraging. But ask me tomorrow."
randerson@seattleweekly.com
