Where do we go from here?
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Community, East Side Pride, and One in a Million Inc., which hosts the city’s annual Juneteenth celebration, made him not only a dumb target but also places him in a position to come up with solutions.
As a lifelong Springfield resident, Williams says he wants to see an end to a cycle that’s become all too common in Springfield. In this scenario, nonwhite, non-male Springfield city workers, feeling like they’re the victims of unlawful discrimination, file a civil rights lawsuit against the city, which only breeds more hostility and contempt.
He hopes that other pastors follow the example of the Rev. Wesley Robinson-McNeese and the Rev. Cliff Hayes who recently delivered a joint sermon on racism. Williams is also involved in a new organization known as Springfield Citizens Against Racism (SCAR).
However, immediate change will have to come from the city’s leadership, he says. CWLP general manager Todd Renfrow has ordered mandatory sensitivity training and issued a “no tolerance” letter to workers at the water plant.
The warning was copied to Davlin and city corporation counsel Jenifer Johnson. Those are steps in the right direction, but Williams believes failure to discipline the original noose hanger and noose maker sends the message that such behavior will be tolerated.
“What does anyone have to be afraid of if no one ever gets punished? If you were to punish the first two, Mr.
[Bradley] Barber wouldn’t have done the second one,” Williams says.
“Tim and Todd have the chance to do something unprecedented and they’re
letting it bypass them,” he says, referring to Davlin and Renfrow.
“If I was to wiggle it, I could put it around my neck,” Williams says. “It could definitely be used to kill yourself – or kill someone.”
“They actually have a chance to take another racial situation, as many as have happened in the past, and hardly anything has been done about it. They have a chance to take this one and institute changes at CWLP and the city of Springfield.”
However, Williams won’t say whether he thinks the noose maker and the noose hanger deserve to be fired. “That’s a city decision,” he says. Last week, Sangamon County state’s attorney John Schmidt sent the matter to a grand jury and told Williams that he would receive a subpoena when it was time to testify.
Cultural sensitivity training, he says, should have the same effect as other forms of training employees undergo. An apt metaphor, he says, is the annual safety seminars about the various chemicals involved with making Springfield’s water drinkable.
“So we know what the chemicals are and what they’ll do. If sensitivity training is conducted next week, then the week after that, all those people have been told what’s insensitive, whether it’s a swastika, a noose, a hood, certain words, certain statements, drawings. Then they’ll know better.”
Contact R.L. Nave at [email protected]
