WATERVILLE — Ludger Duplessis calls himself a racist, yet he was among several people who recently criticized Gov. Paul LePage for his racially charged comments on black drug dealers in Maine at a community forum on race relations.

“I come by it honestly,” said the 60-year-old clinical social worker on a recent night at the REM Center downtown, explaining that when he was a child growing up in the mostly white town of Van Buren, racist ideologies were passed down in his family and reinforced by others around him. He never saw a person of color until he was 16.

“When I went to college, there were African-Americans in my classes, but I didn’t socialize with them,” he said. “I didn’t really know why until I was on a bus in St. Louis, Missouri, on my way to Los Angeles. I looked around and I was gripped with fear. I was the only white person and I didn’t even know why I was afraid, but I was really scared.”

Today Duplessis said he still considers himself a racist, though it is something he works to overcome every day, and he believes that many Mainers of similar backgrounds might face the same challenge. When it comes to comments like those made by LePage at a Jan. 6 public meeting in Bridgton, Duplessis said things need to change.

On Wednesday night he was one of three program facilitators at An Evening Conversation About Race in Our Community, a discussion hosted by Colby and Thomas colleges.

“Most people in our area will say we don’t have that problem here when it comes to racism, but that’s not the experience of many people of color,” said Julie de Sherbinin, another program facilitator and one of the organizers of Wednesday night’s community discussion.

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About 15 people attended the discussion, which followed two on-campus discussions about race at the colleges in the last year, and was focused on ways the Waterville community and Maine can be more welcoming to minorities and outsiders.

The panel also focused on recent comments made by LePage implying that drug dealers in Maine are predominantly black. Many people at Wednesday’s forum agreed that the comments were not only insensitive, but also inaccurate. Adrienne Bennett and Peter Steele, representatives of the governor, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

“It’s one thing when something big happens,” de Sherbinin said, referring to LePage’s comments, “but what are all the myriad of other things that we, as white people, signal without knowing? That’s part of what we want to think about.”

Tashia Bradley, the senior associate dean of students and diversity, inclusion and equity programs at Colby, agreed, saying that a lack of diversity in Maine may be an indication that the state is not welcoming to outsiders.

Bradley, who is black, said she and friends have had several experiences in which they were made to feel uncomfortable because of their race both in Maine and in her home state, Florida.

“I think what makes it really hard being in a space like Maine – where you’re one of just a few (people of color) – is that it can be very isolating but also very frightening. You’re not really sure who you can connect to and who will help you when you find yourself in a situation,” she said.

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Bradley said she often sees a car with a Confederate flag on it driving around Waterville.

“In my mind, I thought, ‘Why would there be a Confederate flag? Maine didn’t fight in the Confederacy.’ I think about that. What about this place makes that person feel like that’s a comfortable experience for them?” she said.

Bradley brought up an example of a store clerk in Waterville who once asked her, “Are you just passing through?”

The clerk seemed friendly and perhaps did not realize that his comments affected her, she said, or that she took it as an indication she had been singled out, perhaps because of the color of her skin.

“I didn’t find it as welcoming as maybe he thought it was,” she said.

Duplessis, said his wife, who is Japanese-American, has run into similar situations, such as being the only person in a store to be asked for an ID when white customers are not.

“It’s those kind of things that really let you know you’re different. It’s those small things day in and day out that become an issue,” he said.

Rachel Ohm can be contacted at 612-2368 or at:

rohm@centralmaine.com


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