Peace Forum Held Sunday After H-F's Student Blackface Controversy

HOMEWOOD-FLOSSMOOR, IL — Government officials, educators and residents plan to gather Sunday at a forum designed to foster healing after last weekend's blackface controversy involving area high school students that ignited racial tensions in Homewood and in Flossmoor.

The goal is to develop an action plan that will help bring inclusivity to the diverse area, said Peter K.B. St. Jean, North Park University professor and director of the Chicago school's Urban Peace Lab, who organized and designed the event.

"Residents will be getting from this forum an understanding that almost anything we put our minds to, we can do them and we can do them together," he said.

Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld, Flossmoor Trustee Perry Hoag and Homewood-Flossmoor High School Principal Jerry Lee Anderson will speak at and and participate in the event.

On Sunday, photos and videos of four white teens went viral across several social media channels. In one set, four white boys are seen driving in a car; three of them painted their faces black. In another set of video and images, the boys are seen at a drive-through window of a fast-food restaurant. They appear to be taunting an African-American female cashier, and refer to her with derogatory terms. They also appear to be using Black English vernacular. The videos were shot off campus, and at least one of the boys wore a red sweatshirt with an H-F Vikings logo on it.

Outrage swept across the community, leading the mayors of Homewood and Flossmoor to condemn the boys' actions. More than 1,000 students, along with parents and supporters, staged a walkout Tuesday afternoon to protest the images and what they said was the district's mishandling of the situation.

St. Jean is a Flossmoor resident whose daughter attends Parker Junior High. He is also a University of Chicago-trained sociologist and peaceologist whose work the forum's premise in built on.

St. Jean calls peaceology a scientific study and application of peacefulness with the belief that major solutions to violence and trouble is to make peace profitable much in the same way that violence in media or music is profitable.

"Violence exists in major part because violence has become a big industry, and culture says it's 'crazy, sexy, cool,'" he said.

Until the concept of peace can match the strength of violence culture, he added, society will continue to see things such as what happened this past weekend, or worse.

So part of St. Jean's work looks at the flip side of traditional anti-violence work. Instead of asking "why is there so much violence" or "why is there so much racism," St. Jean asks "why isn't there more violence or more racism?"

That opens up space for people to see new angles to societal problems, he said.

On Sunday, Holfeld, Hoag and Anderson will give updates and talk about lessons learned so far. All participants will break into sessions to discuss questions surrounding the hurt and anger in the community and ways to work to heal it and to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In the end, the whole group will draw a roadmap for next steps, and a second forum will be held to start to put the plan into place, St. Jean said. Remarks and plans will be archived at St. Jean's Peaceful World Movement website.

The peaceology forum is free and open to the public. Everyone is invited, St. Jean said.

The Community Peaceology Forum will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. at Flossmoor Community Church, 2218 Hutchinson Road, Flossmoor.