Barbara Lawlor
NEDERLAND

    Reading books about cultural diversity to children is not just a casual, “sometimes” event for most Reading to End Racism volunteers. It is a commitment to a cause they are emotionally involved in and dedicated to.
    Joe Gierlach, a Nederland resident and member of the board of trustees, says it is his 12th year of working with the Equity Cohort project. Gierlach started working for the Boulder Valley School District in 2003 in budget and financing.
    Since the ‘80s, he had been involved in many programs that advocated an end to racism and that were involved in the fight against AIDS.
    “They are tied into each other and involve discrimination. It was a decade before I began working at a bank that required diversity training.”
     At that time Pam Durand was the director of Institutional Equity and the Equity Cohort program, which, says Gierlach works to effect change. He says that Cohort changes adult's points of view and RER changes kids.
    Naomi Harris, RER organizer, says that the program has grown to encompass a population beyond the classroom.
    “We have found ways to involve as many people in the BVSD as we can, before and during the reading days. We didn’t realize, in the beginning, that this program would benefit a community of people that otherwise wouldn’t be interacting. People need to be educated in this process and need to know they have allies.”
    James Johnson is one of the readers who were at the Nederland Elementary School  RER program on Friday. It is his second year of coming to Nederland and he says he prides himself on being the only black master plumber in the BVSD.
    He says that, in many cases, people get involved in the cause to end racism when they are older, over 30, when they become aware of wanting to make a difference.
    “I needed to start at the elementary school level,” says Johnson. “But the first time I read for RER, in 2004, I knew the program was exactly what I wanted. When kids found out what I do for a living, they were surprised. They didn’t know any other black plumbers. Because of my size, everyone thought I was a football player.”
    Johnson started his own plumbing company in Boulder and soon learned he had to carry his plumber’s license with him so people would believe he was who he said he was. Being a plumber involves interaction with many people, getting to know them on a personal level, which is exactly what Johnson believes is necessary.
    “You have to be there to make change.”
    After 26 years of owning his own shop, he has gotten to know two-three generations of the same family. Over the years, these people learned how he felt about things. He started educating them with small things that grew incrementally. He gradually cracked open many stereotypic beliefs.
    He remembers once, early on, fixing a customer’s plumbing and later they left a message on his voice mail thanking him for “sending over that nice, young black plumber,” not realizing he was the owner.
    Now Johnson knows the importance of starting with children. “You have to be present. When I go into a classroom, the kids like the aspect that they are more important than a dollar, that people will take off work to be with them. It makes an impact.”
    The readers went to individual classrooms to share books written about myriad cultures and races and the value of diversity.
    Kristin Epley, in her second year of  RER, told the second graders she was reading to that she had a 10-year old daughter who was adopted from China. Epley works at the University of Colorado and realized that if she wanted her daughter to attend CU she would have to begin working for change in her neighborhood, school and on campus.
    “We need to get the topic of racism on the table, and one of the ways to do that is to get involved, sit with the kids and talk about it. We talk about how people look different.”
    Epley told the children that sometimes when she and her daughter go the store, people stare at her daughter  and point at them. She says people are uncomfortable with differences, when what they should have is a healthy curiosity.
    She read Skin Again by Bell Hooks and told the children that if they have questions or are curious about someone who looks different, they should ask questions and be friendly.
    One second grader told Epley that racism was when a cop pulls someone with brown skin over even if he wasn’t speeding. Another child said that prejudice was if someone decides they don’t like someone else because of their hair color, or “if you mess with them and don’t even know them.”
    The readers agreed that there was a different spirit in Nederland than what they generally found in Boulder.
    Johnson said, “The spirit that was Boulder has moved to Nederland.”
    Bell Hooks writes, “Skin is the covering and cannot tell my story. You’ve got to come inside and open your heart way wide.”