The city plans are to counter the racist incidents.
The City of Howell, Michigan, has hired a public relations firm to overhaul its image following a series of high-profile racist incidents, including one that occurred during the search for a firm to lead the image revamp.
Howell City Manager Erv Suida told the outlet that the city’s plans are intended to both counter the racist incidents and emphasize the story that the city wants to tell about itself.
“I hope that they give us some meaningful communication plans to help us tell our story. One of the things we all have to realize is that there seems to be a rise in racism and antisemitic rallies,” Suida told CBS News. “We don’t want to focus around those groups. We’ve had the White Lives Matter group that has been here and around other communities in Michigan. We want to make sure that we’re responding appropriately, but we don’t really want to give them that much attention.”
“We don’t want an expensive bandage; we want treatment of the actual infection,” Ohashi said, indicating that if local officials wanted to fix the problem of the town’s perception, they have to work at it themselves and that the community wanted help from them on that front.
“We’re trying our best to shine light on that and we’re begging — we need more help here. This is not a one-and-done deal, we have to keep working actively to fix this.”
“Our assumption that the inaction and the silence are giving these white supremacist tactic acceptance to continue harassing our community members, making our marginalized neighbors feel unsafe and keeping folks away who would normally, you know, shop and eat here,” she told the outlet.
Ohashi continued, “That’s why we’re taking action, because if we don’t, we know the hate will continue to escalate. We have to find the source and get rid of it, and people don’t come where they’re not wanted. So, Livingston County needs to figure out why these groups think they’re welcomed here, and then solve that problem.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
