Community Response to Swastika Graffiti: It’s Time to Talk About Hate

Superintendent Mary Gormley sent the following letter out to all her faculty and staff on May 9, 2017 in response to the recent swastika graffiti:

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

“Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”  Abraham Joshua Heschel

Dear Milton Community,

On behalf of MICA, the Milton Interfaith Clergy Association and in partnership with many Milton leaders and organizations, we present to you

“It’s Time to Talk About Hate”: A Family Centered Initiative,

a community wide project that we believe will be a powerful and impactful response to the recent incidents of swastika graffiti found in our town.  But its success depends solely on you, the parents and guardians of our K-12 students.  Using the Conversation Resource Sheet (see links below) that is appropriate to your child, we need you to make the time to sit down with your child and engage him/her in a thoughtful conversation about hate, acceptance, diversity and civility.

For the past eight weeks, we have been working with representatives in our public schools and experts in the field to put together Conversation Resource Sheets that are deep, concise, clear, honest and easy to follow.  THE FIRST STEP IS FOR YOU TO CLICK THE APPROPRIATE AGE LEVEL LINK BELOW AND TAKE A LOOK. 

Time to Talk Conversation Resource Sheet Preschool 2-5 Years: http://bit.ly/2poScZg

Time to Talk Conversation Resource Sheet Elementary/Preteen 6-12 Years: http://bit.ly/2qL01NL

Time to Talk Conversation Resource Sheet Teen 13-17 Years: http://bit.ly/2pZJ53q

We purposely kept each Resource Sheet to one page long (double sided) with these topic headings:

Recommendation for Getting Started
Voices from the Field
Conversation Starters/Activities
Tips for Parents

It is up to each one of us to make sure Milton is defined not by the few acts of swastika graffiti but rather our overwhelming response to it.  The goal of this initiative is both lofty and necessary:

To raise children who have integrated the values of
respect, acceptance and civility into the core of their very being.

It’s an investment we are making in ourselves and in one another.

Sincerely,

Milton Interfaith Clergy Association, Rev. Hall Kirkham, Chair