Letter: Speaking Up About Racial Issues In Fairfield

To the editor,

I am writing in response to the article titled 'Really Powerful': Fairfield Students Walk Out To Protest Racism, published in your newspaper on Monday, May 24, 2021. As this town faces one of its biggest racial crises it has seen in modern day history, it is time to focus on what is truly important. In a county that is nearly 62 percent white, and a town that is nearly 92 percent white, racial issues that have risen in past years haven’t had the same effect on media as this story, over the past month. I solely attribute this issue to not informing the adolescents in our town about racial equality. As a once Fairfield Public Schools student myself, I owed my knowledge on racial issues to my parents. For allowing me to explore what I believed was unacceptable behavior by individuals that were around me. Although I am white, a young woman, and very much privileged because of this, I acknowledge this side of myself to learn how these characteristics allow me to learn from those who suppress these same details about themselves, and otherwise choose to not recognize what's happening in the town around them. Because of this I allow myself to step out of my social bubble, my so-called comfort zone, and look at the larger set of social influences around me. I use this privilege to speak up about these very issues that are happening in the town I call home.

Carly Jones