Missouri doesn’t need to cringe at the next ‘Colored toilet’ idiocy. We can prevent it | Opinion

It’s a story we’ve seen repeated way too many times in Missouri, and around the whole country: Someone at a public institution — a business, government agency or school — does something horribly racist or bigoted. Then the response from leadership is a tepid call for a new round of training. How about actually doing something to stop the next bit of idiocy from happening in the first place?

The most recent example is an online video showing bathroom stalls at the St. Louis-area Eureka High School labeled “Colored toilet” and “White toilet.” The video was posted to a private group on social media and brought to the attention of district officials last week. The school said the student who posted the video has been identified and consequences will follow.

Rockwood School District Superintendent Curtis Cain wrote in an email to parents: “We are diligently helping students deal with the harm that this post has caused, while also teaching our students the power of words and the far-reaching impact they can have on others.”

That kind of response isn’t uncommon. It’s the reaction of embarrassed leaders who have to explain and address what they plan to do in the future to keep from getting mortified again.

But is calling for diversity training or teaching the students about “the power of words” all that helpful? A child in preschool knows the power of words. An adult who’s been in the workplace for longer than five minutes knows you aren’t supposed to say or do bigoted things.

And yet these incidents keep happening. Repeatedly. With only a detail changed here or there.

In New York state recently, a school food service put fried chicken and watermelon on the menu to “celebrate” the first day of Black History Month. The principal called this decision “inexcusably insensitive and reflected a lack of understanding of our district’s vision to address racial bias.”

It doesn’t sound as if that vision is really so clear, if there are adults making decisions who don’t know that associating Black people with eating fried chicken and watermelon is a blatantly racist stereotype.

It’s past time for leaders to stop giving tired, tread-worn lip service disguised as outrage after these incidents. They don’t happen in every business, organization or school in America. It’s not inevitable that an institution is bound to embarrass itself someday with a display of bigotry or harassment. It just isn’t.

But when these things do happen, we need to stop letting those at the top get away with pretty words, or act as if whatever temporary solution they’ve tossed out covers them. Diversity and inclusion training isn’t punishment to be meted out. Organizations need to be held accountable not just in the immediate aftermath of these incidents, but in the weeks, months and even years to come.

If an institutional culture provides a comfort level for someone to showcase bigotry like it’s an award-winning science fair project, the spotlight needs to be shone on how its leaders are going to actually change that atmosphere. And a big part of healing a toxic environment starts with acknowledging what caused it.

Sure, many times when a student or employee does something offensive, it’s an isolated event that reflects on just that individual. And if that’s the case, there’s no harm in saying so. People’s influences extend far past the place where they offend. Some parents, for example, are role models for racism and bigotry, and their kids bring that to school. But placing blame on just one person still requires work to make sure it isn’t an ongoing problem where it happened.

These ugly incidents won’t stop. We can’t do much about our fallible human nature. But what we can do is push to normalize institutional introspection. Organizations need to investigate and demonstrate why a bad act happened in the first place, and then take steps we know can actually change the climate. Let’s stop letting our schools, companies and government bureaus stick Band-Aids on the boo-boos, and instead take real action to prevent them.