Bethel High comes together to talk race

A bump in the hallway sets off racial insults, fights and suspensions. Rumors of violent retaliation fly, and hundreds stay home from school. Stories of nooses around campus and graffiti scribbled in bathrooms add to the tension and make headlines.

What’s happening at Bethel High?

Many students and teachers say the events of the past month have been blown out of proportion and fed on themselves.

“I don’t think hardly anyone at our school is racist. If they are, they don’t show it,” said Brittany Coleman, who’s among the 10 percent of Bethel High students who are black. “I feel safe here.”

The public is seeing a distorted picture of the Spanaway school, said Brittany, Mandi McDaniel, Ikaika Gleason, Wamaitha Kiambuthi and a half-dozen other Bethel teens of various ethnic backgrounds. Speaking in an impromptu focus group organized last week by school administrators, the students said some of their 1,300 classmates use racially insensitive terms or jokes they pick up from rap music and other forms of pop culture.

But none could recall witnessing or experiencing overt acts of racial hatred at the school.

School district and law enforcement officials who’ve investigated recent incidents agree that a small and unrepresentative handful of kids are behind them. But the officials are taking the threats seriously with increased security, swift discipline and a commitment to bring in outside diversity experts to work with the students after this week’s spring break.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has vowed to continue aggressive enforcement and make arrests on even the slightest crime, especially racial harassment, at the school, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer has said.

“All it takes is a few pupils to create a situation where it looks worse than it is,” said Warren Smith, a longtime Spanaway resident. He was the district’s first black School Board member from 1986 to 1998, and now sits on the State Board of Education.

“I’m saying we need to do some work in terms of helping these kids – teach them diversity awareness, learning to respect differences and to value differences,” he said.

Community members and civil rights representatives express concerns about the incidents, even if just a few kids are involved.

On Friday, Alton McDonald, president of the National Action Network’s Tacoma branch, and a half-dozen black parents and community members held a news conference outside the high school saying the district needs to do more to eliminate racism in schools.

Also on Friday, representatives of the A. Philip Randolph Institute (a black labor group in Tacoma) and a regional labor coalition met with Principal Wanda Riley and district Superintendent Tom Seigel to discuss the incidents and offer assistance.

District and law enforcement officials can point to a variety of quick responses:

 • After two racially tinged fights heightened tensions the first week of March, the school and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department launched a crackdown on violence and harassment and increased campus security.

 • The school, which had always prohibited the use of racial slurs, instituted a rule calling for an automatic 10-day suspension for harassment, including the use of harassing language.

 • Last week, a sheriff’s lieutenant appeared on the school’s closed-circuit TV, warning students they could be criminally charged if they withhold information about harassment crimes.

 • Principal Riley has communicated the district’s stepped-up vigilance in announcements to students and automated calls to families.

“We have made it very clear to the student body and staff and greater community that we simply will not tolerate, in any form, racism at any time in any of our facilities or schools,” Seigel said Friday. “When you come through our door you are one of us, and we’ll treat you the absolutely best we can. That’s a promise.”

Rose Berg said she believes the school is doing all it can to respond to recent incidents. She and her husband, who are both white, kept their two teens home on March 14 and last Wednesday, after rumors circulated that violence could break out on those days. Berg, who volunteers to help with attendance every morning at the school, said Bethel High fosters a multicultural atmosphere, and that many of her kids’ friends are minorities.

After all the commotion that the initial fights and rumors started, she thinks some students are causing more problems for a joke. Yet she’s pleased with the school’s frequent updates on recent events, even if it’s to alert parents to rumors.

CHANGING COMMUNITY

Bethel High School’s diversity accelerated along with the area’s population boom.

Whites make up about 70 percent of Bethel High School this year, compared to about 83 percent nine years ago. Today, blacks are the school’s largest minority group, representing about 10 percent of the student body, followed by Asians (9 percent) and Hispanics (7 percent).

The school’s boundaries take in the racially diverse Spanaway area, along with the more rural Roy and Graham areas – communities where some people are less accustomed to diversity, said Tom Cruver, president of the Bethel Education Association.

“It doesn’t take a lot of families to have a few people coming out of homes where differences aren’t valued or respected,” Smith said. “Kids are not born racist or bigots. They’re learning it somewhere. I know they’re not teaching it at school.”

The Bethel district has made significant efforts over the past several decades to improve its racial climate. Last fall, the 18,000-student district won the Washington State School Directors’ Association Diversity Award for its work to eliminate prejudice, hire a diverse staff, partner with the community and promote integration of students of various heritages.

Smith recalled that back in the 1970s, as minorities began to move into the area, how students of different ethnicities clashed at school. When he served on the School Board, the district created a diversity team and offered diversity training for staff.

Failing to respond to racial problems can end up costing a district. In 2002, the Puyallup School District paid $7.5 million in damages and changed its approach to race relations to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by families of black students, who complained of racial epithets, threatening graffiti and other harassment.

‘IT WASN’T THIS BAD LAST YEAR’

Though many students say this month’s racial incidents are uncharacteristic for the school, they also say the use of racial slurs isn’t new at Bethel High.

Shayna Friend, a junior of Mexican and Italian descent, said she often hears white students in the hallway or parking lot, out of earshot of teachers, shout “white power” and use the N-word to refer to black people. Likewise, she hears black students refer to each other as “nigga.”

“It wasn’t this bad last year,” she said of the use of racial slang. “It got worse this year.”

Most of the white students she’s heard using such terms call themselves “hicks.” “They’re country, they go mudding. They wear Carhartts and cowboy boots.”

She’s glad the school is taking a tougher stance on racial slurs. Before, she said, teachers would hear slurs and simply tell students, “Hey, don’t say that.”

One senior said problems were percolating at Bethel High before the first fights in March. He remembers walking into a bathroom around Feb. 28 and seeing a swastika and the N-word, covered with a slash like a no-smoking sign, scrawled over the walls, and urine splattered over the floor.

One white youth at the school who wished to go unnamed for fear of retaliation said that when he hears black kids call whites “crackers” or white students say “white power,” they’re using the terms as a joke or greeting.

“I’ve never witnessed a problem with it as being serious,” the teen said.

The News Tribune found several MySpace.com pages of white students claiming to go to Bethel High using the N-word as a greeting or to describe other white friends.

Nick Jones, the Bethel district’s diversity facilitator, said young people need to understand the painful history of racial epithets such as the N-word. When he hears black teens use the term at school, he tells them to stop.

“I say you’re sending out this mixed message to all around you,” he said. “Some Caucasian guy’s going to come down the hall, jump in the conversation, throw the word out and get beaten up.”

“It’s not a term of endearment.”

Even adults may be unfamiliar with politically incorrect terms.

Alton McDonald said that when he met last week with Principal Riley, she referred to blacks as “colored” people, an outdated term that he considers insulting. He corrected her and she thanked him for bringing it to her attention. Wenzel confirmed the incident happened.

Shelly Brewer, the school’s student body vice president, doesn’t like the use of racial slurs. But she said the administration’s sudden crackdown “is wearing down” students who’ve always used the terms without meaning to be racist.

“The more pressure we get, the more likely it is for tempers to get lost,” she said. “This (ban on racial terms) should have started at least back in junior high because this happened in junior high, too.”

Bob Shafer, who’s taught at Bethel High for six years, agrees with many students that the media have blown recent events out of proportion. But he also believes staff and administrators, who are emphasizing zero tolerance of harassment, are responding to the events appropriately.

“There’s a few kids who have problems,” said Shafer, who graduated from the school. “There are always groups that stick to themselves, but as far as having (racial) hostilities toward each other, I don’t see that.”

MOVING FORWARD

Kim Bobby, chief diversity officer and associate professor of education at the University of Puget Sound, said diversity activities, such as a forum, can help a school heal.

She suggested the school allow all students to be heard and have the chance to take action to demonstrate appreciation for one another.

“Not to have the conversation and leave it raw,” she said. “They have to come up with new ways of behaving.”

There are signs that’s begun to happen. On Friday, the school’s Air Force Jr. ROTC squadron scrubbed down and repainted the school bathrooms that had the most gang and racist graffiti, said Joe Fonseca, a junior who organized the project.

“I believe it’s an act of terrorism,” he said of the graffiti and racial incidents. “These kids have no respect towards themselves or fellow classmates. I believe they just want to scare some of the other students. In Junior ROTC we do not tolerate that at all, so we decided to help out our school with that situation.”

That’s an example of the real Bethel High in the eyes of many students.

“I’m so proud to be a Bethel Brave,” Randi Hominda, senior class vice president, said in the forum. “Aside from whatever the media has to say I still look forward to coming to school every day. … We all know we’re safe here. We still have all of our friends here.”

Debby Abe: 253-597-8694

Racial makeup

Although still predominantly white, Bethel High School has grown more diverse over the last decade.

Ethnicity1998-992007-08

American Indian2.9%3.6%

Asian7%9%

Black4.2%10.4%

Hispanic3.2%7.4%

White82.6%69.7%