Incidents of students in Saline Area Schools exchanging racist comments escalated when one resident shouted a bigoted insult at another concerned parent at a recent community gathering.
WEMU's Lisa Barry talks with Saline Mayor Brian Marl following a community listening session held on Sunday to address the problem.
About a hundred people attended a community conversation in Saline on Sunday, February 9th. Saline Mayor Brian Marl acknowledged the city has received national attention after one parent made a racist remark against another parent who was explaining how upset his son was feeling due to racism in the city's schools.
The mayor said he plans to make sure Saline becomes “a more welcoming inviting place to all residents and visitors.”
He says they plan to fight back as a community, so that “good decent accepting individuals and the majority of residents know that discrimination and intolerance are not accepted or ignored in Saline.”
The Saline mayor says he plans to meet with community stakeholders moving forward to determine "what action they can take and what solutions can be put into place to help prevent these types of things from happening in the future.”
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— Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her at lbarryma@emich.edu