The sting of racism

By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NORTH LIMA -- Two girls are in the same Scouting troop. The group is camping and they want to sleep in the same tent, but the white girl's mother says no.
She's not allowed to share a tent with a black girl.
It may sound like a scene from a black-and-white movie set in a long ago era. But this is reality in a white community where a black girl feels the sting of racism in the 21st century.
Stormy Koch is 12. This isn't the first time a parent has told one of her white friends that she's not allowed to play with her.
Teaching hate: She said she tries to understand that the discrimination is based mostly in ignorance. It's parents, the preteen said, who teach the children to hate.
"Some people should think before they speak. Even though people are not the same as you, they still have feelings too," Stormy said.
"I think they should understand what it would feel like if they were that person. They should treat people like they want to be treated."
Joan Koch is Stormy's mother. She's white. Stormy was adopted as an infant. The mother said it has been difficult to watch the discrimination her daughter faces as a child.
"The kids are all open and friendly but that's where it ends," Koch said. "There are no sleepovers, no parties."
Stormy is one of four minority girls adopted by Joan and her husband, Paul. The white couple has five biological children, four sons and one daughter. But when they grew, Joan wanted more children in the house.
They first adopted Jennifer, from South Korea, now 25 and married. Then Courtney came into their home from El Salvador. Now, 19, she's a broadcast journalism major at Fordham University in New York.
Still at home are Raven and Stormy. Raven, 15, is from the Dominican Republic. She goes to South Range High School.
Stormy, a South Range Middle School student, was born in Philadelphia. She said people would likely push her out even more if she had black parents.
Specifying background: Raven said that she has not suffered from any discrimination. But she said it is important to her that schoolmates know she is Hispanic, not black. She said there are some students who will discriminate against someone who is black.
Courtney, a valedictorian who was involved in dozens of school and community activities, wondered if her race had something to do with her receiving no college scholarships from community groups. Fordham granted her a $24,000-a-year academic scholarship.
She also remembers being thrown out of a Columbiana discount store this summer when an employer told her she looked "suspicious."
Jennifer did not suffer discrimination, the girls' mother said.
Joan said she first started seeing the strain when the family moved to their rural Beaver Township home from a rural community outside Allentown, Pa.
As she watches the discrimination aimed at Stormy, she wants to move, maybe to the South, but Stormy wants to stay. After all, she said, her best friend is here.
Racism against foreign-born children is not a rarity, according to a 1999 Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute study of 167 mostly American adults who were adopted from South Korea as children. A majority of respondents said they had experienced discrimination while growing up, mostly based on their race.
Exposure: The Koch family realizes that people in this southern Mahoning County area and in nearby Columbiana County communities are not exposed to minorities very often. They also wonder if prejudice against minorities in Youngstown -- a city perceived as being ridden with crime -- has spilled over into their own neighborhoods.
Beaver Township, like many of its neighboring communities, is a largely white area, Census 2000 figures show. Of the township's 6,466 residents, 98.5 percent are white.
Major Michael Budd of the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department, said it is common for minorities to cluster in urban areas with few living in suburbs.
"Education is the only way people will be healed of this prejudice," Budd said. "It's a sad fact that this stuff still goes on in the 21st century."
Susan Paczak, director of training-communications for the Lake to River Council of the Girl Scouts of the USA, said it broke her heart when she heard Stormy was discriminated against in a Scouting setting.
The Girl Scouts, she said, have a long history of striving to be inclusive of all races, abilities, ethnic backgrounds and religions. However, she added, discrimination is still something our society confronts.
"We think we are a color blind society, but we're obviously not," she said. "We've got a long way to go."
Educator: South Range schools superintendent James Hall called the sisters "lovely girls" and said they interact comfortably with other students at school. He said he has not seen signs of racism among students or parents. Discrimination, he said, would not be tolerated.
"I would just find that horrible," he said.
He acknowledged that there are very few minorities in the school district and that poor behavior directed against a minority would make one suspicious of the motive.
Courtney said it is important not to use broad strokes to paint the entire community as racist. Many people they know, all the girls agreed, are accepting. Courtney said, however, that there should be an awareness that racism is still alive in certain pockets.
Koch said if she had to do it over, she would still adopt minority children. But, she said, she would caution parents wanting to adopt a child of a different race to consider the drawbacks and the community in which they live.
Saved from harm: Courtney said she would encourage people to adopt biracially. She said she was saved from growing up in an orphanage in a country plagued by guerrilla war.
The girls said the difference between them and other kids has nothing to do with skin color. What makes them different is that they were not born into a family; instead, they were born and found a family later.
"Our family looks a lot different," Stormy said. "And that makes us special."