Seattle City Council held a long public comment today, and then passed several bills, in a hearing that lasted until about 6. One of public commenters stood in the back of the room for most of the meeting with a sign that said “KKKETTLE, NO MORE COPS OR CAMERAS”, and then had a friend hold it next to her while she delivered her public comment (I don’t remember what she said; something about police and cameras, delivered at very high volume).
Just before the end of the meeting (and after the person with the sign had left), Council President Joy Hollingsworth said she thought the “KKKettle” sign was over the line and outside the bounds of polite public discourse (although under Council rules she didn’t think it could be prohibited under the First Amendment). Council members Dionne Foster and Deborah Juarez added their own comments agreeing.
Hollingsworth had already noted the sign at a previous meeting, so she read from a statement that she had prepared (she had previously said she was “going to address this on October 20th” and presumably didn’t know whether the person would be back with the same sign). Transcribing part of her statement here: “The Ku Klux Klan is something that shouldn’t be referenced lightly in order to express your dissatisfaction. It represents violence, racial terror, threats and hatred directed at Black people and other communities of color, and it’s part of this country’s incredibly shameful history. And it’s not just a part of our history, it’s the current identity that continues to carry that trauma. And as we see different undertones within the country, some of this pain and terror have been coming back, that we’ve seen at the federal level. And so I don’t take this lightly, just because you don’t agree with someone, it’s deeply offensive, and most importantly, it diminishes the trauma and suffering inflicted on generations of family. And I will be talking with that person individually about it.”
[I’m not sure what she meant about talking to the person individually — presumably waiting to see if the person comes to another City Council meeting, with or without the sign, and then approaching them before or after the meeting.]
Dionne Foster: “Every time I see that sign, I think about sitting in my childhood bedroom and watching cars circle my neighborhood in southern Virginia and flying confederate flags and me being afraid to leave the house. And that’s what I think every time I see that sign, in the back of the room and up at the dais.”
Deborah Juarez: “I’m just gonna be blunt – I’m really tired of it, and I’m glad you said it. Those using our history and our trauma – our generational trauma – is just flat-out wrong and offensive. When you take our history of enslavement, genocide, [inaudible], incarceration, lynching, murder, forced assimilation, lack of humanity, forced sterilization, what many of our ancestors have endured and died for for us to be here today, for me to be here today, shame on you. This is our history not yours. STOP using our trauma, our violence to our bodies, our babies, as a prop, your actions flatten our collective struggle. It is a slogan without the struggle. You got the t-shirt, you read the book, but you didn’t endure it. And that is offensive to me on every goddam level.”
(Transcribed from recordings I made with the GoPro. The official video of the City Council meeting should be on SeattleChannel.org and on the Seattle Channel YouTube channel tonight or tomorrow, and these remarks will be at the end. Earlier in the video, the sign will be visible at various times during public comment, when the camera is pointed at the audience.)
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