Harrisonburg is home to beautiful mountain scenery, adorable downtown restaurants, and residents who gladly open doors for others regardless of time. Within the city is a university filled with students of various ethnicities, religions, beliefs, sexualities, etc. No two people are exactly the same but we embrace the diversity and live together as a community. Or so it seems. Even in the friendliest of cities, the least friendly of incidents can occur.
Within the last few months, Harrisonburg has witnessed “racist” events at popular locations such as Jess’ Lunch and Walmart. While many residents were shocked to hear about anything like that happening in the “Friendly City," others also worried that this may be only the beginning due to what is consistently seen in national media.
“I was surprised to hear about this happening,” said JMU junior and English Major Emily Heacock. “To hear about the incident being so aggressive is very disheartening.”
The first incident occurred on August 15 of this year when Sandie Elledge, a waitress at Jess’ Lunch, received a “racist” note instead of a tip. The note read, “we only tip citizens.” The second incident, which happened just a few weeks after the one at Jess’ Lunch, occurred in the parking lot of Walmart on Burgess Road. An interracial couple had walked into Walmart like any other day but when they came out, they noticed a paper that was titled “N***** Lover Survey.”
“It’s an unfortunate reminder that the harsh reality is still around us,” says Vice-Mayor Richard Baugh, “But in many respects good that we see it seldom enough, at least in these blatant ways, that it seems to shock our conscience even more when there is something this overt.”
There are many factors as to why events like these continue to happen. Some believe that immigration, politics, and “pure ignorance” are the three main reasons for similar events occurring nationwide.
The population in Harrisonburg is certainly growing, but rather than people immigrating into the city, it’s due to residents starting families. When Baugh moved from Charlottesville to Harrisonburg 31 years ago, he described it as being “a lot like Richmond but with small African-American communities.” Richmond in the mid-90s was not as ethnically diverse as it is now. He continued to explain that although the percentage in ethnicity was low in the mid-90s, it has not increased due to having families.
“I’ve watched Harrisonburg go from what looked like a large town and everything around it, to this really interesting and kind of cool place where we had a lot of different ethnicities and different backgrounds,” said Baugh. “It certainly enriched the place and made it a lot different from the way it was.”
Lex Jones, president of the NAACP at JMU, sees Harrisonburg as a diverse community but still believes educating others about diversity and opening the door for them to see what it’s like to be a minority can be a good way to prevent these events from happening again.
It is not often that you see or hear about the “Friendly City” being in the middle of a racial issue but many times, similar events go unreported. Although Jones has never experienced anything physical, she has felt the emotional effects of being a minority.
“I can only speak from my personal experience but being the only black girl in many classes, I feel like people belittle us [minorities],” Jones said. She also added that while she believes Harrisonburg is overall a pretty diverse community, JMU is not on the same level and others agree with Jones.
Heacock ranked Harrisonburg 7 out of 10 but ranked JMU 3 out of 10 on the level of diversity, 10 being the highest level of diversity. “You just don’t see a big difference in ethnicity on campus,” she said. “More people look the same than they don’t.”
According to collegedata.com, 6.1 percent of students at JMU are Hispanic, 4.4 percent are African-American and 77.5 percent are Caucasian. Compared to the statistics shown for the City of Harrisonburg, according to city-data.com, 16.7 percent are Hispanics, 6.2 percent are African-Americans and 71 percent are Caucasian.
With “racist” events coming into the media, some wonder why JMU does not have a hate-crime policy. Heacock believes that by creating a policy now, it would “just add fuel to the fire” but Art Education major, Maddie Clark has a different thought.
“There definitely should be something done to prevent another problem but it would be really hard to enforce,” said Clark. “I think having a policy would help in case something were to happen but we have a campus where that kind of stuff rarely happens.”No matter the situation, there will always be more than one perspective. Although it is every citizen's right to speak their mind, it does not make it okay to spew words to intentionally hurt others. Hatred, jealousy, and hostility surround all of us. You can either allow the hatred to consume you or embrace the inevitability of diversity in race, sexuality, political ideals, gender, etc. The mountains look beautiful from Harrisonburg but the acceptance and diversity of its people are even more beautiful.
