Conversations on Race Bring a Community Together

"I knew you were different," Jonathan says to Gary in the Columbia High School auditorium. Jonathan rakes, while Gary trims the hedge that stands between them. Their desultory chat becomes silence before they return to their homes on either side of the room.

The setting was the Community Coalition on Race's (CCR) annual Conversations on Race event, and the two men were actors from the Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre. As part of "Some of My Best Friends Are..." four actors, Gary Glor, Jenelle Sosa, Daaimah Talley, and Jonathan Dewberry, performed vignettes based on life in the suburbs, perhaps even this community. The performance was followed by group discussions led by Coalition volunteers.

In introducing the evening's events, CCR Executive Director Nancy Gagnier noted that one purpose of gathering was to create "a safe environment where neighbors feel safe discussing issues of race that we usually shy away from." Wednesday's event was part of the Coalition's Integration Through the Arts Program which "utilizes the transcending power of the arts to create and strengthen bonds among people of different races and backgrounds." The performance was supported by a grant from the NJ State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner of the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the Essex County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs. 

The improvisational scenes were familiar. The first was a conversation between two locals who attended Maplewoodstock. After they talked at the event, the woman called a friend who was puzzled that he hadn't been aware of the concert.

"I thought they mailed the flyer to everyone in town," she told him.

Members of the audience, which numbered some 100, including CHS students, chuckled when scenes reflected familiar parent-child situations. When a father dropped his daughter off for her first-ever sleepover, the exuberance of the two girls was in contrast to one father's worry and the other father's reassurances.

A scene that followed showed soccer parents and the coach. Two parents, veteran volunteers, divided the task of planning the team dinner and discoveried a shared favorite restaurant, Toro Loco. They also learned their children shared team sports and classes. "My daughter talks about your daughter all the time," said one actor to another.

The audience was silent when a vignette portrayed a conflict between two best friends. Two boys, arguing over an X-Box game, isn't surprising. The outcome, however, was one boy using a racial slur, learned from a classmate, against the other. The situation was addressed when the two mothers brought the sons together for a discussion. 

The scenes inspired discussion among the audience. Led by facilitators, either experienced CCR volunteers or Board members, tables of participants talked and then reported back to the larger group. 

Kathryn Timpson, CCR trustee, led a discussion at a table. "The range of experience alone was an incredible tribute to the demographics of our community," she noted.  "We had differences, on paper, that included age and ethnicity, residency in Maplewood and South Orange, as well as duration of residency, from a newly-moved multi-ethnic couple to a Jewish woman who has lived in town for 40 years. Right off the bat, that gave us all the opportunity to hear something from each other that was outside our personal experience."

The program±—and the conversation—will continue in the fall with the return of Two Towns Sing-ins and a new dance-in event.