`Unity Day' In Puyallup -- Community Gathers For Peace

PUYALLUP - Change doesn't come easy in this historic farming community.

Most downtown businesses are closed on Sunday. Church bells chime at noon.

But after nearly three weeks of tension and sorrow, about 300 people gathered yesterday in Pioneer Park to reunite a town beset by allegations of racism.

They promised to bring change to schools and the city, and bridge a divided community.

School and community leaders organized "Community Unity Day," a peace rally, to send a message that discrimination and insensitivity won't be tolerated in the town of 29,910, said state Rep. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup.

Participants sang, did an interpretive dance about diversity and listened to people like state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson, who relayed a brief message that the state will "help in anyway we can give it" to make Puyallup's schools safer.

Kastama said recent events at Puyallup High have been blown out of proportion, and the entire community has been hurt because the school and the city are so strongly connected.

"People have a tremendous amount of love for the community," Kastama said.

Still, recent incidents have caused concern:

Hundreds of racist, anti-Semitic pamphlets were tossed onto lawns about a week ago, and earlier someone phoned the district, threatening to kill the high school's 47 black students.

On Oct. 11, two students at the high school were arrested after a fistfight between black and white students.

Last month, a white student was suspended for painting his face black for a senior-class picture.

This summer, a $5 million racial-discrimination claim was filed against the school district by four African-American families. Some parents say it sparked the problems.

"Everybody's kind of speculating which side to believe," said Lisa Schimer, whose two stepgrandsons attend Puyallup High. "I think this is the first big controversy to come to Puyallup."

Until recently, the town's biggest news stories were the closure of its old movie theater or the flap about partly nude sculptures near the library.

Now the camera crews doing stories on racial problems are the talk of town.

But after nearly three weeks of media scrutiny, many folks don't want to talk to reporters. Last week, students waved painted signs demanding the media leave them alone.

"Most of the people who have talked about it, including the kids, wish the media would just back off and quit exploiting it," said Nancy Kidd, a manager at Jeans Direct, a clothing store. "The kids resent it. They're proud of their community and schools."

Many at yesterday's rally weren't parents in the district.

Some came from various African-American organizations to support the families of Puyallup's black students and the effort to work toward diversity.

Several others said they were alumni or knew students at Puyallup High School.

Mike Kupfer, 48, a lifelong resident, said he attended the rally to support Puyallup's schools and the community.

He described the tension over recent events as "much ado about nothing."

His family settled in the Willow's Pond area, recently developed into Eagle Hardware and Wal-Mart shopping complexes, more than a century ago. His father graduated from Puyallup High in 1928.

"I just think, `When did we get so thin-skinned?' " Kupfer said. "When I was their age you could make a crack about all of our ethnicities, and put your arm around a woman, and now you have to worry about getting sued.

". . . Like the kids would say: We've got to chill out and go find a neutral corner and talk without saying, `he said, she said.' "

The Rev. Byron Williams, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church and a rally speaker, said there have been several bleak events in Puyallup's history.

"The first black man was ran out of town by the KKK in the 1920s," he said, adding that the tension at Puyallup High has been "like a time bomb waiting for the right moment to explode" and now it's time for the community to change, and become more tolerant.

"Nothing will happen until we take a stand and admit that deep down we have a problem," he said. "We need to stop pointing fingers."

That change couldn't happen soon enough for Lynnette Crout, one of the parents involved in the discrimination complaint against the district.

Crout, whose son is mixed-race and attends a junior-high school, said she attended the rally "heavy hearted." She said the more visible parents of minority students have been, the worse it has been for her son.

"He is a nervous wreck," she said. "He throws up. He asks not to go to school."

She said there was a "marked difference" in the way some school employees treated her son once the complaint was filed in July, and now her son is more intimidated than ever.

"It's hard to see him get out of the car every morning," Crout said. "I've cried many tears. I watch the clock at work and think, `Oh God, he's in that class - just get him through today.' "

She hopes the attention to the tensions will bring a change in the district's curriculum and leadership.

"I'd love to see my son just be happy to go to school, to be safe and feel safe and feel that all of the adults at his school were behind him being treated well," Crout said.