About 40 persons, almost all of them wearing face masks, gathered on the courthouse lawn Tuesday in support of those impacted by racial inequality, particularly as it is seen in law enforcement.
The rally was organized by retired Methodist minister Dale Hanaman of Rippey, who said “even small towns need to have some recognition that we stand with brothers and sisters who are black or brown, who are always being affected by the police and by injustice because they’re black or brown, not because they have done anything.”
He shared a note from his bi-racial granddaughter who wrote, “White privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard. It means that your skin color isn’t one of the things making it hard.”
He quoted from Peggy McIntosh’s essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack.” The essay was written in 1988. “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”
Hanaman spoke for seven minutes and then invited those gathered to join him in walking around the courthouse. Most participants walked three laps around the block and then returned to their day.
