LEWISTON — A black basketball player wore Jordan sneakers for the game-day dress-up.

A white player wore work books.

Both Lewiston High School freshmen violated the dress-up rules: They were supposed to wear dress shoes. A white coach was pushing for the black player to be benched — but not the white player.

The sneakers aren’t shoes, the white coach told black coach Ronnie Turner.

“I said, ‘Are you going to sit (the white player) for the same thing?’” The other coach said no. “He’s not wearing sneakers.”

After a five-minute discussion in which Turner pointed out that the work boots broke the rule as much as the Jordans, and to the black player the Jordans were dress shoes, the other coach backed off. Neither player was benched.

“No bias was intended,” Turner said. “It was a misunderstanding. I’m thankful I was there to help.” When a minority student is unjustly disciplined, it can create resentment and bad attitudes and can lead to bad decisions, he said.

The sneaker story was shared Friday during the inaugural Black History Month forum at the school. Students and teachers heard from staffers of color: basketball coach Ronnie Turner, teachers Glenn Atkins and Winston Antoine, and Somali community relations staffer Hawo Abdille.

That kind of “implicit bias” happens all the time, said Principal Jake Langlais. “There’s 100 stories like that” committed by white adults like him, not because they’re prejudiced, but because they don’t understand different cultures, Langlais said.

He thanked the black staffers for sharing their cultural insights and promoting understanding. “We want to be a better place,” Langlais said. “Implicit bias is not something we know about. If I ever do something to you that I don’t know I did, call me on it. I don’t care of it’s positive, ugly or loud. I need your input. You are 100 percent always invited to the table.”

Most students attending the forum were black. They asked the speakers: What should they do when facing racism?

“Don’t argue. Walk away,” said Somalia native Abdille, who quoted Michelle Obama: “’When they go low, we go high.’”

“Make a scene, but make it in a positive way,” Antoine said. “Go to a teacher.” If that doesn’t bring a resolution, go to another teacher or an administrator, “until that issue is addressed.”

The panel shared what it’s like being black in a mostly white community. They talked about walking into a restaurant or bank and getting stares as if they intended to commit a crime.

Antoine grew up in Baltimore and graduated from Bowdoin College before working for Lewiston schools. He said that recently he was trying to talk to his father when a hall monitor told him, “You are walking and talking on the phone. You’re scaring people!”

She was trying to “put me out” of the building, he said, despite the fact that he was wearing his school identification badge. He guessed that the monitor assumed he was not staff, was too old to be a student and should leave.

Turner said his younger brother goes to Farwell Elementary. Last year his brother said: “I wish I had a white face,” because his friends had white faces. Turner told him to love his skin, to love himself.

The speakers talked about their role models.

“My mom,” said Turner, who was born in Philadelphia and moved to Lewiston in the sixth grade, graduating from Lewiston High School and the University of Maine. His mother went through a lot, he said. “She taught me everyone’s going through something. It’s not an excuse to not keep going forward.”

Antoine said that in middle school he had a teacher “who was the first black man to stand in front of me highly educated. He made it cool to be an educated black man.”

Atkins said his mother was his inspiration. She taught him to respect himself and others.

The panel told students to be proud if they speak several languages, to ask questions of people from different backgrounds to promote understanding, and to work hard in school.

“Education is the most powerful thing you can do,” Abdille said.

Lewiston public schools employ 72 African or African-American people, with only four black teachers.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

Lewiston High School staff member Hawo Abdille, center right, talks about some of her personal experiences during the school’s inaugual Black History Month forum. Listening are fellow staff members, from left, Winston Antoine, Ronnie Turner and Glenn Atkins. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)

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