Silence is tantamount to complicity

The chief of the Lewes Fire Department was recently made aware, by an anonymous tipster, that a department radio transmission contained an obnoxious racial slur. The individual who uttered the slur, apparently a volunteer firefighter, was immediately placed on 30 days' administrative leave while the incident was being investigated. That investigation by the Delaware State Fire Prevention Commission is now complete. The commission found that the suspension and diversity training that is being required was appropriate. We, at Speak Out Against Hate, applaud the swift action of the department and commission.  

A local media outlet aired a segment reporting the incident which included playing the recorded offensive transmission. In seeking to report all of the facts surrounding the incident, that outlet sought comment from the mayor and council of Lewes. They either could not and/or would not do so (it should be noted that the Lewes Fire Department is independent of the Lewes city government).

SOAH was formed in response to the rising tide of hatred in our communities and country. Its express purpose is to seek active and timely responses from public-facing officials to any and all acts of hatred. The need to push back against hate by those in positions of responsibility will not necessarily cure this scourge, but such swift and decisive action may well raise the consciousness of all citizens as to its harmful impact. It might be that the elected officials noted above were awaiting the outcome of the internal fire department investigation at the time they were asked for comment. If so, fair enough. However, now that the investigation has been concluded, we would expect the mayor and council to forcefully indicate that any such conduct is totally unacceptable in their city.

Hatred, in myriad ways, exists in all of our institutions, fire and police departments, schools, hospitals and businesses. To believe otherwise would be to ignore the obvious. Further, the level of comfort and indifference that has come about around this shift in our cultural norm is obviously what created the sense of comfort in the volunteer fireman such that he utilized the department's internal communications system to demonstrate his hate. What cannot exist alongside this insidious phenomenon is silence by the very people charged with seeking to reduce its occurrence. Any such silence is tantamount to complicity and such complicity, simply cannot be tolerated.