State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger Robbi Mecus is the chair of Keene’s Diversity Committee. (Provided photo)

On Saturday morning, July 16, in response to a question by Scott McGraw, Adirondack Diversity Initiative Executive Director Nicky Hylton-Patterson described success with a couple of stories. At the time, she was giving the Lake Placid Institute’s second Adirondack Roundtable address of the summer.

One story had to do with Hylton-Patterson going to Walgreens looking for hair coloring to touch up a few strands of hair that seemed prematurely out of place. There, she found only one color available for Black Americans tucked in among shelves of other nuanced colorings for us of European heritage. She went to the manager with the solitary box of hair coloring in hand, noting that it didn’t match her particular shade and that if she purchased it, woe to any other person of her complexion coming into the store.

Hylton-Patterson said acceptance to her was finding when she returned a week later that the store now had a whole section of nuanced hair coloring befitting Black women and others. To her, that display represented being heard, seen and accepted as part of the Lake Placid community.

Her description of success was reflected in two other presentations that week addressing aspects of our community looking at and discussing diversity. They started with the Wilmington Historical Society hosting a presentation by author and former sub-chief of the Bear Clan of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, Tom Porter. The second was the Keene Valley Library’s Monday lecture, Voices from the Valley: What does diversity, equity and Inclusion look like for the community of Keene?

These three events were preceded by a large and well-attend Tri-Lakes Pride festival on Sunday, June 26, at Riverside Park in Saranac Lake that brought together the region’s LGBTQI community, family, friends and allies.

Adirondack Diversity Initiative Executive Director Nicky Hylton-Patterson (Provided photo)

It’s worth remembering that this region called Turtle Island by the Akwesasne-Mohawk-Haudenosaunee peoples is land they have lived on for thousands of years. No less important is that the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois form of “government,” inspired the organization and founding structure of the U.S. Constitution; thus, apropos, the week’s events were initiated by Porter.

Porter’s goal was to provide people with an understanding of the significant events “embedded in Iroquois oral history and ceremony, from the creation story to the clan system, to the four most sacred rituals, to the beginnings of democracy brought to his people by the prophet and statesman known as the Peacemaker.”

Porter began his presentation by sharing his Mohawk name, Sakokwenionkwas, “The One Who Wins,” noting that the English forced all native peoples to have two names, a given and a surname. Since then, by law, they all have two names. But, back in colonial times, when the English forced this structure on them, the Iroquois clan mothers resisted and continued to give each child a one-word Native American name, which all tribes have followed until recently. A young Mohawk girl sued in a Canadian court for the right to only go by her one-Mohawk name, and Her case made it to their Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor allowing all First Peoples to go by their one given name.

Porter’s story indicates the many ways we use language often without thinking as to how it demeans others, an issue raised at the other two presentations on diversity.

The vision of Keene’s Diversity Committee is that the town of Keene will be known as a welcoming and safe community for people of all races, religions and socioeconomic backgrounds, who identify as LGBTQ and who are living with disabilities.

Former sub-chief of the Bear Clan of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, Tom Porter, Sakokwenionkwas (Provided photo)

Founded two years ago by Monique Weston and chaired by state Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger Robbi Mecus, the committee has conducted a community listening initiative to gain an understanding of where the community is and hopes to be in regards to addressing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Since then, the committee has been developing a strategic plan and worked with the Keene Central art teacher Stacey Van Campen, who assigned her students to create designs for welcoming yard signs, one of which has been selected and is now available through the Keene Valley Library. More recently, the committee held a panel session that reviewed the progress and priorities as a part of the library’s Monday night lecture series.

Moderated by Reid Jewett Smith, Ph.D., ATIS Advisory Board member, and incoming executive director of Little Peaks Early Childhood Center, the panel included Mecus; Courtney Allen, Keene Central School parent and Equity and Inclusion Committee Chair at North Country School; and Bob Woughter, KCS principal.

“The terms diversity, equity and inclusion are loaded these days,” said Mecus, who is the first openly trans Forest Ranger in the state’s history. “There is a lot of tension in those words. People assign meaning to them. I think it’s important to talk about it openly so we all understand each other and what those words mean to us. For me, all those words boil down very simply to treating the things you learn in kindergarten, treating everybody with respect and making everyone feel welcome. Going further than that, it’s intentionally analyzing everything we do to see what impact it has on others, because we don’t live in other people’s shoes.”

During her Lake Placid Institute presentation, Hylton-Paterson illustrated that point with another story. This spring while hurrying to a meeting, she was pulled over for speeding by the State Police. When the officer walked up, she immediately admitted that she was in the wrong and what she was doing. The officer, recognizing Hylton-Paterson from one of the Adirondack Diversity Initiative’s diversity training sessions for members of law enforcement, said that when he realized he had pulled over a Black woman, he started going through analyzing how he was approaching the car and how to respond in a respectful way.

Fundamentally, each was following Mecus’s advice to intentionally analyze what they were about to say to the other. Through the sessions, Hylton-Paterson had also come to understand law enforcement from an officer’s point of view, and the officer from a Black person’s life experience. For both, it was a win-win.

Monique Weston, founder of the Keene Diversity Committee, holds a yard sign designed by a Keene Central School student. (Provided photo)

Mecus said that one unanticipated benefit of the coronavirus pandemic is that it resulted in a wide range of new and diverse people coming to hike in the Adirondack Park and relax in nature, including far more elderly and people with disabilities. One of his takeaways is that we need to create more ways of providing accessibility into the wilderness, that as we discuss diversity — we need to broaden our thinking.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been covering events for the News for more than 15 years.)