NIOT in the Park event highlights community, solidarity and hope

Hundreds of community members, together with local leaders and law enforcement, stood united in Northport Village this past Saturday morning for Not In Our Town Northport’s second annual NIOT in the Park event.

The gathering brought local residents, students, parents, politicians, and Village police officers together in an “incredible showing of community, solidarity and renewed hope,” according to a statement of gratitude made by NIOT founders after the event.

The morning’s large turnout included representation from several local organizations, from the NAACP and Huntington Anti-Bias Task Force to Northport High School groups Students for 60,000 and R.I.S.E., and the newly formed LI-Pride-PTSA, whose mission is to help create a safer and more inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ students. Members of the Northport Village Police Department participated as a show of support, as did Mayor Damon McMullen and Trustee Dave Weber.

Elected officials and those in the midst of election campaigns were also present, including New York State Senator James Gaughran, Assemblyman Keith Brown, Town of Huntington board members Joan Cergol, Mark Cuthbertson and Ed Smyth, Rebecca Sanin, Jen Hebert and Joe Schramm. Community members and school district officials Robert Banzer, Larry Licopoli, Allison Noonan and Donna McNaughton were also in attendance.

The casual, family-oriented event had been in the works for over a month, but recent incidents around town, including swastikas and homophobic slurs found in a Northport High School bathroom, brought even more attention to NIOT Northport’s main mission to “begin an ongoing dialogue about, and take actionable steps against, hate and intolerance – to address the problems and be part of the solution.”

“We’ve seen a rise in hate incidents and hate crimes across the country rising disturbingly the last several years, and now it’s seeping into our own communities for the past several days and weeks at a very concerning rate that’s really mobilized the community to understand that this is a big problem,” said local pediatrician and one of the event’s speakers, Dr. Eve Krief.

A member of both the Anti-Bias Task Force and Long Island Inclusive Communities Against Hate, Dr. Krief said the recent incidents show “this is here and it’s something that we need to speak out against. The swastikas in our schools, the homophobic slurs in our schools, the racist incident outside the theater, the rabbi being verbally accosted during a religious ceremony, all within a matter a weeks, is truly horrifying, so what do we do? And the answer has to be education. We have to educate ourselves about our diversity, about what makes us special as a country and about our different ethnicities. About who we are.”

Over one hundred people, including elected officials and members of the police department, a Girl Scout troop, children and their families, signed a pledge board that read: “As a member of this community, I pledge to stand up to all forms of hate, bigotry and bullying. I will not stay silent in the face of intolerance based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, ability or any other factor. I will work together with my neighbors to create safer, more inclusive communities for all.”

The event also featured several tables with activities and information for children and adults. Children’s books were available for purchase and a craft table invited children to write messages about how to be an upstander by speaking out when they see someone being treated unfairly. Children were able to color “You Belong” comics, make beaded bracelets, apply temporary “Be Kind” tattoos, and paint kindness rocks that will be displayed in community gardens. The Northport Native Garden Initiative (NNGI) gave out a small native plant to visitors and Liz Alexander of the Northport Story Slam spoke to residents about how storytelling brings people together.

Southdown Coffee donated coffee and cookies for the event, while Carl’s Candies and Einstein’s Attic contributed to the “swag bags” that were given out to the young participants, which also included bookmarks with positive messages and cookies from Copenhagen Bakery.

To end the event, NIOT co-founder Molly Feeney Wood introduced the event’s four speakers, including Dr. Krief, Veronique Bailey from the Huntington NAACP, Helen Boxwill from the Huntington Anti-Bias Task Force, and Village Trustee Dave Weber. All speakers touched on the importance of bringing people together to drive out hate.

Veronique spoke about the responsibility of community members to address their own interactions in order to promote change, and said that interrupting the cycle of hate, racism and subjugating other groups – by skin color, sexuality, religion – involves self-reflection and action.

“I encourage you, in each and every interaction, figure out, in this moment, am I supporting hate, or am I interrupting it?” she said. “You are doing one or the other, whether you know it or not. If you are not interrupting it, if you are not stopping it, you are supporting it.”

“Every female, every male, every gender, every religion, every race – it is important to every group, every individual, for us to figure out the part we play in not only the systems that exist in the communities we live in, but the part we play in the interactions that exist. So… when we say ‘Not In Our Town,’ what are we really saying? We don’t want it anymore in our town, but we know from the recent incidents that it exists in our town. So it is up to us, in this moment, in this time, to step up and say ‘What is the part that we play in our daily interactions that support these acts? How do we stop these things from happening in our town?’ Because it is ours, so it is ours to change.”